Chakras
Wednesday, July 19th, 2006It has come to my attention that there are very few references to chakras on Living Tantra. Kind of funny, huh?
Talking about chakras would seem to be standard currency among us Tantrik types. Why are chakras in such short supply here? I’ve been pondering this.
But before we continue, please note that the “ch” in “chakra” should sound like the “ch” in “chocolate,” not like either “sh” in “sheesh.” Mmm…chocolate!
Back to our story.
When I first heard of chakras, I spent quite a bit of time learning about their functions, symbolism, and “meanings.” If you had asked me back then, I would have talked very confidently about these.
And you certainly would have heard me rattling on about “my chakras” and “my energy body.”
Now I know it would be more accurate for my chakras to refer to me as “my person.”
When I write about different phenomena on Living Tantra, I try my best to stick to what I’ve learned from my teachers and confirmed through practice. What I’ve learned about chakras after twenty years is how little I know. So I’ll share this “little” with you. And more importantly, I’ll attempt to convey a feeling for the enormity of the topic.
Chakras are not things. They are not “nerve plexuses” or energy “vortexes.” The physical sensations—streaming, whirring, swirling, and tingling—or emotions such as sadness, anger, and fear, thought to be “my chakras” are really effects of the life processes being mediated by the chakras.
So what are chakras?
If you meditate quietly on the chakras, or learn to consult their wisdom in the course of daily life, you might discover nothing and something.
You discover nothing because chakras are gateways to the infinite potential that pervades all life. You discover something because out of this infinity, life is continually moving in and out of manifestation.
This includes you.
To use a crude analogy, chakras are translators. A signal comes from one dimension and is translated to another dimension. In the process, the signal gets expressed differently. Human chakras are those interfaces, or junctures, that mediate the expression of the human “signal” out of the reservoir of infinite potential. They mediate signals from less manifest dimensions and can also send signals in the reverse direction.
Life has many modes of appearing. In the tradition, light, sound (mantra), symbol, deity, and objects, including human objects, are all differing appearings of the Self-same Reality whose base is infinite potential.
Traditional Tantrik pictures of chakras show them packed with Sanskrit letters, animals, and other symbols. Many Westerners’ eyes glaze over at this profusion. But these symbols, colors, and sounds are more than just representations. They are actual expressions of cosmic virtues or wisdoms as they translate into the human realm.
The short version of what I have just written is that you are an elaboration or an ornament of your chakras, and that your chakras are the junctures that mediate the expression of cosmic wisdom virtues as a human being and generally serve as translators to and from other dimensions.
This state of affairs may be cognized directly, but it takes time, effort, and correct View to enter into direct apprehension.
People often associate chakras with light and color. Light and color are realized differently at different points in one’s practice. From all reports, the most unbound perception vouchsafed to human beings is that of the cosmos appearing as the lights of primordial awareness, not just as a light display.
It isn’t so difficult to perceive auras or manifestations of light associated with chakras for instance. But this is only a pale reflection of Reality appearing as the lights of primordial awareness.
If one were truly established in this mode of appearing, walking through walls would present no problem, and you would be able to see and participate directly in processes of manifestation and demanifestation.
In truth, the lights of infinite potential or primordial awareness are evident everywhere, giving rise to everything, without exception. The human chakras mediate this process of the lights of awareness continually giving birth to the human world.
It must be said that human beings are human beings. Even at our most open, we are always, to some degree, conditioned by our bodies, energy, and awareness. Whatever can be said about ultimate Reality is never ultimate. And the ultimate is only expressed through its own infinity of becomings.
By meditating on the chakras, we can dive into this infinity and begin to find ourselves.
OM Shanti,
Shambhavi
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