Chakra Meditation
A Guided Visualization
by Lonny J. Brown, HHC
from his book Enlightenment in Our Time: The Perennial Wisdom
in the New Millennium (pp. 102-115; reprinted with permission)
As you sit erect, your spine in line with the earth's center,
envision a vertical double helix of vibrant energy embracing and
dancing around your spinal column, magnetizing and polarizing
your hollow core. One spiral comes down from above and infuses
dense matter with the spirit of life. One spiral draws the power
of the earth up to meet the light above your head. Your entire
biological existence is a reflection of the balance and play of
these two powerful forces, flowing and glowing, between the magnetic
poles of your spine.
ROOT CHAKRA
Take a deep breath and pull it down through your body to the very
base of your spine, the seat of the first chakra. As you release
the air, relax all the muscles in your toes, feet and legs. Take
in more air and focus on your connecting point to the earth. Now
release the air, .. relax down through your body, and continue
to send your attention deep into the center of the earth. Picture
magnetic lines of force coming from the earth's core, connecting
with your own root center. Allow that force to arise within you,
from below.
Imagine a feeling of power surging into this "root"
center from the deep center of the earth. As it increases, keep
your attention on this powerful magnetic energy at the bottom
of your spine.
Focusing at the base of the spine, imagine that with each breath,
energy collects and builds up there. Continue to relax, and sense
the feelings in the coccyx, perineum, anus, and deep inside your
pelvic cavity, the foundation of your body. Sensing your root
center, breathe as if the earth's energy is coming directly into
you from below. Allow the energy to build, like a growing, magnetic
force.
Feel the weight of your attachment to the earth: its gravitational
pull on your body, through the mass of rock.. dirt.. clay.. and
minerals. Sense the huge mass of the planet under you, pulling
you down towards dense earth. You are born of this earth, and
when you die, your body will return to it.
Earth animal that you are, you eat of the earth and eliminate
earth fertilizer. Your awareness is purely biological, immersed
in life's ecological cycles. In the womb of creation, you are
pulsating flesh, bound by living sinews and fibers. The dominant
color is blood red. Smell your own odors. Feel the cool dirt.
Be aware of your pelvic area, legs, and feet. Feel the density
of your bones, the core and support structure of your body, minerals
taken up from the earth and deposited inside you, compacted by
gravity, formed against the pull of the earth.
You are at the most primitive stage of evolution. Your behavior
is animal-instinctual and reactive. You are motivated by survival
drives, such as hunger and fear. You are isolated and fiercely
individual. All you know of reality is physical and self--referent.
Like an infant, you identify solely with the body, and exist in
a sensory, material realm of stimulus and response. You experience
yourself at the center of everything that happens. You love to
eat and sleep. You fear pain, and death.
Your sole purpose is self-preservation. Persistent and self-sufficient,
you can be greedy or aggressive. Allow yourself to acknowledge
your "dark" side, and your potential for "small-
mindedness," for it is the necessary lesson of this level
of existence. Know yourself as an inheritor of animal instincts,
and primitive tendencies. Fully accept that you are a creature
of habits and needs, rooted in the earth.
Continuing to breathe in and out through your lowest nerve plexus,
allow your body to begin to feel that you are in a safe place.
Perhaps you feel secure and comfortable enough to let go of your
protection.. to relax, and sigh. You could use the affirmation.
"I belong on this earth." (repeat..) or "Here and
now, I feel safe." (repeat..)
As your breath pulls up the Earth's energies, picture at your
root center, a red square box, filled with dark, rich soil which
is moist and cool. Inside, a coiled serpent is sleeping... Your
task is to warm the environment, and so wake up the snake.
SECOND CHAKRA: LIBIDO
Keeping the first chakra open, take a long deep breath in, and
lift your awareness from your root center, up to the second chakra,
the area of your sexual and reproductive organs. Take in more,
letting the red energy from below heat up to a glowing orange
surge... Now let the air rush out and begin to consciously relax
your genital muscles, buttocks, abdomen, hips, and pelvis. Breathe
the warm energy into the second chakra, deep inside your sexual
center. Allow the power generated below to surge upwards and spread
out at this second energy level, like warm, orange lava flowing
out of a volcano.
As each breath washes through your sexual center, notice your
desires awakening. Moisture softens the earth., it becomes fluid,
and the energy of movement develops. Things smell juicy, and you
want a taste.
This is the level of sensation, attraction, physical pleasure.
It's also the center of regeneration and procreation. Sense the
ovaries or testes, prostate, and spleen.. Feel into the very center
of your sex. Imagine that each breath you take sensitizes and
charges this second level energy center, your reproductive and
sexual desire plexus.
Breathe freely through the second chakra as if drawing energy
up from the earth, feeling the surge as you release any residual
tightness from the genital muscles, anus, buttocks, thighs, and
down your legs. Tune into any sense of warmth or vibration, and
allow it to gradually grow, while breathing and centering on this
sexual-pro-creative power within you, the most powerful biological
force in the universe. At this time and place, give in to the
urge to feel it totally. Feel the pleasure in your groin and glands.
The natural element is water; it is mutable and not easily contained.
You are pulled by the moon, and swayed by emotional tides. You
are in the ocean and you are of the ocean. The sea is all around
you, as the blood stream permeates you within. Your internal sea
of blood bathes the trillions of cells in your body. They swim
in a rich warm primal soup of salt and floating nutrients.
Here, the human evolutionary stage is primitive. You are dominated
by desire and the powerful urge for physical gratification, driven
by the polarity of attraction and repulsion.
Your sexual powers can imprison or liberate. Sex can reinforce
the small ego and the illusion of separation, or it can be a gateway
to mystical union with the beloved. In the exquisite paradox of
creation, your body both entraps and frees you. Accept your own
physical needs and pleasures. You are a sexual being surrounded
by sexual beings. All of creation is sexy. You can delight in
the stimulation of energy, color, gorgeous forms.
Receive and celebrate the gift of your sensuality, and the irresistible
vibrations and rhythms of life. Know yourself as a sexual being,
with innate personal powers, and outer attractiveness. Open to
your own animal magnetism, and the ingenious genetic desire system
that keeps our species reproducing.
Picture an upward facing, glowing orange crescent inside you,
with the very center where you feel your procreative energy most
concentrated and alive. Feel the live, vibrating magnetic energy
pulsate in your sex center.
As you breathe more deeply through the second chakra, think of
your need for others, and your potential for love within your
animal form. Imagine yourself feeling healthy sexual stimulation.
To be totally opened in your second chakra, embrace your object
of desire with complete passion and abandonment. Make bodily love
to your ideal lover. Make love to yourself. Ask for pleasure,
then truly receive it, to your depths. Surrender to your exquisite
orgasm utterly and completely.. Then fall into the profound contentment
and gratitude that follows total physical release.
(Momentarily dip back down to the first chakra, and make sure
it's open by relaxing your feet, legs, and buttocks on an exhalation.
Breathing in, come back up and do the same at the second level,
relaxing the genital and rectal muscles, and opening to the upward
flow of your energy.)
THIRD CHAKRA: POWER
Now take a deeper inhalation and lift your awareness to the third
chakra, the abdominal/solar plexus center in your belly. While
exhaling, let your attention settle here in your middle, your
center of gravity. The color changes from orange to radiant bright
yellow.
Imagine that your breath comes not through your nose, but directly
into your belly. Feel the air flowing into your guts. As you meditate
on this glowing power center, sense the force within your diaphragm
that moves your breath in and out automatically. Allow that innate
rhythm free range to determine the depth and pace of your breathing,
and feel how it gently affects the surrounding areas. Continue
letting all your stomach muscles relax deeper, and feel the entire
diaphragm itself relaxing.
The third chakra governs the pancreas and adrenals glands, and
the organs of the stomach, intestines, the kidneys, gall bladder,
and the diaphragm. Feel these organs inside you. This "solar
plexus" energy center controls breathing and digestion, as
oxygen and nutrients catalyze and release your body heat.
The belly center, or hara; is your gravitational center and the
source of your personal power. It is linked to your body's "fight
or flight" mechanism, and reflects your moment to moment
dynamics with the outside world: whether you feel vulnerable or
trusting; in control or afraid; if you fear - if you are anxious,
defensive, or aggressive - it shows up as abdominal tightness
and restricted breathing.
So, tell your body that you are in a safe, secure place, and let
your belly become as soft as a baby's. Every time you let out
a breath, release all muscle tension, along with all remaining
negative or protective feelings.
Your belly is the center of control and trust. At the "gut
level" we learn to discriminate between friend and foe, distress
and exhilaration, and to respond accordingly. From this center
you laugh or cry. Both are important.
The color is flame yellow. The energy from below is warming up.
Picture a glowing ember being fanned hotter with each breath you
take, until a flame appears. Feel the radiant heat from within.
Now you begin to see more of the world and its possibilities.
You have discovered others as something more than just food or
threat, or sex object. You are developing a social personality.
You want the security of belonging. You become concerned with
family, territory, politics. You begin to use your will power
to affect your environment.
Know yourself as a social being, engaging others as partners and
allies, and sometimes, enemies. You can fight for what you want,
or compromise for mutual benefit. Now you can sublimate your primal
instincts, postpone instant gratification, and instead pursue
long--range goals. Now is the time to cultivate your best intentions.
You have the capacity to experience doubt, fear, and inhibition,
but you can also be altruistic and heroic. Ambition arises; for
status and wealth... yet you can surrender your egocentric view
by finding a larger group to give your allegiance, like your family,
church, community, or nation. Your behavior is determined by cultural
dynamics.
The dangers of this level are self-righteousness and aggression,
but you are also learning the value of self-control.
Breathe power into your hara\belly center. Imagine you are lost
in a jungle... confused and afraid. Suddenly a cleared path appears
before you. The path leads to a cave inside a mountain. In the
center of the cave is a fire. Now you recognize your mission is
to keep the fire from dying out or raging out of control.
FOURTH CHAKRA: LOVE
Take another slightly deeper inhalation and draw your attention
up to the center of your chest. Take in more. As you exhale, settle
your awareness on this heart center, and imagine it feeling stronger,
while at the same time reopening all previous levels in succession.
The fourth chakra rules the heart, lungs, thymus, and adrenals.
The native element is air, and the feelings are light and expansive.
The color is emerald green, natures own color of life, nourishment,
and healing.
The transition from third to fourth chakra is a major evolutionary
step, and one that differentiates you from most of the animals.
Here, you have the potential for looking beyond your personal
ego and melodrama, achieving some sense of balance between yourself
and the world.
This is the center of the higher faculties: love, compassion,
empathy, forgiveness and self-sacrifice. Here we become conscious
participants in our own evolution. The heart is the center of
the true calling of all human souls: pure unconditional love.
In your heart, you integrate body, mind and emotions. The outer
and inner lives are in dynamic equilibrium. You work more patiently
with the duality of things. You discover that mutual cooperation
is better than fighting. Your boundaries begin to get softer,
and you love it.
The symbol is the six-pointed star, the confluence of the downward
and upward power triangles. Fully human, you are halfway between
earth and heaven. In the heart chakra, you have the opportunity
to choose, to live and work for more than mere individual survival.
You discover some principles worth living for.
You can open your heart to others. This begins with taking pleasure
in the happiness of loved ones, and evolves, through community
service, and ecological awareness, to the direct experience of
the larger bodies of beings in which we participate, including
the Earth Herself. For the Earth is the heart center of the Solar
System.
At the heart, your main motivators are love, compassion, harmony,
peace, and cooperation. There is a sense of the interconnectedness
of all beings, and a deep, somewhat saddened perception of the
prevalence of unnecessary suffering in the world. With an open
heart, you learn the higher qualities of goodwill, altruism, devotion,
and sacrifice. Now group success is at least as important as personal
success.
Fourth chakra energy makes you a natural gardener, good cook,
skillful parent and a compassionate mate. You are capable of feeling
religious. With love, you can teach and even heal others. You
feel life's full complement of human emotions - from grief to
joy - and somehow contain it all in a humane and workable way.
If the belly is the center of control, the Heart is the center
of the loss-of-control: laughter, the emotional equivalent of
orgasm. Both laughter and orgasm are kinds of ego-death. When
we let loose with uncontrollable laughter the rigid personality
loses hold, the protection mechanism is reset to zero, and excess
tension is dissipated. When you laugh, you unblock the emotional
center, and fill the heart. (Spiritually, the best thing to laugh
about is yourself.)
Now breathe in a relaxed manner, through your heart center, and
imagine your beloved appearing before you. Just feel the love
coming in and out of your heart with each breath. You can picture
it as colored light beams, or symbolic images, like streams of
little cartoon valentines. Feel your most gentle nature emerge,
as when a mother nurses her infant. Breathe in soothing love (remind
yourself that you deserve to receive some of the beneficial loving
vibrations in the world) and give it away every time you exhale.
See your loved one sitting before you receiving all this most
excellent, healing love energy. Wrap your beloved in a blanket
of your love.
Now allow your envelope of love to grow to include all the people
you know, and all the people you don't know, until your expanding
love covers the world, and you feel boundless compassion for all
sentient beings in your heart.
Let each exhalation begin by relaxing you physically, and end
by opening you spiritually, like a flower unfolding its petals.
Know yourself as a kind, generous, loving human being, worthy
of giving and receiving the unconditional love that renews your
soul. Pray for the welfare of us all.
FIFTH CHAKRA: CREATIVITY
Now inhale somewhat forcefully and pull all that energy up from
the deep red root center, through the orange sexual/regenerative
center, and up and through the yellow power plexus, and the green
heart level, and into your throat area, which is a beautiful blue
color. Hold the air and energy in for a moment while relaxing...
take in more. Now relax and soften your tongue, vocal cords, epiglottis,
neck muscles, shoulders, arms and hands. With each exhalation,
feel the radiant energy in your thyroid at the base of the neck,
and throughout your entire upper respiratory tract. Sigh out the
sound, "ah..." Open the throat chakra.
The image is an open chalice. The color is azure sky blue. The
element is the subtle, highly vibrating etheric. And the human
sense is pure thought. In the throat chakra, we truly discover
the power of the mind, and the importance of our soul-dreams.
The throat chakra is the seat of personal creativity, and self-healing.
The thyroid is a master regulator of the other endocrine glands
and many of the body's complex metabolic systems, hormonal balances
and the immune functions. Send the message from your mind to your
body that all systems may now be in perfect equilibrium.
Visualize crystal cool blue light shining through your neck and
throat, clearing out all constriction. Let go of all tension,
and relax from the jaw to the shoulders, and replace it with a
feeling of open space.
The "voice" center mediates your communication skills,
your artistic sense, your use of tools and complex systems, and
your capacity for innovation. Know yourself as a sensitive, creative
being, with an original contribution to make in the world.
The throat chakra is the origin of our thought-forms, which bear
real force in the world. A "word" is a creative union
of thought and energy.. a vibration with purpose and meaning,
utilizing the primacy of idea and sound in creation. "In
the beginning was the WORD and the word was with God". At
this level, ideas become thoughts, concepts, language, and your
plans take on the energy to manifest in the world, as the actual
results of your intent and skill. As Peter Pan said, Think good
thoughts!
If you are blocked in the voice center, you may have trouble being
heard, or feel inept or unoriginal. To overcome blocks in the
creative center, deliberately replace all your negative ideas
about yourself with positive ones. Say internally, "I am
truly effective and creative."
The medium of the mind is higher thought, and symbolic knowledge.
Fifth chakra dynamics are subtle, philosophical, poetic, and reflective.
Consciously invoke your sense of purpose, and highest personal
aspirations. Bring to mind the example and inspiration of teachers
and saints. As you physically and psychically "open"
your throat center, know yourself as a creative person, with an
innate ability to speak the truth effectively, respond authentically
to ideas, and to create and appreciate BEAUTY itself.
As you feel your breath pass through your throat, sigh out the
sound "Ahhh.." Picture a pure crystal chalice filled
with brilliant, deep blue light. Out of the center, a beautiful
white dove emerges, spreads her wings, and lifts into the sky
with breathtaking grace. You feel blessed by the vision.
SIXTH CHAKRA: INTUITION
With the throat chakra remaining open, take a deeper breath in,
and lift your awareness to the psychic center between your eyebrows,
in the middle of your forehead. Then relax deeply and imagine
that each breath has the effect of opening this "Third Eye"
center, like a window opening to a morning sunrise. Allow the
brilliant light directly into your forehead center, splashing
a rainbow of color through your brain. You feel your head getting
more transparent. Now picture a radiant super-natural indigo light
flooding in through your eyes and brain, illuminating your consciousness
in all directions and dimensions.
Focus on your senses of seeing and hearing. Now realize their
psychic dimension: that of inner vision, and hearing the "still,
silent voice" of intuition. Tune into your pineal gland,
seated deep behind your eyes, just under the forebrain. It's like
a tiny radio transceiver. Imagine that by settling into deep meditative
perception, you can simply and easily turn on your higher functions:
intuition, clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition- your ability
to know beyond the limits of your senses. The color is indigo
violet, the vibratory ray of mastership.
At the sixth chakra - the inner eye center - you have the potential
to rise above your separate, personal identity altogether. Here
the essential motivators are Truth, Divine Love, and direct perception
of the great unseen forces that shape our world and history. Absolute
selflessness enables you to see beyond the ordinary limits of
time and space. Your understanding is not a matter of belief,
but one of living experience.
Let in through the open window of the inner eye, the universal
light that dispels all darkness, all dis-ease, and doubt. Know
yourself as a highly evolved soul, reincarnating through this
and many other lives, on a cosmic journey towards Enlightenment.
Your mission is to liberate yourself and others from delusion
and the suffering it causes.
Tune in to the world telepathically; perceiving both the dense
and subtle levels of reality. Your third eye is like an x-ray
laser beam, probing the astral field, and deeper soul levels of
life, seeing the connecting patterns, the underlying universal
energy, and the meaning of things. You begin to perceive the Divine
connection, and you stand in reverence and grace.
You rediscover your gifts of healing, true dreaming, and spontaneous
teaching. You know how to use soul force, and you attract power
by giving it away. You can create an atmosphere of serenity at
will. The only lesson you have to learn here is the truly infinite
nature of your own being.
Look into the deep black space, boundless and empty. Contemplate
the potential power of pure consciousness..
You are like an eagle, with keen vision, and regal vantage point.
From here, you see that all is connected and united. The world
is a shimmering sphere suspended in the space of your mind. Its
transformation results from your heightened positive intent, linked
with millions of people of goodwill throughout the planet.
SEVENTH CHAKRA: ENLIGHTENED
Breathe in, and come up. Hold it. Release. The crown chakra..
It is like a thousand-petalled lotus opening upward from the top
of your head. This "fontanelle" is where you enter and
exit the physical body as a soul evolving through endless incarnations
and forms.
The glands are the pituitary and thalamus, deep in the brain.
The color is luminous super-natural violet, reaching up to the
brilliant white of pure cosmic consciousness itself.
In the throat center, you are knowledge. In the eyebrow center
you are intuition. In the crown you are wisdom.
Here are the laws of the universe understood. You see beyond birth
and death. You know the universality of awareness that transcends
the small self. You perceive on the soul level, and everything
is Divine, Infinite, Spiritual.. including this Self.
Beyond language and concepts, insight is complete, understanding
vast. Fullness and emptiness are the same, and nothing is lacking.
There is no difference between creation and creator. You are fully
conscious of your part in the manifestation of reality, in the
constant re-creation of this world, and the sustenance of the
precious physical vehicle, your body. Bliss is a fundamental truth
of existence. The Universe is your home. You are none other than
the Ancient One, the pure and full Awareness of God. Nothing is
required of this One.
Here is Enlightenment- not something to attain, but what you already
are in essence: master of body, mind, and emotions, karma, and
destiny. You realize your birthright, the bliss of re-absorption
into the Universe, while in this body. Spiritually, there are
no needs. A perfect instrument of the Great Plan, you effortlessly
contribute to the evolution of humanity and the planet towards
Enlightenment. You are fulfilling this destiny right now.
All colors together become white. An iridescent fountain of pure,
brilliant white energy surges up from the earth, through your
root center. You feel it stimulate your glands, warm your belly,
fill your heart, resonate in your voice, vibrate your ears, eyes
and brain, and shoot out the top of your head - a brilliant white
fountain of pure universal energy - shining from your head into
the sky and deep space beyond. You are a wide open conduit, free
at every level. You expand your awareness over and around the
physical body, remaining connected to the source, and centered
in the world.
As you breathe freely, you know yourself as a pure channel transmitting
(and transmuting) energy between earth and heaven, in perfect
balance and equanimity. You are full of potential power, yet totally
comfortable within this center of silence.
A pure and perfect, highly polished, extremely hard diamond crystal,
rests in the center of a delicately beautiful, soft pink lotus
flower in full blossom. Spontaneously intuiting the union of these
two forms, knowing is now from the crown chakra level..
You have traveled long and far, from darkness, fear, and total
isolation, through the development of interpersonal relationships
and discovery of the world, and ever-expanding dimensions, ever
finer states of awareness, until you finally realize your connection
- indeed your identity with -the whole of the Universe. Remain
open at all levels, and savor in the silence, the experience of
knowing your true Self, as infinite, whole and holy.
--from Enlightenment in Our Time: The Perennial Wisdom in the New
Millennium--Lonny J. Brown, HHC
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