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Chakras
lobster
Crusty Veteran
in Meditation
Chakras - do they open?
In my experience the most important unfolding/release is the mind based awareness. Broadly speaking this corresponds to Nirvana and the top chakras. In essence Buddhism is a mind based opening that effects the other centers.
For example some people here are working with two chakras or centers, mind and metta. Some are also working with body based opening, using perhaps yoga or physical awareness.
Others are working with the throat/speech/wind chakra/centre to effect perfect speech, which of course also effects mind, body and heart.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/06/maslow-revisited-the-hierarchy-of-chakras/
What is your understanding?
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Comments
I enjoy your take on this. I will read your link later this morning after yoga. I enjoy the Buddhist take on it (in my limited experience) but it get irritating because it is so interspersed with New Age stuff elsewhere. My mom is sick with a bad cold, and has been convinced by her energy healer that her throat chakra is blocked. So rather than doing appropriate health and well-being care (like resting, eating well and hydrating well), she thinks putting her crystals of the corresponding chakra color in the moonlight will cure her cold. That lack of connection and understanding just irks me. But I'm crabby and having a bad morning, so there is that,
As a practising Reiki healer myself, it pisses me off when people eschew medical intervention when necessary because some wanker who spells it dis-ease tells people they should avoid "teh medicines" and wish illness away. That's right up there with you can cure MS by diet alone. Don't get me wrong, I think holistic therapy compliments Western medicine quite nicely. I KNOW the acupuncture I had worked wonders on the side effects from chemo when I first had cancer. And I wear crystals. But I'm not very popular with the New Age crew
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I know what you mean, my father is sometimes prone to do things like this as well, although not quite as bad as "putting his crystals in the moonlight". I think it's irresponsible of certain faith healers to take the focus away from science, especially in the case of the elderly who are already a bit absent-minded. Personally I'm a crystal-skeptic although I will admit to having 3 for when I'm feeling particularly sorry for myself.
My sympathies for your bad morning, lol
I too am a bit out of sorts because "weird stuff" is happening during my meditation.
Guys, please understand that wearing crystals, Reiki and energy work doesn't mean you've taken leave of your senses. It's fine to not believe or be uber skeptical.
I thought this thread was going to be on Chakras and ways some people work with them, not a free for all on New Age practises or people who use said practises.
Chakras = Mind over Matter nothing special
I think that there are a lot of practices that are worthwhile, even if they only make someone feel better. That's half the battle, and our beliefs are a major player into our healing and overall well-being and feeling. I'm not against them. I personally am not a crystal person, but I freaking love rocks. I have been a rock collector for a long time, and some indeed feel more special than others. I have some of my own odd practices, out of comfort and connection to the world. All good stuff, if you ask me. As long as they don't get carried away. My mom puts 100% and jumps in with both feet into everything she explores. She cannot dip her toes in and check it out while maintaining her ability to be logical. I don't claim to know everything about the energy world. I'm not saying it's not a worthwhile practice. But some of the things my mom tells me after her appointments blow my mind. I'm glad if she feels better, whatever the reason. But she doesn't apply reason well adn that is the hard part for me. She has a genetic heart condition that she was recommended by her heart doctor at the U of MN hospitals, to do certain tests every so often. She refuses. But is convinced that her issues are the result of energy entities that are latched onto her body with tentacles. And she pays her healer to remove them. It's just...more than I can comprehend. I don't mock her for it. But I don't have much to say and I think my silence on it is enough, lol.
Chakras are also big in yoga practice, which is a huge part of my life. I certainly don't dismiss them. I just have a really hard time finding remotely "reliable" information on them that isn't from MindBodyGreen telling me to wear pink underwear. The article was really interesting, actually. I think Maslow's pyramid fits quite well and explains a lot of our individual and societal problems. I never thought to make the connection to chakras. Makes a lot of sense. Perhaps Maslow did know about them. Or perhaps he sensed the same centers in us that are described as chakras and he simply explained it another way.
Thanks guys,
Value your insight. My experiential understanding is based on perception or awareness using these centres. For example a 'gut feeling' is something many of us are familiar with. Intuition seems very much to do with the heart/solar plexus awareness.
These centres or modes of awareness seem more accessible as we become quieter and more sensitive. Again meditation leads to this potential.
I feel @karasti is exactly right, good information is rare. I have a feeling that yoga and chi kung with meditation are the safest way to harmonise and become sensitive to these perceptive awareness models.
Attention or awareness from the body is something to listen to. For example grounding ourselves through bringing the awareness into our standing meditation in chi kung or yoga nidra. Again it is experiential.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/buddhist-practice/attention.html
I like rocks, crystals and tree hugging. I used to visit new age centres/shops to test my ability to gibber woo beyond their wildest ramblings
... just a hobby ... maybe my chakras are misaligned? 
What @dhammachick says is very pertinent. On my visits to new age shops, I often purchased essential oils. Their ability to change the mind is as powerful as a song in a whiff. Our environment and awareness are interdependent as we all know ... without becoming Quantum Mystics ...
http://www.purifymind.com/InterdependenceBudd.htm
Its Interesting. In the distant past I've experimented with physically finding the chakras and seeing if I could link them with their themes, but although I am quite sensitive to people's energy I totally failed at intuitively connecting to Chakras. I do intuitively connect to some of the energy properties themselves - for instance if I think on emotional balance or needs I can sometimes get a picture of what's going on. But that feels more linked to the aura, the energy cloud, rather than specific points around the body.
Recently that has changed a little and some areas of the body have felt energetically more active. I think it has something to do with activating some parts of the subtle body in meditation.
One point I have felt a strong connection with is the perineum, the point between the sexual organs and the anus where there is supposed to be a minor chakra, the centre dealing with rebirth. In meditation I've had impulses originating from there to do with lies, and non-cooperation.
The throat and internal speech is another area where I have my struggles at the moment. Osho in his lectures on tantra says that one of the key points of deeper meditation is to keep silence and not speak internally or externally, but when losing focus and slipping into dream like states I sometimes just end up talking internally in an uncontrollable way. Guess the mind wasn't entirely silent after all that time
But yes reliable information talking about how to connect these things to chakras is hard to find. I still find it easier to relate to chakras as emotional centres than physical ones.
And I too enjoy visits to new age shops. There is one I frequent in a town nearby which has a great selection of incenses which I enjoy, and some nice cards, books and statues. No gibbering or woo required though.
The throat chakra would include the breath. It also includes communication and right speech, which in its highest form is silent. Mantrayana is often considered the 'inner science' of sound. The throat/air chakra turns around wisdom ... So again the higher form of this chakra is its listening capacity ...
https://thesevenminds.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/ten-signs-of-the-superior-person/#more-752
Interesting that you have a physical point of arising ...
Talking of genatalia area thinking ... They certainly have a mind of their own. Most of us know that experience ...
Paradoxically I feel yoga raises the libido ... And also regulates or sublimates it into other chakras/areas. Yoga nidra is one of the best examples of a body based, safe chakra practice.
Another practice relating to chakras is element meditation. Remember these are areas of attention to explore, purify and understand. You will often hear New Agers talk about energy. In Buddhism we may become aware of these flows of attention, in some esoteric Buddhist schools chakras are focussed on.
When I learned chakra/element meditation my attention was too forced. Gentle attention is far more subtle and revealing, allowing us to become aware of the relationship between mind and body ...
@lobster do you have any yoga nidra resources? I have only really started reading about it lately but like with chakras, it's hard to know what is reliable information. Much of it is "buy our yoga nidra meditations!" and if there is one thing I've learned about meditation and yoga is that you don't have to pay someone else unless you want to. I don't really want to,
^^. They are all pretty good. I just find a particular voice gells with me.
http://www.yoganidranetwork.org/downloads
Check out Youtube too.
There are techniques, guided meditations on the insightimer app.
https://insighttimer.com/guided-meditations
Again, experiential body awareness training.