If you’ve been to a few yoga classes, you’ve probably heard something about chakras – wheels of energy stacked parallel to our spines. Perhaps this concept instantly made sense to you, and you’ve been happily applying your chakras’ wisdom toward your physical health and spiritual growth from the moment you heard of their existence. Or maybe every time the idea comes up, your inner thought is a resounding, “Huh?”
Either way, a little history never hurt
Chakras are mentioned in many ancient texts, from the Vedas to the Upanishads. The way we talk about chakras in North America largely dates back to Arthur Avalon’s, The Serpant Power, published in 1919. This work of translation brought the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana and the Padaka-Pancaka to English-speaking audiences. According to American chakra expert, Anodea Judith, the first text was written by an Indian pundit in 1557, while the latter dates back to the tenth century. What draws them together is their exploration of a model of seven basic chakras – spinning vortices of energy – lined up along a central channel called sushumna that runs parallel to the spine.
In her now-classic book, Eastern Body, Western Mind, Judith defines a chakra as “a centre of organization that receives, assimilates, and expresses life force energy.” She goes on to usefully describe the chakra system as analogous to a computer. Each of the seven chakras runs a different program, installed at different stages of our development. “It is a heroic challenge, indeed,” she says, “to identify our programs and rewrite them all while continuing to live our lives, yet this is the task of healing.”
Each chakra comes into being by recording our physical and emotional environments and life events. As we delve further into the function of each individual chakra, we see that these recordings continue to repeat and manifest themselves in our physical bodies, as well as our thought patterns. They are destined to repeat forever unless closely observed, at which point we can apply various practices to either interrupt the repeated pattern or encourage it to continue. Depending on the emotional climate of one’s early life, there may be more or less work to do.
But isn’t that just Western psychology?
The two disciplines match up very well as evidenced by Judith’s parallel application of Jungian psychology in Eastern Body, Western Mind. What is of great appeal to the modern yoga practitioner, however, is the way the chakra system is mapped onto the entire body, rather than dealing more exclusively with the workings of the mind.
As we become more familiar with this model of thought, and bring it to bear on our asana and meditation practices, we can begin to explore where in the body we hold onto certain emotions and memories and how our behaviour shifts when a part of the body is stretched and awakened.
If this teeny introduction still leaves you saying, “huh?” do not despair! The chakra system is by its nature mysterious, esoteric, and difficult to grasp. As with many aspects of yoga, the best way to understand the chakras is experientially, through practice. Next time you practice meditation or asana, try to place a light focus on your sushumna as you breathe, and see what arises. Observe what you find. And stay tuned here for another bite-sized Chakra-Talk!