Chakras

Chakras

Chakras according to C. W. Leadbeater The word chakra is Sanskrit (चक्र) for "wheel" and refers to energy centers that exist in the physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies. These force centers are points of connections at which energy flows from one body of a man to another. At each chakra, the concentrated energy spins around a central point, like a wheel spinning around an axle. Clairvoyants can see them in the etheric double. All these wheels are perpetually rotating and a force from the higher world is always flowing into them – in the undeveloped person usually sluggishly, while in a more evolved person they may be glowing and pulsating.[1]

Each of the chakras deals with a different aspect of human experience and produces a particular state of consciousness. The chakras also involve a hierarchy of needs, from physical and emotional to intellectual and spiritual. These energy centers have been correlated to colors, organs, and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

Various traditions have different views about the number and exact location of the chakras. Some chakras are considered major, some minor, but most traditions refer to seven chakras that lie along the length of the spine, from the first chakra at its base to the seventh chakra about the crown of the head.[2]

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Mme. Blavatsky teachings 3 According to Charles Leadbeater 3.1 Root chakra 3.2 Spleen chakra 3.3 Navel chakra 3.4 Heart chakra 3.5 Throat chakra 3.6 Brow chakra 3.7 Crown chakra 4 The Eastern Chakra System 5 The Chakras and the Endocrine Glands 6 Modern Interpretation 7 Music and the Chakra System 8 Online resources 8.1 Articles 8.2 Reading list 8.3 Audios 8.4 Video 9 Notes Introduction

Nadis or channels According to many Tantric texts, the human body contains 72,000 nadis (tubular organs) that channel prana (life force) to every cell.

Three nadis are of particular interest. The sushumna runs from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, passing through each of the seven chakras in its course. It is the channel through which kundalini shakti (the latent serpent power) rises up from its origin at the muladhara (first or root) chakra to its true home at the sahasrara (seventh or thousand-fold) chakra at the crown of the head. In subtle body terms, the sushumna nadi is the path to enlightenment.

The ida and pingala nadis spiral around the sushumna nadi, crossing each other at every chakra. Eventually, all three nadis meet at the ajna (sixth) chakra.[3][4][5]

The anatomy of the chakras has been described in Indian and Tibetan tantric literature. The seven etheric chakras, which are very important for the health of the physical and etheric bodies, have their counterparts on the astral and mental levels. Chakras are both the transmitters and the transformers of energy from field to field. Their mechanism synchronizes the emotional, mental and the etheric energies. The chakras reveal a person’s quality of consciousness and degree of personal abilities and development. Each of the centers has special links to certain organs as well as with certain states of consciousness.[6]

Mme. Blavatsky teachings The founder of the Theosophical Society, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, wrote:

Our seven Chakras are all situated in the head, and it is these Master Chakras which govern and rule the seven (for there are seven) principal plexuses in the body, and the forty-two minor ones to which Physiology refuses that name.[7]

And if the term plexus, in this application, does not represent to the Western mind the idea conveyed by the term of the anatomist, then call them Chakras or Padmas, or the Wheels, the Lotus Hearts and Petals. Remember that Physiology, imperfect as it is, shows septenary groups all over the exterior and interior of the body; the seven head orifices, the seven “organs” at the base of the brain, the seven plexuses (the pharyngeal, laryngeal, cavernous, cardiac, epigastric, prostatic, and the sacral plexus), etc., etc. . . . If asked whether the seven plexuses, or Tattvic centres of action, are the centres where the seven rays of the Logos vibrate, I answer in the affirmative, simply remarking that the rays of the Logos vibrate in every atom, for the matter of that.[8]

The Tântrists do not seem to go higher than the six visible and known plexuses, with each of which they connect the Tattvas; and the great stress they lay on the chief of these, the Mûladhâra Chakra (the sacral plexus), shows the material and selfish bent of their efforts towards the acquisition of powers. Their five Breaths and five Tattvas are chiefly concerned with the prostatic, epigastric, cardiac, and laryngeal plexuses. Almost ignoring the Agneya, they are positively ignorant of the synthesizing pharyngeal plexus. But with the followers of the old school it is different. We begin with the mastery of that organ which is situated at the base of the brain, in the pharynx, and called by Western anatomists the Pituitary Body.[9]

According to Charles Leadbeater Charles Webster Leadbeater wrote an analysis of chakras based on his own clairvoyant experiences.

Root chakra The first chakra, at the base of the spine, has a primary force which radiates out in four spokes. It is alternately red and orange in hue, with hollows between them.[10]

Spleen chakra

Spleen Chakra according to C. W. Leadbeater The second center at the spleen is devoted to the specialization, subdivision, and dispersion of the vitality which comes to us from the sun. [11]

This does not correspond to the Hindu svādhiṣṭhāna chakra, usually listed as the second one, and connected to the sexual organs:

The spleen chakra is not indicated in the Indian books; its place is taken by a centre called the Svadhishthana, situated in the neighbourhood of the generative organs, to which the same six petals are assigned. From our point of view the arousing of such a centre would be regarded as a misfortune, as there are serious dangers connected with it. In the Egyptian scheme of develop­ment elaborate precautions were taken to prevent any such awakening.[12]

Regarding its function, Leadbeater wrote:

The second centre, the splenic (Plate II), at the spleen, is devoted to the specialization, subdivision and dispersion of the vitality which comes to us from the sun. That vitality is poured out again from it in six horizontal streams, the seventh variety being drawn into the hub of the wheel. This centre therefore has six petals or undulations, all of different colours, and is specially radiant, glowing and sunlike. Each of the six divisions of the wheel shows predominantly the colour of one of the forms of the vital force--red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.[13]

The effects of its awakening were described as follows:

Navel Chakra according to C. W. Leadbeater When the second of the etheric centres, that at the spleen, is awakened, the man is enabled to remember his vague astral journeys, though sometimes only very partially. The effect of a slight and accidental stimulation of this centre is often to produce half-remembrance of a blissful sensation of flying through the air.[14]

Navel chakra The third chakra at the navel or solar plexus receives a primary force with ten radiations, so it vibrates in a way to divide itself with ten petals.[15]

When awakened into activity, the person "begins in the physical body to be conscious of all kinds of astral influences, vaguely feeling that some of them are friendly and others hostile, or that some places are pleasant and others unpleasant, without in the least knowing why."

Heart chakra The fourth chakra at the heart is of a glowing golden color, and each of its quadrants is divided into three parts, which gives it twelve petals.[16] Its stimulation makes a person "instinctively aware of the joys and sorrows of others, and sometimes even causes him to reproduce in himself by sympathy their physical aches and pains."

Throat chakra The fifth chakra at the throat has sixteen spokes and therefore sixteen apparent divisions.[17] "The arousing of the fifth, that at the throat, enables him to hear voices, which sometimes make all kinds of suggestions to him. Also sometimes he hears music, or other less pleasant sounds. When it is fully working it makes the man clairaudient as far as the etheric and astral planes are concerned."

Brow chakra The sixth chakra, between the eyebrows, has the appearance of being divided into halves. Leadbeater believed that is the reason that this center is mentioned in Indian books as having only two petals.[18]

Brow Chakra according to C. W. Leadbeater Although in modern spirituality the Ājñā chakra is traditionally connected to the Third Eye, Mme Bl