The word “Chakra” in Sanskrit corresponds to a wheel. According to the Eastern spiritual philosophy there are seven chakras aligned along the human spine. Chakras can be visualised as the nerve centres across your body which necessitates smooth flow of energy.
All of these chakras are connected just as much as all the body organs are connected. It is very important to open the chakras and make them fluid. Awareness about balance and imbalance of these main chakras can contribute to physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual well being.
Let’s go through this quick summary about chakras.
Root chakra (Muladhara)
Location: base of the spine
It is the chakra of basic necessities, stability and security. This chakra is about grounding and discovering aspects of self. A blocked root chakra may turn into behaviours ruled mainly by fear.On the same line, when the root chakra is overactive, fear might turn into greed and paranoia. Issues with control over food intake and diet are related to it.
Sacral chakra (Svadhisthana)
Location: above the pubic bone, below the navel
It is associated with the emotional body, sensuality, and creativity. This chakra is motivated by pleasure and enjoyment of life through senses. Opening your sacral chakra allows you to feel the world around and in us. This chakra is instrumental in developing flexibility in our life. Associated with the water element, it’s fluid and represents movement of emotions.
Navel chakra (Manipura)
Location: Upper abdomen
It deals with issues of self confidence and self esteem. It controls how you assert your identity in a societal structure. When it is open, you feel in control of your life, when under-active, you tend to be passive and indecisive. You’ would probably be timid and annoyed about not getting what you want.
Heart chakra (Anahata)
Location: centre of the chest
You have an ability to love, find beauty and compassion in smallest things in the world. When the heart chakra is open, you may feel being deeply connected and if there’s a blockage in the heart chakra, you may experience difficulties in your relation with others, such as excessive jealousy and cold heartedness.
Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)
Location: Throat
Self expression is an important part of communication and lot of your social relations are based on your ability of communication. A proper balanced throat chakra will enable to voice out your thoughts in adequate way.
Third eye chakra (Ajna)
Location: between your eyebrows
The function of the third eye chakra is driven by the principle of openness and imagination. This is the chakra which brings forth the dual concept of “self” and “other” in existence. You see your “aatma” as different from “prakriti”. Bhagat Gita elaborates more in this relation between “aatma", “dehi" and “prakriti”.Awakening your third eye allows you to open up to an intuitive sensibility and inner perception.
Crown chakra (Sahasrara)
Location: top of the head
This chakra awakening is about consciousness, awareness, connection with formless. If this chakra is opened, it can lead you to touch the higher most consciousness and transcend all our limitations. It can also be equated with the concept of becoming divine self and universal consciousness.
There is continuous network of balance and imbalance of chakras in our bodies, that is how our emotional self is defined. A proper awakening of chakras can lead to the overall balance and proper functioning of “aatma" and “dehi”.
