Going Within (13 page)

Meditating on the chakras was extremely important to me, because anything I could learn about how they related to my physical body was helpful in working with these energy centers. In learning how the chakras affected my body, I also learned something about how they contribute to emotional growth and development.

The philosophy surrounding the knowledge of the chakra energy centers included cycles of growth in terms of years. I learned that the development of the physical human body in relation to its soul is divided into cycles of seven. Each cycle deals with the emotional issues of the corresponding chakras.

The first seven years of a human being’s life revolve around survival and instincts of adjusting to the physical earth-plane experience. One learns to crawl, walk, run, eat, and accept the physical expression of embracing, being loved and caressed, and so on. We develop our sense of balance until the physical
form securely anchors itself to the Earth, according to how effectively these emotional experiences occur, and then prepares for its process of learning—the red, root chakra controls the assimilating of these processes.

In the second seven years (eight to fourteen years of age) sexuality develops and produces crises of various kinds so that the human being can develop the subjective mind, the capacity for creativity and for fuller consciousness of self-identity—sex and identity are controlled through the orange, genital chakra.

The third seven years (adolescence to age twenty-one) deal with issues of emotionality relating to other people, the assessment of personal power, and the practice of free will—all of the problems of adolescence are felt through the yellow, solar plexus chakra.

The fourth seven years (ages twenty-two to twenty-eight) develop a human’s relationship to love—self-love and mature love of others—and abilities of evaluation and decision in terms of lifestyle. Through the green, heart chakra the individual decides during these years how harmonious he desires to be in life.

The fifth seven years (ages twenty-nine to thirty-five) are the years when a human questions and/or reaffirms the wisdom of his or her self-expression and is dealing heavily with the consequences of judgment in others. This is the time when we become profoundly aware that how we express ourselves is how we live with others.

In the sixth seven-year period (ages thirty-six to
forty-two) we begin seriously to question our spiritual nature as it relates to the lifestyle we have created. All the knowledge we have gained begins to transmute to a kind of wisdom, and during these years we decide to develop our spiritual nature or we affirm the consequences of avoiding this growth.

In the seventh seven years (ages forty-three to forty-nine, or late forties and fifties) we actively attempt to integrate ourselves with the understanding of God—that is, to bring our exterior and interior lives together into a harmonious whole with the Source. That goes on for the rest of our lives.

We can become emotionally stuck, blocked, or damaged at any point along the line, and/or at differing points with respect to differing aspects of growth. We have all heard, for instance, of the infantilized male, or the child-woman. The task then is to free ourselves from those blockages of consciousness, which will automatically free up the blockages in our physical experience. Again, the body reflects the disorders of the soul.

Body Language

Body language—that is, the physical expression of interior blockage (or not, of course)—is an entire study in itself.

Dr. Anne Marie Bennstrom of the Ashram in Calabasas, California, has been studying what she
calk “body types” for years. Since she is an expert physical culturist herself, she began to document the correlation between the language of the body and the blockages in consciousness of individuals whom she met and ultimately came to know. She says that in all her experience she never encountered a body that did not express, in physical terms, the internal attitudes of the consciousness it housed.

For example, a man with a short, squat body is predominantly interested in survival and in how his individual identity relates to home and hearth and material security. He is apt to be aggressive. Self-expression in a tall man, however, tends to appear as an overview tied to the future. “The short people are self-starters,” says Bennstrom. “The tall men come in and take over to finish off the idea.”

People with splayed, turned-out feet have energy that moves outward. They are outwardly motivated, always on the move, ready to travel, and often don’t stop to think about what they are leaving behind. The splay-footed person throws caution to the winds and promises many things without thought of how to conserve the energy to accomplish any of them.

On the other hand (so to speak), pigeon-toed people tend to withhold their energy, sometimes tripping over their own best intentions. Such people tend also to be stubborn, defensive, and inflexible.

Anne Marie believes that the point of making these correlations is that changing the body attitude can assist in changing the emotional attitude. In working
with people, if she reminds a pigeon-toed person to consciously turn the feet out more, the act itself affects the inner consciousness to be more outgoing.

The purpose, then, of altering the habits of a body type is to help an individual find “the middle way” and achieve more balance in life, to become more centered. If one can establish where the blockages lie, it is easier to offer advice on where that person should look for his own weakness.

The more balance we hold between the masculine and feminine (or yang and yin) in ourselves, the more streamlined our bodies become, because our bodies reflect our consciousness. Fat in any area equals emotion unexpressed. The more androgynously balanced we become, the less fat we hold. I do not mean androgynous in the sense of bisexuality, but androgynous as it relates to feeling equally balanced with the male and female aspects in ourselves.

There is an obvious link between human physicality and human consciousness. When the consciousness is expanded to include recognition of the esoteric and spiritual nature of man, the physical body reflects that recognition. Since physicality follows consciousness, we would do well to go to the source of our physical problems rather than to treat symptoms, although treating symptoms can free us to focus on the source.

Despite the dominance of traditional methods of medicine, there is an ever-increasing interest in exploring the roots of consciousness as a guide to a
solution for physical suffering. And the roots of consciousness speak directly through the seven chakras of which the physical body is an expression.

To me, what is most attractive about this holistic approach is that it recognizes and honors the balancing of man’s energies by means which acknowledge that we are more than simply physical beings.

8

Meditating on the Chakras

Love transforms all it touches—for as we grow in its light we learn to love and be loved.

M
editating on the chakras is a multi-level exercise and a wonder-filled experience. It involves inner concentration (the first step in all meditation), plus visualization and, later, the use of sound.

It is so complex that the simplest approach I can think of is just to describe what I do in this form of meditation.

Since I choose to be aligned
before
I get out of bed and begin my day, I usually do my chakra work just after I wake up. In that alpha state of consciousness that is conducive to hearing whispered guidance and directives from within, I lie in bed and begin with the base chakra. I visualize it as red and spin the wheel that I “know” is there. (The direction of the spin is unimportant. Some people prefer to see a pulse.) Sometimes I “see” the red of the energy center. Sometimes I don’t. Whether I do or not, I accept
that it exists and so, proceeding with my own acceptance, I spin the red chakra until sometimes I can feel the crimson heat of acceleration in the center of the base of my spine.

Since the base chakra deals with issues of earth-plane grounding and understanding of the physical dimension, I then direct my conscious mind to coalesce the emotional issues involved in my life and blend the corresponding feelings with the red as I spin. Since the base chakra governs adrenal responses of flight or fight, I allow myself to use the spinning as a calming influence on whatever I find myself afraid of.

Blockage in the base chakra is an indication that one’s feelings have been conditioned to self-shame, unworthiness, and lack of understanding of one’s functions. Those feelings need to be cleared and balanced. Then, in that state of balance, I communicate to the Earth my trust that she will treat me in direct ratio to how I treat her. That is the grounding process.

Some days I don’t think of Mother Earth and my purpose for living on her at all. Some days I just simply “see” red and have to relax my anger by meditating on the red of the base chakra. When I come into alignment with it, the anger dissipates. If I’m having a problem with my kidneys, I meditate longer and spin the chakra faster because the base chakra governs the kidneys. If I feel sluggish and lacking in energy, I picture the adrenal glands and spin red energy to them because I know that the
base chakra externalizes as the adrenals. It is not necessary to know exactly where the adrenals are. It
is
necessary to know that on some level you know.

I am an extremely willful person, so when I balance my base chakra (the chakra that channels the energies of human will) with the higher, more esoteric chakras of Divine vibration, I am much easier to be around. In other words, I blend together the red of the base chakra with the violet of the crown chakra and I feel better. When I forget or haven’t taken the time, I can feel the imbalance, and frankly so do those around me.

After the base chakra, I move up to the second chakra, which is orange and is located in the reproductive area. This chakra governs physical and emotional issues of creativity and sexuality. The second chakra is the center of our physical origin. From it flows our creative energy and our attitudes to sin and guilt. When meditating upon it, it helps to visualize washing away those negative attitudes with a brilliant orange light. On a subliminal level I am aware that the red of the root chakra is still spinning, but my focus is on the orange.

Meditation on this chakra originated thousands of years ago in the Hindu traditions when the human body was considered to be a temple for experiencing sensual spirituality. The partners did not imagine their relationships ending in death but rather that they were tied in a Divine communion throughout eternity, to be physically experienced again whenever
the decision for physical re-embodiment was made. Therefore, immediate sexual gratification and lust were not perspectives from which people conducted their sexual activities, which, today, too often result in anger, hurt, and resentment.

This was during the tantric time periods in ancient India when, as the Sanskrit texts tell us, sex neither joined people together when it was present nor broke them apart when it was absent. The two lives were connected, instead, by a grander feeling of total merging and creativity. They believed that the male and female were complementary experiences of energy exchanges, and that the second chakra was not solely the center of sexuality but more the place of “creative dwelling and origin.”

Meditating on the second chakra is a way of confronting one’s fear of being uncreative, unproductive. When successfully accomplished, it can put one in touch with the fundamental understanding that the body is basically an aggregate of universal particles that the Higher Self has sculpted to experience a physical existence and truly fulfill its purpose for that lifetime. When that mission is completed, the particles disperse and become part of the Earth (on which the life was experienced), which in time disperses the particles back to the universe. In meditating on the second chakra it becomes more clear that the Higher Self is never dispersed but is indeed the composer of the particles
and
of the symphony of life. The composer and the composed become one for a time,
yet it is possible to make a distinction between the two.

I like to use a juicy orange as an image when I visualize the spinning of the second chakra. It feels pleasant to spill the juiciness of the orange color through the reproductive system, as it equalizes and cleanses any feelings of conflict, confusion, or concern. Since the second chakra governs one’s attitudes in intimate and creative relationships, the juicy orange meditation is very satisfying.

It might be well to mention here that we have all visualized and meditated whether we call it that or not. For example, if we have had the experience of sexual fantasy, we have visualized. If we have visualized the fantasy until it affects the body (orgasm), then we see the power of the mind to affect the body. That same kind of process of visualization can be used to help heal the body.

Even though the chakra centers are spinning in their own colors naturally, it helps to augment their natural spinning by visualizing them doing so. Also, it is not so necessary to “see” the colors you are spinning as it is to remember the “sense” of what the colors look like. You are remembering the vibration of the color in any case. So if I have difficulty in visualizing red, for instance, I augment the visualization with the memory of a bright red apple, or a crimson ruby, or whatever shade of red gives me the most pleasure. The image of whatever I select to remember is enough to inspire the reality of the
color I wish to meditate upon. It all takes practice. But with that practice color visualization becomes easier.