The chakras are seven energy centers located deep within the physical body, in what many refer to as the subtle body-- that part of ourself that we can't see or touch, but we know is there.
Each chakra governs different aspects of our lives, our health, our relationship to ourselves, and to the world around us. By cultivating a deeper knowledge and understanding of the chakras, we can begin to connect mind, body, and spirit through listening to what may start out as a whisper, and if we ignore the voice long enough, eventually turn into a scream.
Although each chakra can be studied and understood on an intellectual level separately, they work together as a system. To isolate one chakra and ignore the others is like treating only one symptom while ignoring an entire illness.
The lower three chakras deal more with our relationship to the physical, material world, and as we move up through the system, the ideas and aspects that they rule become more abstract, eventually transcending the material world completely.
Most of us live that majority of our lives focused on the lower chakras -- assuring our basic survival, learning to live with and accept the self, and eventually connect with others. Given the very visual and headstrong characteristics of modern society, many of us also have a very strongly stimulated Ajna chakra, located at the third eye, our center of visualization, intellect, intuition, and turning ideas into action.
This relationship between the lower chakras and Ajna can create a sort of energetic loop. Many of us focus intensively on our basic human needs (first chakra); sex, creation and procreation (second chakra); the self, the ego, and our place in society (third chakra), and Ajna, aforementioned the sixth chakra. The problem of this loop can be in neglecting the fourth and fifth chakras, the heart center, and the throat.
The heart is the seat of what I will refer to as the "soul" and its functioning deals mostly with trust, integration, wisdom, oneness, hope, and unconditional love. Just above the heart center is the throat, which deals much with speech, communication, expression, and confession.
The issue that arises when this loop between lower and visual chakra occurs is that the heart and throat are neglected. Our lives become consumed with thinking of the lower needs, and playing them on the movie screen of our minds over and over again, reinforcing the loop, and silencing the truth in our heart and the voice of our soul.
In order to cultivate more balance and authenticity in our lives, we need to occasionally turn off the screen in our minds, so that we may listen to our hearts, our souls, and in turn begin to vocalize, not just to others, but to ourselves as well, what out true purpose is in this world.
