Chapter 11

Poses for the
Crown Chakra

The crown chakra is your personal bridge to the spirit world. You can expand from your individual consciousness to merge with the consciousness tapped into by healers, saints, and sages through your crown chakra. Through this chakra you can communicate with high-vibration guides, channel information from nonhuman spiritual beings, and communicate with the deceased. You can sense your greater purpose and your soul’s presence when this chakra is open. You will feel the chakra open when there is a tingling on the top of your head. It induces a feeling of bliss and fearlessness. When this chakra is balanced, you do not fear death and you do not need material things to feel whole.

Physical indicators of an imbalanced crown chakra are skin rashes, acne, hair loss, and problems with the nerves. Emotional issues linked to an unbalanced crown chakra include mental health problems, feeling isolated and purposeless, and even dementia. This chakra is a high-vibration energy center that is linked to feelings of bliss, universal love, and oneness. It is accessed by clearing the other chakras and keeping one’s vibration high by focusing on loving and positive emotions. It’s important that one’s physical health not be neglected, as a misaligned spine, painful issues, or low energy will greatly impede your ability to get energy to flow to this chakra. The body is the temple that houses the soul, and the body must be treated as sacred and kept as a holy place.

Avoiding doing things that are harmful to your well-being, such as drugs, alcohol, or allowing people to take advantage of you and the love you have for yourself, will help you access this chakra. Allow yourself to be loved by the spiritual beings and ask them to assist you in opening this chakra. Ask them to help you get rid of low-vibration thoughts and low-vibration lifestyle choices. These poses will help bring prana to the crown chakra and help you become more aware of the strong connection you can have with the spirit world.

Affirmation for the Crown Chakra

I sense energy connecting me to my soul and the spiritual realms of consciousness. I feel the energy at the top of my head expanding upwards. I know that I am more than a body and mind, and that I have an eternal soul. I am at peace because I feel and know my true identity.

Rabbit

Chakras Activated: heart, crown

Enter the Pose:

1 Kneel and bring your hands to the heels so that your fingers grasp the inside of the heel, with the thumbs on
the outside of the foot.

2 Lean forward and place the top of your head on the ground.

3 Lift your hips as high as you can while still holding the heels.

4 Engage the stomach muscles to stretch the spine and shoulders.

5 Walk your knees toward your forehead, maybe bringing them to touch.

Exit the Pose:

1 Take a few deep breaths in this pose before slowly releasing the grip on your heels and coming up.

2 Try doing the pose with the intention of focusing all your energy on the crown chakra at the top of the head.

3 Notice after the pose if you feel a tingling at the top of the head or sense energy there.

Duration: Hold the pose for 3–5 rounds of breath.

Modifications: You can hold the lower backs of the thighs if you can’t grip the heels.

This is a pose frequently taught in hot yoga that is known to help the metabolism. It stretches the cervical spine and brings your head below your heart to increase circulation to the top of the head. This pose stretches the entire spine and decompresses the full length of it. It also stretches the back of the heart chakra because of the placement of the arms. This pose can be done at nighttime because it calms the mind and soothes the nerves. It can even aid in reducing flatulence, painful air trapped in the stomach, or constipation. The stomach muscles are pulled in to perfect the pose, which will also massage and stimulate the internal organs to improve their function. This pose can also help relieve lower back pain, which can make meditation difficult. Emotionally, this pose can help tune out the outside world to help you activate the inner life where we do our psychic work. The starting place for internal work is first getting in touch with our own bodies, which is a challenge in itself.

Legs Up the Wall

Chakra Activated: crown

Enter the Pose:

1 To get into the pose easily, sit with your side up against the wall and then turn as you lie back on the ground and bring your feet up the wall at the same time.

2 Bring your arms out to the side, palms facing up. Close your eyes.

3 Find any places in the body that are holding tension and release those areas. Tell your back and stomach to relax. Relax your shoulders and tuck the chin to release the back of the neck. Relax your hands and your face. Relax your tongue and feel the brain rest in the skull. Relax the eyes in their sockets.

4 Surrender to the weight of your body and feel yourself held up by the floor. Your feet will start to feel much better after a few minutes. Get used to doing nothing so psychic energy can present itself.

Exit the Pose:

1 When you are coming out of the pose, move slowly and gently to remain in a calm state.

2 Swing your legs to the side and press your hands into the ground to bring yourself back up to a seated position.

Duration: Stay in the pose for 5–10 minutes.

Modifications: Because your body temperature may lower, have a blanket to cover yourself. Make sure you have a soft mat to do the pose on or do it on your bed.

This is a restorative pose that drains the blood from your feet, which allows it to flow to your head. It requires no energy and is great to do before bed. It is very effective for relieving stress as well as pain in the feet that can come from standing or walking. This pose calms the nerves and reduces the fight-or-flight response. Doing this pose for five to ten minutes daily will help you tune into the inner life of your own energy and tune out the rest of the world. It allows you to enter a more relaxed brainwave state to get used to the state you will be in during deep meditation. It also allows you to take inventory of your own energy so you can become clear by releasing emotions you are holding unnecessarily. Deep breathing through the nose will greatly improve the benefits of this pose, and, if done consistently, you will train yourself to be a more relaxed person. The surrender of this pose is very much the same as the surrender you are in when receiving psychic information. Play some relaxing spiritual music or sit in the pose in silence.

Fun Fact: Yoga can help develop many supernatural abilities. Yogi Bhajan could control the element of water in addition to his psychic abilities. Sages in India are reported to live without sleep or even create scents in their hands. Many of these stories are documented in the book Autobiography of a Yogi.

Dolphin

Chakra Activated: crown

Enter the Pose:

1 Begin on all fours with your hands as wide as your shoulders and knees as wide as your hips.

2 Tuck your toes and lift your hips so that you come into a triangle position.

3 Bend your arms and place the elbows onto the ground.

4 Press your heart toward your thighs and your heels toward the ground.

5 Look toward your belly button as you point your tailbone toward the sky.

6 Keep your fingers spread to grip the floor.

Exit the Pose:

1 After 3–5 rounds of breathing, bend your knees and bring your forehead to the ground to rest.

2 Try doing the pose focusing all of your energy at the top of the head.

3 Be sure not to hold your breath or you will get light-headed.

Duration: Hold the pose for 3–5 rounds of breath.

This pose is very similar to downward-facing dog but it’s more of an inversion because of the angle of the head to the heart. It is a great pose to improve your overall health as well as to help bring more prana and circulation to the crown chakra. Be sure to breathe slowly and deeply in and out of your nose in this pose so that you get the full benefit. It stretches your calves, improves circulation in the feet, and stretches the ankles. You will get a great hamstring stretch and shoulder stretch, and it helps align the spine. The pose allows you to open your shoulders and improve your posture so that the kundalini energy can run up the spine more easily and you can meditate without struggling. This is also a good alternative pose for those who find downward-facing dog hurts their wrists.

Reclined Butterfly

Chakra Activated: crown

Enter the Pose:

1 Start seated and bring the soles of the feet together. The knees will fall to the sides. This is where you might want to place cushions under your knees.

2 Gently lie back and bring your arms to the sides with your palms facing up. Alternatively, you may wish to bring one hand to your heart and one to your stomach.

3 Breathe and feel the lungs expand and contract.

4 Focus your energy at the top of your head as you relax and surrender to the pose. This can help greatly reduce your stress levels. If you feel worked up, this pose is great to do before meditating.

Exit the Pose:

1 Bring your hands to the outsides of your knees and close your knees like a book.

2 Plant your palms on the ground and press yourself up slowly to a seated position.

Duration: This pose can be held for 5–10 minutes.

Modifications: You may want to place folded blankets or pillows under your knees before lying back to reduce any tension in the pose. You may want to cover yourself with a blanket to help yourself relax and ensure you don’t get cold.

This restorative pose helps one feel safe in their body and is a pose that helps align the spine. It’s a great opportunity to practice being emotionally open as it can make you feel vulnerable. You don’t have to flex any muscles in this pose; you can just focus on breathing slowly and deeply in and out of the nose. Notice when you’re in the pose if you’re able to remain present or if the mind is drifting and running all over time and space.

Half Lotus

Chakra Activated: crown

Enter the Pose:

1 Begin seated with your legs out in front of you.

2 Bend the right leg and bring your right heel toward your left hip and rest it in the hip crease. It’s okay if your right knee doesn’t touch the ground.

3 Reach for your left foot with both hands or as far up the leg as you can.

4 Breathe slowly and deeply, not forcing the stretch but relaxing into it. Be gentle in this pose because of the pressure on your knee.

Exit the Pose:

1 As you inhale, lift your torso and straighten the right leg.

2 Repeat the pose on the other side.

Duration: Hold each side 1–3 minutes and spend some extra time on the side that is less flexible.

Modifications: You may also do the pose with the leg bent under you instead of straight as if you were sitting cross-legged.

One day you may find full lotus pose accessible, but some never do. Until then, half lotus will help you approach that more advanced pose. A great way to make it easier to meditate is by allowing the spine to be straight so energy can flow up the spine. Lotus pose allows the energy to flow effortlessly, really activating the crown chakra, and it allows you to sit effortlessly. This pose also includes a forward fold, so it will help calm and relax you. It is not a pose that can be forced, and it is best to hold it for a while and relax into it. The muscles will eventually find opening.

Warrior III

Chakras Activated: root, crown

Enter the Pose:

1 Start standing with your feet together.

2 Interlace your hands above your head and bring your pointer fingers straight up like steeples.

3 Flex the left foot and keep the leg straight.

4 Keep your arms in line with your ears and on an exhale hinge forward at the waist as the back left leg lifts.

5 Bring your arms, torso, and left leg parallel to the ground so they are in one line.

6 Keep a very slight bend in the standing leg so it’s not locked out.

Exit the Pose:

1 Take a few rounds of breath here and then slowly come back up to standing and switch sides. Be sure to keep the hips level and not let one pop up.

2 Try doing the pose with the intention to open all of the chakras and let the energy run to the crown chakra. This pose helps you be aware of your entire body, from the feet to the head and tips of the fingers.

Duration: Hold each side for 3–5 rounds of breath.

This pose can bring lots of energy to the third eye. If you engage the muscles properly, the energy is pulled from the bottom of the spine to the crown chakra. This pose helps you focus, which is helpful for activating the crown chakra. If your thoughts are too scattered, you cannot meditate and perceive through the gateway of the crown chakra. This pose is a balancing pose, so it also helps the root chakra, as it will strengthen your legs. The core will be strengthened as well as the shoulders and back. This is considered a beginner’s pose and you’ll find the balancing is easier if you maintain steady, slow, deep breathing. This pose essentially helps all the chakras and builds tremendous strength. You’ll find it very difficult to hold if you do not breathe, but when the muscles have a constant new supply of oxygen, you will be stronger.

Wheel

Chakras Activated: all

Enter the Pose:

1 Lie on your back and bring your palms to the ground next to your ears so your fingers point toward your shoulders.

2 Bend your knees and put your feet on the floor so your heels touch your backside.

3 Press into your hands and feet, lifting yourself onto the top of your head.

4 Bring your elbows toward each other so they are no wider than your shoulders.

5 Press into your hands and feet and try to straighten your arms and legs. Lift your hips as high as you can and breathe in this position for 3–5 breaths.

Exit the Pose:

1 Slowly come down and rest, tucking your pelvis and engaging your core to neutralize the spine.

2 Repeat 5 more times and you will feel the shift in your energy.

3 Afterwards, do plank pose and a forward fold to neutralize your spine and reduce soreness the next day.

Duration: Hold the pose for 3–5 breaths.

This pose may look difficult, but many beginners are able to do it. Don’t worry about how straight your arms get, just go to your own edge. This will open the quads, hip flexors, chest, shoulders, and spine flexibility. It will build a stronger back, legs, and arms while giving you a burst of energy. It’s also an inversion and great for the crown chakra. This pose helps you think more clearly and increases intuition. It can help open the chakras because it works on all of them. If your chakras are underactive or you feel lethargic and depressed, this can help you feel optimistic, confident, and alert.

Crown Chakra Check-In

Grab your journal and reflect on these topics so you can gauge how open and active your crown chakra is. Write down if you feel lonely or isolated. If so, your crown chakra needs more prana and more activation. Write down if you feel a buzzing or tingling sometimes on the top of the head. That’s good and shows it’s active. Reflect on how you feel connected to a spiritual path and something beyond life and death. If that is easy, that’s good; you’re working with an open crown chakra. Write down if you feel afraid of death. If so, work on the crown chakra for a few more weeks with more focus. You can sense spiritual beings in meditation that are peaceful and benevolent or sense them around others. If this is easy, you are sensing through the crown chakra.

Intuition Check-In

Now that you have worked on the seven most-known chakras, we can check in to see how you’re progressing with your psychic abilities. Your inner life is becoming stronger than your outer life. There are more dimensions, personalities, layers, and places starting to take form in your meditations. You’re spending more time in meditation and finding it feeds you. You feel you’re starting to sense energy and getting impressions in advance about what to do and what not to do in ways that help you. You’re thinking of things before they happen, and you can visualize things with details. You are seeing more visions and getting more insights about humanity and what drives the underlying motivations of people and generations. You’ll start to see why people behave certain ways and make certain choices. You’ll see a person’s purpose as a knowing or a flash, which can allow you to point them in a good direction. You can also write down if you feel you are working with clairvoyance (seeing), clairsentience (feeling), claircognizance (knowing), or clairaudience (hearing) the most.

Meditation for the Crown Chakra

This meditation will help you connect to other spiritual guides and perceive the large streams of consciousness that affect society. You will be able to tune into the energetic changes that come from the sun and planets, and you will be able to know things beyond this world. The crown chakra is a high vibration that is accessed by focus and positive emotional states. You can still commune with the energy of saints and sages that walked the earth before you when you access this chakra. This chakra allows you to ask your guides how you can heal yourself and others. It opens you to help from the other side and to more spiritual gifts. This can help heal depression, loneliness, and lessen the chances of developing dementia. Physically it can help your skin, your hair growth, and your nerves. It offers you an expansive state of mind where you see beyond your physical self and this lifetime.

Meditation Prep

Create a sacred space for your meditation by making a comfortable place to sit and making it feel special to you by bringing in items that help you feel inspired. Perhaps just making a special corner in your room will help you sense the special moment you are getting ready for. Once you’ve prepared your space, set the intention that all negative energy be cleared from the space and that it be filled with high vibrations. Record the guided meditation in your own voice, speaking clearly and slowly. Speak with a smile so you can hear the positivity in your own voice. When you’re ready to listen to the recording, start to breathe slowly and deeply through your nose for a few minutes as you relax deeper and deeper, then play the recording. If you are unable to record, have someone read it or you may read it yourself in real time as well.

Guided Meditation

Gently close your eyes. You will begin to count back from five to one, which will allow you to enter a deep meditative state. As you breathe in your mouth and out of your mouth slowly, you arrive at five. You now take a deep breath in your mouth and slowly out of your nose to arrive at four. Now breathe slowly in your nose and then out of your nose, which brings you to three. Next, breathe in your nose and out of your mouth to arrive at two. Finally, take one more slow and deep breath in your mouth and out of your mouth, which will bring you to one. You are now in a deep meditative state that will allow you to heal and activate your crown chakra. Relax and allow this peaceful meditation to do the work for you.

You find yourself standing in a beautiful white space wherein energy is traveling up and down simultaneously. It’s as if there are little platinum channels bringing communication to and from the heavens. You can see these codes carry healing messages for the planet, for individuals, and for you. There are beautiful harmonic sounds that help move these channels where they need to go, and you sense you are surrounded by pure beings. It is an honor to be here, and you have worked hard to get here. This is where you are from, and it is somewhere you have been before. It is as if you are returning home.

You now notice there are some holes in this place that seem to lead to empty space. This may be a lack of trust that the universe supports you or a fear that there is no higher power. Look for the biggest hole and peer into it to see what belief you have that is ready to be released because it’s not helping your spiritual growth. Perhaps you are overly reliant on your logical mind or you are afraid of spiritual topics because of ridicule. You will now easily see the biggest hole to you connecting to the spirit world. You now allow the universe to sew this hole and make you more whole. You feel the healing as the hole closes, and you feel more of who you really are. You can release that story once and for all.

As you look around, you see a few holes near each other that look as if they need healing. You approach and see these holes are all linked by a common theme that keeps you from using your crown chakra. Fear of being alone or not having the support of the spirit world may be here. You may see a person who was mean to you and made you feel all alone in this world. You may see a series of events that made you doubt the spirit world even existed at all. Maybe people made fun of the spirit world or even of you. The universe will now help you release this series of memories so you can embrace the spirit world more fully. The holes are sealed shut one at a time, and each time one shuts, you feel a burst of love.

You will now charge up this beautiful space with your intention to open communication further to help your soul be the main relationship in your life. The word you will send throughout this beautiful energetic highway is “welcome.” This intention is fused into every speck of light for as far as your eye can see. You feel that you are embracing your soul and higher consciousness as you spread this intention and feel the connection open between you and this space.

You will now meet a guide in the spirit realm who is going to help you develop your spiritual gifts. As they come toward you, you may not see a person and they may not have a form. They may show up as someone you recognize that will make sense to your mind. The feeling they offer should be safe and wise. They will offer you a truth that will help you open up to the spirit world now. The truth will come into your mind as you relax and breathe. Let it arise and feel that it will come to you easily. From now on, you will be able to work with this guide anytime. They are a loving being here to support you in your psychic development.

Meditation Wrap-Up

You can now take three deep and slow breaths to return to the room where you are sitting. You have reached a high state of consciousness, and you will probably feel peaceful. Take your time coming back. When you’re ready, write down the chakra you were healing and the date. Write down the word you used to charge this chakra. Record anything that stood out for you or things you’d like to work on healing next time. If you feel you weren’t really able to connect in this meditation, that is normal; it often takes time for people to raise their frequency to this vibration. You can work on clearly negative emotions with the breathwork exercises at the beginning of the book before trying again. This chakra is the next step in opening to the spirit world, and it will open more in due time. If you feel it is empty right now, be patient as you adjust your lifestyle and habits to be more loving and positive. Eventually it will feel active and full.

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