Anahata – Love Me Tender & Heartbreak Hotel

Okay. The truth is out. I’m an avid Elvis fan…

However, I suspect that Elvis didn’t know about the seven major chakras located in his (and everyone else’s) spine while he was singing those songs. Nevertheless, he – and we – feel the effects of them. In this case, we feel the effects of ANAHATA chakra every time we fall in love or get “dumped” (“broken” heart) by a spouse of lover.

It’s Anahata that’s operating when you feel that overpowering love for your children. That feeling of deep empathy you get when you see pictures of – or hear about – the plight of people devastated by war, or earthquake or some other disaster comes from Anahata chakra, not your physical heart.

Your heart is an organ made of muscle. It usually does a great job of pumping blood around your body, providing the body with oxygen and nutrients, and helping to remove metabolic waste. It is located just a little to the left of the middle of the chest, between the lungs.

It does not literally feel the pain of a “broken” heart, or the excitement of seeing your sweetheart or partner. That feeling is Anahata chakra at work. (more…)

Manipura – the power tool

There is an idea I’ve heard that our chakras developed as part of human evolution – as we grew in self-awareness and spirituality, the chakras developed in us.

Mooladhara (the base chakra) is first: we need safety and security before anything else. Then we need pleasure, enjoyment – enter Svadhisthana – otherwise life would be a drudge. 1

We find in almost all human societies that pleasure does not seem to be enough. There’s always someone – or some people – who position themselves above everyone else. There are others who position themselves (and are positioned by others) as lower.

This is the domain of the third chakra MANIPURA – the power we ‘see’ ourselves as having or not having.

In physical terms, Manipura is located in the centre of the trunk of the body. As with the previous chakras we’ve discussed, there are different ideas about the precise location. Some people refer to this chakra as the “solar plexus chakra” and “see” it above the navel and below the ribs. However, traditional yogis generally agree that your third chakra is in the spine directly behind the navel. (more…)

Svadhistana – the pleasure chakra

Now that Mooladhara (the first chakra) is strong, we have a firm base, we have a safe place to live, we have our family, our health and sufficient funds to cover the expenses of survival, it’s time to start enjoying life.

Enter … Svadhisthana, the pleasure chakra.

Svadhisthana is the second-lowest chakra in body and is located very close to Mooladhara. In ‘New Age’ spiritualities it is suggested that this second chakra is located about an inch under the navel, making all the chakras perfectly spaced on the way up to the top. However, as the sacral chakra is related to the sexual organs, then the situating of the chakra lower on the body (not the near the belly button) makes more sense.

In classical yoga, Svadhisthana is situated at the sacrum and is fairly easy to locate: just take a straight line from the top of your pubic bone (just above your groin) to your spine; that’s the position of Svadhisthana. Remember, though, that the chakras are ENERGY – swirling vortices of energy, so they are invisible and un-touchable.

In the physical body, Svadhisthana relates to the lower part of the trunk, especially the limbo-sacral area of the spine. It also relates to the pelvic area, the buttocks and genitals. In the nervous system it is related and situated very close to the sacral plexus (a plexus is a junction of nerves) and to the gonads (related to the pleasure aspect of sexuality, rather than the reproduction part). Also, Svadhisthana is related to the kidneys, appendix, prostate, the lymphatic system and all the body fluids.

The basic qualities of Svadhisthana are joy, pleasure and sexuality. (more…)

Mooladhara – the base chakra

Introducing . . . (drum roll)….THE CHAKRAS

First off, let’s get the pronunciation right. The word is CHakra – that is, a strong CH sound as in ‘child’ and ‘chart’. The first ‘a’ is long, like ‘ar’, so the word sounds like CHARKRA, with the emphasis on the CHAR. The word is sometimes written in English as CAKRA because of the lettering in the original Sanskrit.

In Sanskrit, the word “chakra” means “wheel”; the chakras are energy that are seen clairvoyantly as whirling around in a circular motion – hence the name ‘chakra’. It’s important to realize that the chakras are IN the body but not OF the body. That is, they are not physical, visible, touchable entities.

Chakras are ENERGY CENTRES.

Everything in the universe is made up of energy – including us. We have thousands of energy channels in our bodies, distributing energy to every part of us. Wherever energy channels intersect, there is a chakra, so of course there are hundred or thousands of them throughout our bodies.

Each of us has three major energy channels that run up the spine. (more…)

The lotus gardening show

I wonder if you’ve ever noticed – on many things to do with yoga or Buddhism, or even “New Age” – that there’s generally a picture or a symbol of a lotus flower? I don’t know if we have native lotus flowers in Australia; I know we do have water lilies, which look very similar.

In Thailand I was shown the difference: while both water lilies and lotus flowers are very delicate-looking and come in similar colours, it is the water lilies and their leaves that float on top of the water.

Lotus flowers and their leaves rise above the water.

But what has that to do with yoga or Buddhism, I hear you ask. Well … really the hard-to-notice difference between water lilies and lotuses is: water lilies grow in relatively clean water. Lotuses grow in swamps.

From a murky swamp emerge strong, beautiful lotus flowers – sometimes rising half a metre or more above the water of the swamp!

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It’s time to start playing!

The famous Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw said, “You don’t stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing”.

I take “playing” to mean not only having “fun and a sense of humour”, but also “moving your body”. Do you remember how much fun it was to turn cart-wheels when you were eleven? Or how much fun it was to dance the night away when you were nineteen? Moving the body helps to make us feel good about ourselves and about living and about the world.

How many times in my ten years of teaching yoga have I heard someone say, “I can’t do that. I’m too old”! I’ve heard it from people in their forties and fifties. Interestingly, the people who are in their seventies who come to yoga seem less likely to say that. Many people just give up. They write on their yoga registration form that they want to become more flexible, but balk at doing – or trying – the very practices that will help to make them flexible.

I believe it’s not our age that stops our “flexibilitiy”, but our thinking that we can’t be bendy! (more…)

Bringing the yama & niyama into real life

The Dalai Lama maintains that everybody wants happiness and peace. I believe that whatever your version of peace and happiness is, yoga can help you get there. After all, yoga’s aim is to bring about peace of mind, and according to the ancient Indian sage, Patanjali, this is done by modifying the behaviour of the mind.

Over thousands of years, Indian gurus and sages developed pieces of wisdom that they passed onto their students – wisdoms that would help people to live their lives with a peaceful mind. Patanjali eventually collated all these wisdoms together into the eight limbs of yoga – eight stages we go through that lead to ultimate happiness. These last ten weeks we’ve been exploring them: the five yamas (ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya & aparigraha) which make up the first stage, and the five niyamas (saucha, santosha, tapasya, swadhyaya & ishvara pranidhana) which comprise the second stage.

Swami Niranjanananda, the current guru of Satyananda yoga in India, says that these are not intended as codes of conduct – they are pieces of advice to help us live a life of happiness. 1  (more…)

Ishvara Pranidhana – gratitude

I sit here shuffling bits of paper on which I’ve written notes about this, the fifth and final niyama. These notes are all words of wisdom written by people who – I presume – know more about this topic than I do. On one hand, this niyama could be the easiest one to both write about and to practise. On the other hand, it’s the most difficult and complicated: hence my paper-shuffling.

To take the path of least resistance, ishvara pranidhana can be very loosely translated as “gratitude”: gratitude for all the good in our lives, and for life itself.

As with many ideas that originated in the East, this idea has found its way into the language of the “New Age”, where it is commonly known as having an “attitude of gratitude”. And it’s pretty easy, really. All you have to do is remember to be grateful. It’s the first thing I do every morning; before I get out of bed I go through all the things that I’m grateful for. I talk in my head “I’m thankful for my parents”, “I’m grateful for my freedom”, “I’m grateful for my food and my bed and…..” (more…)