Your Chakras
Imagine you are a star, emitting rays of light throughout the universe. One of your light beams bounces off a small blue planet on a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. You catch a glimpse of a beautiful world you wish to explore. Made of dense physical matter, its energy is slowed down. It doesn’t obey the same laws of reality you are used to. It has time and space, and everything requires effort to change.
You wonder how to experience it fully and are inspired to create a body for exploring it from the natural materials on the planet. You send yourself to explore Earth, just as NASA sent the Mars Rover to traverse the terrain on Mars. You want your body to operate independently so you store information in it and develop a sensory apparatus capable of interacting with the environment. You remain available to guide it and assign an aspect of your consciousness to stay with it. Clear communication is tantamount, so you install a relay system. Now you can transmit and receive energy signals to and from your body.
In this fun analogy, your chakras are the communication conduits between the higher aspects of yourself (star) and the body personality (Mars Rover) version of yourself.
Your chakras are part of the book of you. They store your beliefs and experiences. They are nonphysical channels that exchange energy and information between higher aspects of you and your body personality, including intuitive abilities. The seven major chakras are positioned along the spine. Each is a channel for spiritual information relating to a different aspect of your reality. They are associated with the endocrine and nervous systems, and direct energy flows through your body. There are also hundreds of additional minor chakras associated with smaller nerve clusters throughout the body. You access your intuition through your chakras. By tuning in to them you can receive your higher guidance, so you can be consciously aware of your current reality and life purpose. By mastering them you can live your purpose. The journey to be a master balancer of chakra energy involves growth and challenges, which differ depending on each specific chakra.
Many systems have been used to explain chakras. In medieval times, there were seven deadly sins and virtues. Chakras were associated with the forces of the gods, planets, archangels, and rays of light. These were ways of illustrating the qualities and challenges associated with each chakra. They were also enigmatically called churches, candlesticks, lamps, vials, seals, and trumpets in the Book of Revelation. While it is commonly understood they must be cleansed and cleared for a healthy body, their relationship with intuition and spiritual development has been shrouded in mystery for centuries.
Chakras and Spiritual Information
Chakras are conduits for your higher wisdom to flow from your source to you. You can consciously access your spiritual information through them to guide your life journey. They also process your life experiences and help you respond. You can cleanse them to stay clear and change their content based on new revelations about your reality. Table 2 shows the spiritual information in the main chakras.
|
Chakra |
Name |
Position |
Information |
|
First |
Root |
Near the base of your spine |
Survival of the body and human species |
|
Second |
Sacral |
Two finger widths below your navel |
Emotions and sexuality |
|
Third |
Solar Plexus |
Under your diaphragm |
Energy distribution and out-of-body experience |
|
Fourth |
Heart |
Near your heart |
Oneness and affinity with self and others |
|
Fifth |
Throat |
At the cleft of your throat |
Communication |
|
Sixth |
Brow/Third Eye |
In the center of your brow |
Seeing what is |
|
Seventh |
Crown |
On the crown of your head |
Knowing what is |
Table 2: Summary of Chakra Information
Each chakra gives a different perspective or vantage point. It can be useful to think of them as windows of perception or doorways of consciousness. Each one helps you appreciate different aspects of reality. Your interpretation of all life situations depends on which window you look through and what information you have stored in it. With a first chakra perspective, you look through your survival instinct lens. With a second chakra viewpoint, you may be filtering your experiences through your sexuality and emotionality.
You can spend lifetimes exploring reality through each level of perception. Your journey, perspective, and way to explore your chakras is as unique as your personal contribution to the symphony of souls and divine creation. Each chakra offers challenges and growth experiences. The lower chakras give you a more physical viewpoint. If you live life looking through these windows, you can lose yourself in the Earth game and forget you are spirit entirely. Focusing exclusively on the upper chakras can make you lose touch with this reality and your body. Unsealing the secrets of all the chakras gives you a balanced perspective. It is necessary to travel through all seven perspectives to truly understand yourself and awaken to your full potential.
We often store other people’s concepts in our chakras. It is necessary to purify the chakra system so your unique energy and light of consciousness are expressed. The path of the intuitive involves becoming a master cleanser and balancer of your chakras as well as a master interpreter of your inner guidance system. This path is an ancient route to awakening your divinity while remaining in a human body.
The chakras increase in frequency as you travel up the spine. From the front, chakras look like spinning wheels of light; from the side, they are like horizontal cones with the narrow end pointing to the spine. The only exception is the seventh chakra, which is cylindrical and perpendicular to the ground. Some spiritual systems orient the first chakra vertically with the wide end pointing to the ground and the crown chakra as a funnel with the top open to the universe. Operating them this way can stimulate out-of-body experiences. As this book aims to help you experience life while in your body, orienting your first chakra horizontal to the ground and being aware of using the crown to access your unique information is recommended.
Figure 1 illustrates the positions of the seven main chakras in the body. The first chakra is the one nearest the base of the spine and the seventh chakra is on the crown of the head.
Chakras and the Nervous System
Chakras are places where energy is exchanged between you and your body. All chakras are located near bundles of nerves, which act as the body’s electrical system. Your nervous system is a complex arrangement of fibers and neurons that transmit electrical impulses around your body. Your chakras and energy pathways relate to these signaling superhighways yet they are nonphysical conduits for your energy. They are not part of the physical system. They are part of your spiritual energy system.
The metaphor of petals, increasing in number from the first to seventh chakra, is often used to show an increase in vibration as well as the number of nerves in the corresponding plexus.13 Nerves in each plexus communicate with body parts nearby. Edgar Cayce said the twelve pairs of cranial nerves leading to the five senses are significant in body spirit communication.14 They also correspond with a series of minor chakras in the head (see Table 3).
Figure 1: Positions of the chakras in the body
|
Chakra |
Nerve Plexus |
Position/Vertebra |
Petals |
Nerve Pairs |
|
First |
Sacral-coccygeal |
L4-L5 |
4 |
2 |
|
Second |
Lumbar |
L1-L3 |
6 |
3 |
|
Third |
Solar |
T8-T12 |
10 |
5 |
|
Fourth |
Cardiac |
T2-T7 |
12 |
6 |
|
Fifth |
Pharyngeal |
C1-C7+T1 |
16 |
8 |
|
Sixth |
Carotid |
Head |
2 |
1 |
|
Seventh |
Cranial |
Brain |
1000 |
12 |
Table 3: Chakras and Nerve Plexi
Chakras and the Endocrine System
The chakras are intimately connected to the body’s endocrine system, which comprises glands and glandular tissues as well as the hormones they release. These chemical messengers are carried around by the bloodstream and regulate the activities of the organs and tissues they target. There are more than seven glands, but as a general guide, the chakras are positioned close to the glands they stimulate. There are varied opinions for chakras 1, 2 and 3. Table 4 shows these relationships as given by Edgar Cayce in his translation of the Book of Revelations.
|
Chakra |
Gland |
Hormone Function |
|
First |
Gonads |
Reproduction, sexual differentiation (androgens, estrogen, progesterone) |
|
Second |
Lyden |
Gestation of a body created via coition (not yet known) |
|
Third |
Adrenal Cortex (and pancreas) |
Glucose, sodium, potassium metabolism (steroids/insulin and glucagon for the pancreas) |
|
Third or First |
Adrenal Medulla |
Fight or flight (epinephrine/sympathetic nerve response |
|
Fourth |
Thymus |
Immune function (T-cells development hormones) |
|
Fifth |
Thyroid |
Metabolic rate; heart, weight, energy use (T1, T2, thyroxin) |
|
Sixth |
Pineal |
Body rhythms, sleep, sexual development (melatonin) |
|
Seventh |
Pituitary |
Master gland (many hormones) |
Table 4: Chakras and Endocrine Function
Your pineal gland is a receiver and transmitter of light. It is able to receive the multidimensional language of spirit. By placing your consciousness in this seat of the soul you become divine man. From this perspective, you can consciously operate as spirit through a human body. The pituitary gland is the lieutenant of the pineal gland. It translates signals from the pineal into action in the body by interacting with the nervous and endocrine systems. These systems meet in the hypothalamus, which is part of the thalamus. The thalamus is a hub that processes and relays sensory input to other parts of the brain. Metaphysically speaking, the thalamus is associated with the crown chakra, which brings your energy into the body. The hypothalamus links the nervous and endocrine systems together. It is a cluster of nerve cells that produce regulatory hormones that travel to the pituitary gland, which sends hormonal signals to the rest of the endocrine system.
This structure of body-spirit communication was known in ancient Egypt as the Eye of Horus. It has also been referred to as the horn of the Unicorn, the third eye of Shiva, the place of the Alchemical Wedding, and other mystical names. Spirit has access to the entire body through the pineal gland, pituitary, and hypothalamus. You have access to your higher self through this gateway of consciousness. Spirit is also intimately connected to each organ, cell, DNA strand, and all the molecules and atoms and subatomic particles of matter. There is a network of minor chakras and energy lines that underpin the physical projection of the body. You interact with your body and the multidimensional quantum field through these aspects of spirit.
The adrenal glands are associated with the first and third chakras, because there are two different functions of the adrenals. One relates to the fight or flight survival response and the other to metabolism and energy distribution. Similarly, in humans the gonads ensure species survival, and the sex organs also relate to creative power. According to Cayce, there is a small gland (Lyden) in the belly yet to be discovered by science. It is a channel for life force and is responsible for the creation of the human body during gestation. He describes it as a seat of consciousness as important as the pineal gland.
Chakras and Spiritual Growth
As spirit you exist outside of time and space; you operate with no effort. When you make changes as spirit they are instant. Your body, however, exists in time and space and uses effort and energy to function. It needs time and space to adjust to change. As you guide your body through its journey and help it navigate the world of form, you must be patient. Your intuition can help by giving you insights about your body’s growth and your life challenges, so as to make your journey more pleasant.
Applying your intuition to read your chakras provides useful information about your life experiences as well as how you can release your blocks and live a consciously purposeful life. As you receive higher information and process your life experiences through your chakras, being able to intuitively sense their vibration, spin, energy flow, and openness can help you understand yourself and life more deeply. Being able to modulate them can help you heal and balance your energy.
Doing this regularly can help you observe and guide your life journey from a spiritual perspective. Being aware of where you are in all areas of life, yet also seeing your power to create and move through challenges, can be a great comfort. Sometimes you might be more focused on physical reality. If you are going through a growth cycle related to survival, whether it’s a health or financial matter, you will have more emphasis on your first chakra and its information. Another time you could be seeking answers about your personal concept of divinity, so more of your attention may be on your seventh chakra, where you are accessing your higher knowing, or on removing deluding beliefs from your sixth chakra to see more clearly.
Realizing this can help you relax, accept where you are, and enjoy your growth process. Otherwise, you could expect to be in a different spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical place. You might expect to be healthy when you are ill, rich when you are poor, or all knowing when you have no answers. There is no perfect way to be. All life experiences are valid and spiritual growth cycles come in many forms. Each chakra governs a different aspect of life. Changes made as spirit in any area of life lead to adjustments in your body and physical reality. When you resist changing, your energy flow may become restricted or blocked. Then your body may become mentally, emotionally, or physically disturbed.
First Chakra
Your root chakra provides your support system for living in physical reality. It channels information on survival of the human body and species. This includes maintaining health, and creating abundance and balance in a world of opposites. The first chakra governs biological and physiological needs such as air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sleep, and sex for species survival. The energy that emanates from your first chakra forms part of your aura. Reading it can help you understand your state of being at this level of reality. Learning how to operate consciously as spirit through your body is a major part of your purpose. Your first chakra also contains information on how to heal your body and use your unique male and female energy to create your reality. By mastering your first chakra, you have the foundation of support you need to focus on your unique contribution. If you ground from this energy center, you create a stable platform for life. By owning, balancing, and consciously operating it, you get to heal and create the life you want.
Most humans today are trapped in survival games and operate mostly from this plane of reality. If you are in a first chakra growth cycle, you may experience challenges relating to survival. This could manifest as poor health or lack of money. Or it could be that you desire change in the form of a new job, creative project, or another form of physical self-expression. Making this change might require an adjustment in how you organize your life. The body might respond by needing sleep, exercise, or dietary changes. If you resist by keeping it awake, being inactive, or force-feeding it junk, it may be uncooperative, become emotional, or create a physical ailment. Examples of someone in a first chakra growth cycle resisting change could be a stressed-out businessman who develops cancer while facing bankruptcy or a homeless woman escaping into drugs, sleeping in a tent, and begging for food. Both are facing survival challenges. Both may desire change and rearrange their beliefs to heal their situations.
Second Chakra
Your sacral chakra contains your information on emotions, sexuality, and creative expression. The form of intuition located in the second chakra is known as clairsentience. This sense of clear feeling allows you to feel the emotions and sexuality of yourself and others. It can be helpful to think of this energy center as the human relationship chakra. The energy that emanates from it forms a layer of your aura that relates to these aspects. Many humans are caught up in cycles of pain and suffering from creating dissatisfying relationships with others and life situations that are out of alignment with source. People operating mainly from their second chakra can be driven by emotions and sex. Their self-identity may depend on their relationship with others, and they may not be centered within their own being at all. If you listen to your emotions and sex drive, they will tell you what your body needs to be cooperative.
If you listen to your intuition, it will help you maintain your body’s health such as letting go of your dependencies on food, sex, and other people. Spiritual changes that put you in a second chakra growth cycle can involve relationships such as a new baby or lover, learning about your sexuality, or channeling emotional or sexual energy into creative projects. When you take charge of your second chakra, you can balance the needs of your body with your need to serve a higher purpose. By consciously owning and operating your second chakra, you free yourself to choose your purpose as opposed to only responding to the body’s instincts. You also give yourself permission to grow beyond the limits of the group and own and express your unique creative vibration instead of merging with others.
Third Chakra
Your solar plexus chakra contains information on energy distribution, including how you focus energy to create your life experiences. It also has information on operating outside of your physical body; it helps you translate information from other dimensional experiences for relevance to this reality. In addition to your human body and Earthly experiences, you have an astral body and astral experiences, where you have more latitude to play out consciousness-expanding games with human friends and other beings. The energy that emanates from your third chakra forms another layer of your auric field. Once you are sufficiently self-aware to know your purpose, owning your third chakra allows you to consciously focus your energy to support your goals on Earth and the astral plane. You have all you need within you to achieve this purpose.
Third chakra growth cycles can deal with self-esteem, status, achievement, independence, dominance, prestige, and responsibility. A third chakra growth cycle can involve learning about power, competition, control, victimization, and self-worth. Sometimes people learn how to use their energy by misusing it. Being lost in this layer offers many possibilities for power games. Being powerful is not the ability to manipulate others; it is claiming your energy and using it to create the life you want. You can set boundaries by owning your third chakra and use your energy how you want rather than be intimidated by fear to give your energy and power away to others.
Fourth Chakra
Your fourth chakra channels information about oneness and affinity as well as your concepts about unconditional love, compassion, and the ability to give and receive. When this center is balanced, you can appreciate yourself, other people, and their creations. As it is located near the heart, it is also called the heart chakra. Positioned between the lower three chakras and the upper three chakras, it balances the physical and spiritual realms within you. The field of energy emanated from the fourth chakra bridges consciousness between your upper and lower centers, giving you an appreciation of the oneness from the perspective of individuality and duality. To heal and know your fourth chakra opens the window to feel your passion for your higher purpose. It also helps you to appreciate where you fit in the world. An open heart chakra can guide your direction and help you attract what you need to pursue and fulfill your life purpose.
A fourth chakra growth cycle may challenge you to move through judgment and non-forgiveness to acceptance of self and others. It can also manifest as confusion between sex, emotions, and love. Or mixing up oneness with physical togetherness, causing you to merge energy with others and lose your unique perspective. Many spiritual teachings emphasize being heart-centered; being above a physical individuated focus is perceived as a virtue. Yet this can cause loss of individuality if it becomes your sole focus to the exclusion of other chakras. Then you miss out on one of the best parts of having a body on Earth.
Fifth Chakra
Your throat chakra governs authentic communication. Physical communication includes speech, hearing, and self-expression. It alerts you to what is going on in the physical reality and allows communication with others. If your fifth chakra is unbalanced, you may feel uninspired, be unclear about your message, fear speaking out, or be a poor communicator. As you clear the beliefs causing this, you will grow as a communicator. Spiritual communication lets you know what is going on in your spiritual reality. It includes broad and narrowband telepathy, clairaudience, inner voice, and pragmatic intuition. These abilities allow you to communicate at a higher frequency range than your normal senses.
In this information age, there is so much communication. Spiritual teachings are even being spread over the internet. It can be confusing to discern which teachers to listen to and what information to believe. All of your information is within you. Mastering the fifth chakra can help you open your inner voice so you can be clear about your unique information. Then you can speak and live your truth. Your fifth chakra helps you communicate with your higher self, body, source, other humans, and nonphysical beings from other realities. By mastering it, you can consciously choose to listen to a preferred angel or guide over an unhelpful being. As you own it, you may feel inspired, be more creative, and communicate more clearly. Your personal goals and higher service will be supported by clearer communication with your inner voice, higher guides, and source.
Sixth Chakra
Your brow chakra channels your information on clairvoyance and abstract intuition. These abilities allow you to perceive colors, shapes, vibrations, and frequencies of energy in this reality and in other realities. The pineal gland, located in the center of your head and sixth chakra, is a receptacle of light. You are light and the pineal gland is where you are meant to sit within your body. When you place your consciousness here, you can see clearly from a neutral, nonjudgmental perspective and you begin to stimulate your clairvoyance. When you own this chakra, you can have your neutrality. It is easier to love and heal yourself from this nonjudgmental perspective. You can see and accept people, situations, and life creations clearly. You can easily move on from what you don’t prefer when you are not in judgment or resistance.
A sixth chakra growth cycle might include difficulty focusing, lack of clarity, mental health issues, or fuzzy thinking. You might view the world through a filter of unsupportive beliefs, be inundated by unwanted visions, or not see anything at all. Your sixth chakra helps you to have clarity about your higher purpose. When you see clearly about yourself, others, your body, emotions, and intellect, then you can take charge of your reality. You can release limits and then direct your energy to focus on what you want to do. Another name for the sixth chakra mastery is Christ Consciousness. When fully owned, the third eye allows you to perceive nonphysical beings and communicate with them via the language of color and symbol. You can appreciate the divine nature of all souls and communicate with them through love and acceptance.
Seventh Chakra
Your seventh chakra is the place where you the spiritual being can enter your body. It has information on how you can channel your own or other’s energy. It connects you to source and higher wisdom. This crown chakra is the master chakra. It receives and transfers information from cosmic consciousness throughout your energy system, including all your other chakras. By taking charge of your seventh chakra, you can consciously enter your physical body and direct your life from your higher consciousness. You can communicate with source and receive guidance and answers to your questions.
If you do not gain seniority over this center, you may live your life unconsciously or possessed by energies and beliefs that are not yours. An unbalanced seventh chakra can lead to misconceptions, frustration, and unrealized potential. When this chakra awakens, you may be amazed at how much you know. It can be challenging not to lose yourself in the enormity of what is or impose your information on others. Remember, everyone is unique and can access their own information; and information that is appropriate for you may not resonate with others. As the seventh chakra allows direct connection to the divine, having a balanced seventh chakra will help you know who you are and why you are here. It can help you understand your life challenges and your purpose, and provide guidance as you progress along your life journey.
Balance Your Chakras to Balance Your Life
Your chakras work together as an integrated whole. When they’re in harmony it is easier to feel fulfilled and purposeful. As you live on a planet of duality, your life experiences constantly move between different polarities. Your chakras help you navigate these variances and regain balance between opposing forces. If an imbalance is ignored and becomes longstanding, it can lead to physical dysfunction. A disease that develops near a chakra usually corresponds to an imbalance in that chakra. For example, thyroid problems relate to the fifth chakra. Mental health issues to the seventh chakra. Heart problems to the fourth chakra and so on.
You will have many growth cycles in a lifetime. Look back over your life to see the cycles of physical and spiritual change you have experienced. As long as you have a physical body you will experience growth, change, and expansion. Depending on what is happening in your life and what the emphasis of your current spiritual growth is, there will be a heavier focus on chakras that relate more to your growth. Plus, there will be a response in your body to the change. You might have a dominant chakra or operate principally from one or two chakras while you adjust. During your growth cycle, you can experience the world and interact with others predominantly from the perspective of those chakras.
|
Chakra |
Body |
|
First/Root |
Hips, legs, lower back, adrenals |
|
Second/Sacral |
Kidneys, gonads, bladder, large intestine, mid back |
|
Third/Solar Plexus |
Stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, small intestine, digestion, upper mid back |
|
Fourth/Heart |
Heart, lungs, thymus, circulation, shoulders, upper back |
|
Fifth/Throat |
Throat, neck, teeth, ears, mouth, thyroid gland |
|
Sixth/Brow |
Eyes, face, brain, lymphatic system, pineal gland |
|
Seventh/Crown |
Brain, nerves, pituitary, thalamus, hypothalamus |
Table 5: Chakras and Physical Organs
The relationship between chakras and health is a popular topic yet little has been written on their role as channels for communication to provide access to your higher senses. The purpose of this book isn’t to provide indepth information on chakras and health. Instead, it is to help you understand chakras in the context of your spiritual guidance system and communication conduits for your higher information.
Chakra Growth Cycles
Your life challenges and growth cycles can be clues to your intuition style. If your difficulties relate to lack of abundance or ill health, you are dealing with your first chakra and its survival instinct. If you have emotional issues and trouble setting boundaries, you are working on owning your second chakra and clairsentience. If your energy is scattered, you’re facing power struggles, or feel unfocused or like you are disassociated from your body, your third chakra and its aspects are at play. If you lack passion or feel lonely or rejected, you are learning about your heart’s affinity and oneness. If your challenges relate to communication, you could be clearing blocks to using spiritual abilities within your fifth chakra. Not seeing clearly, or not accepting what is, means your growth cycle relates to your sixth chakra and its aspect of clairvoyance. Being a know-it-all or giving seniority to others means you are being challenged to clear your crown chakra and develop your knowingness. For more information about chakras and spiritual growth, I recommend Chakras: Key to Spiritual Opening by Mary Ellen Flora.15
Significant Life Challenges Exercise
Follow the clues your life experiences give you about your spiritual abilities by completing this exercise:
1. Make a list of your most significant life challenges. Write as many as you remember in as much detail as you can.
2. Identify which chakra(s) were involved for each life challenge.
3. Notice common themes or trends that relate to certain chakras over others.
Keep these notes handy as you will need them again in Part Three.
13. Borsboom, Wim. The Chakras and their Petals—A Technical Overview. http://thekundaliniprocess.blogspot.com/. Accessed April 2019.
14. Auken, John. Edgar Cayce on the Revelation: A Study Guide for Spiritualizing Body and Mind. New York: Sterling, 2005.
15. Flora, Mary Ellen. Chakras: Key to Spiritual Opening. Everett: CDM Publications, 1999.