|
Our community-centered yoga studio |
|
YOGA ESSAYS |
|
And the Wheel Turns... A Series of Compiled Information of the Seven Chakras By: Kara Ware
“From the Great Spiral Galaxies, thousands of light years across, to the trillions of atoms swirling in a grain of sand, the universe is composed of spinning wheels of energy. Flowers, tree trunks, planets, and people- each is made of tiny wheels turning inside, riding upon the great wheel of the Earth, spinning in its orbit through space. A fundamental building block of nature, the wheel is the circle of life flowing through all aspects of existence.” ‘The Wheel of Life’ by Judith Anodea
I have been feeling very committed to creating change in my life… I understand it’s much more than my physical self that needs to change in order to live my most ideal life. I am finding myself searching beyond asana; beyond the physical work-out and sweat that initially brought me to Yoga. Along with everything else, I had been viewing Yoga as something separate than myself. I was coming to Yoga so to dynamically move my body and deepen my breath in effort to purify my body and quiet my mind. It was an approach from the outside moving inward. As my teacher guides me through my chakra system, I am beginning to learn to initiate both movement and breath from deep within. I am beginning to learn the union that yoga teaches us: that all knowledge, power, worthiness, love, wisdom, possibilities are inside me. I’m learning that by shifting my focus from the strength and capability of my physical body to the wisdom and guidance of my subtle body that I can access all the resources that one needs to live their most ideal life. It is how the Law of Attraction becomes more than a theory. I’m learning that joy is just something I am rather than coming from any one thing or person. I’m learning to walk between pleasure and pain with out becoming too attached to either. What a welcome relief from the emotional pendulum I experienced as a young girl.
I have arrived at the place where change begins.
The charkas, a Sanskrit word meaning wheel or disc, are intersections where mind and body meet. The Chakras live in the subtle body and act as energy vortexes or doorways to spiritual growth- helping us reclaim our wholeness and to live our fullest potential. It is through these seven charkas that we receive and interpret energy and information of this world.
The seeds of our samskaras (our attitudinal, physiological and behavioral dispositions) originate in our chakras. Habits are born from these seeds and then expressed in physical, emotional, mental and spiritual life. It is in the charkas where patterns of consciousness are create which the mind adopts as belief patterns so to experience and create my personal world (pg. 28 ‘Wheels of Life’).
Chakras send energy out from the core of the body and also assimilate energy from outside that enters the core. This is why the Chakras are described as organizational centers for the reception, assimmilation and transmission of life energy. What we generate determines much of what we receive, and in this way it behooves us to work on our charkas and clean up outdated, dysfunctional, or negative programming that may be getting in our way of living our most ideal life. (pg. 24 Wheels of Life)
I am a big believer in going to the root of a problem rather than treating the symptoms. If I’m truly going to reclaim both my body and mind, deepen my connection with others, express my acknowledgement of the sacredness of Earth and live my most ideal life then I must begin at the root, my first chakra: Muladhara Chakra, the root chakra… …to be continued |