Demystifying Chakra Healing to Energy Gates of Consciousness

The more I look around, from social media and stories clients share, to what is circulating today in workshops, gatherings and healings on chakra’s, the more I’ve felt compelled to share this with you. Part of me used to get frustrated that the Truth was never shared. That pretty shiny, feel good experiences instead blinded people. I’ve been there. I tried a couple of circles. I believed without question or further exploration what the latest chakra book had told me. Until I developed my sense of discernment. Along with boundaries and an innate quest for truth, love-wisdom and beauty in this imperfect world.

Which propels me to write and speak and guide with the work that I do. To ultimately shine light into darkness, so perhaps you may find your way with more ease. Less likely to slip off your Path into what we call Glamours, Illusions and Maya; those oh so alluring, beckoning and shiny feel good beliefs, habits, rituals, thoughts, patterns and blind spots that make it hard not to be drawn into their thrall…

Why is this so? Through time the unfulfilled ways of the West, have sought wisdom of the East. Partly because people are pulled by the enticing glamours of the Eastern Mysticism. One of those such mystical pulls are to the chakras. Nothing is more popular amongst the spiritual and new age groups of today as learning to ‘activate’ and ‘force’ the opening of chakras.

I’m here today to talk to you about this, some dangers that go with it, what qualities the key chakras represent and, bring some ancient wisdom to light. Wisdom that is not shared in the modern books you may have read or the courses and workshops you may have experienced. 

I’ve had clients share with me all different examples in regards to chakras and what they feel or are told to do with them. They’ve shared how they are wanting to heal this or that chakra, to make them feel better, that they are “learning how to shut them all down at night” to protect themselves and how they have been told by a healer they are “opening their third eye”. These comments can be dangerous if we do not use our discernment, question and learn. And may I add for general interest, you can’t ‘shut chakras down’ to protect yourself when you sleep. Shutting down all the chakras would be like turning your heart, lungs and brain off along with your endocrine glands and nervous system while you sleep.

With that joyful insight let’s start with debunking some of these glamours by asking some questions. So, take a moment to pause here and answer them now or keep them in mind to come back to;

What culture does the knowledge you’re given come from?

How long will it take to learn how to achieve what you are seeking?

What are the side effects of doing what you have been told, or letting someone ‘do it’ for you?

I ask these questions for you to muse on them in your own time. If you don’t have the answers, if you don’t fully know what the chakras are you may want to instead ask yourself, why am I playing with them?

From forcing chakra activation which makes your consciousness unstable, to closing all chakras – which as I shared would kill the body. To fully opening all chakras, which would burn the body alive. Trying to force, to open or close the chakras is toying with the gateways to matter and consciousness.

So, I ask you again – If you don’t know what chakras are, why play with them?

The esoteric way, the current path of Light, instead works on your state of mind from a spiritual place. This is so the chakras can heal themselves, and the cause will then no longer be there. Likewise, the effects of such causes would also be resolved.

It is true that the old schools used to force open chakras with pranayama, mantra, asana etc. Though the current Path of Light advocates learning consciousness through a nine-step path. Part of these steps include;

• Character building
• Right motive (not selfish intention)
• Service
• Meditation
• A technical study of the centres (and no you won’t find that in a new age book)
• Purification of your physical, emotional and mental bodies
• Developing Love.
• This is all before you are even ready to move to breathing exercises.

Sit with this a moment. Feel into the difference of these two ways and just how much is truly involved.

If you are a real seeker, hungry to know the true wisdom that is not taught in modern western new age books get the books on chakras that are translated from Eastern teachings. As the new-age pseudo-spiritual books are based on no ancient wisdom and teachings whatsoever. They are all astral in nature, as we call it. Astral being ‘feeling’ and often illusion or false truths or part truths. Like a game of ‘Chinese Whispers’ that gets lost along the way to you. These such books are written to make you feel better, usually faster and with little use of the mind and your Will. Which may I share is the stage that comes after learning breathing exercises. Learning to use your mind and your will is integral, it just takes BIG work to get there.

I’ve been asked; “what about learning from my teacher / yogi / healer instead of the new age books then?” Well the teacher may have best intentions but it may well take years for even them to learn – as the chakras connect to states of consciousness. How many states of consciousness does your teacher know? (Keeping in mind each chakra corresponds with a different state of consciousness).

Even the people who taught the forcing open of charkas, required students to commit to 10-12 years of daily training and no homedweller as they were referred was permitted in the schools. (A homedweller was anyone with a family / dependables, a job, or commitments which they needed to honour first). So, these students who were taken on relinquished and scarified all else to devote their lives to be trained. Hence, a weekend retreat, circle or reading a book which isn’t even based on authentic wisdom cannot yield any true, healthy results.

Today there are still schools that do breathing exercises that can be dangerous if not done well and taught correctly. I suggest you to call upon and use your discernment. Sometimes we can be told to do something because a teacher tells us, because they spent some time in India or wherever their yoga training was from and therefore we think it must be ok and right. Use your better judgement, your highest awareness. Feel and think as to what is right and best for you. You can sit out breathing exercises in yoga class or at an event and just enjoy complete full belly breathing and the asana or movement practice, as an example. The choice is yours. Just honour your integrity.

When it comes to anything forcing something that is not ready to be opened it is not an act of ‘yoga’ nor is it practicing harmlessness or ‘spiritual’ living. As a teacher once explained to me it is like wrenching a bud open to force it to be a flower – Light and water will instead support it opening on its own, in its own organic time. A flower will never be beautiful if it is ripped open. Each of your chakras is a flower, often depicted symbolically as the lotus, and they will bloom in their own time with your commitment. This is a matter of walking the Path, not forcing. But instead learning the Truth and Love-Wisdom of the authentic teachings and applying them.

If you are here with me now but still choose to take the path of forcing your way along I want to invite you to Muse on a couple of things;

What happens if you close a chakra that connects to your will power and you effect your free will and end up not being able to make your own conscious decisions – doing something like this would instead render you almost zombie like. Manipulated at others will to do as they please with no ability to use your own will power. No thank you!

What if you open the desire centre and your addictions come back and are amplified worse than before?

What about pain? If you open a pain centre of something you’re not ready to process yet and bring yourself into a place of trauma you are not yet equipped to handle let alone work through?

What if you stimulate the fire centre and take in too much energy? You may likely not be able to cope with it and you could burn yourself permanently either physically, etherically, astrally, mentally or beyond?

I share this with you to encourage you to think for yourself what is your Truth and what, if you are playing with Chakras may happen.

The other interest at the moment are the gatherings that often focus on the seven key chakras. Ever been to a workshop or event and feel like you’re on a high after you’ve done your breathing and focused your energy on your sacral and or heart chakra? That elevated feeling is NOT a spiritual experience for the record. It is an emotional one. Sure, that’s beautiful – to come together with a group, and experience community, wellbeing, love, progress in yourself – but, it is not the chakra system nor is it spiritual no matter how you dress it up.

I share this to offer a basic lesson – that “feeling good” usually creates glamours. Glamours are like misconceptions; things that we want so much to believe. Or things that we all to easily believe and cling to as if they are part of who and what we are. They make us feel important. Or like we are progressing or are superior. These glamours cloud your judgment. (We’ve all been there and we still have work to do, so you’re not alone here, my friend!)

But let’s take for example going to such a chakra event; Ever felt great, left an event or circle and gone back into your day to day life, then felt normal again just as you did prior, so you go back to another one to lift you up to feel better again…. Is this cycle creating lasting change? I don’t think so either.

This seeking of self-validation is the least effective way to discern truth. Because if you feel good you believe almost anything. It’s been psychologically proven that a friend is better at pointing out your true nature more often than you are of your own nature. What does this mean? You can’t see your blind spots. You think you’re having a spiritual chakra experience when it’s a feel good emotional experience or, a potentially dangerous toying with energy. Only you know where you sit along this spectrum when you are able to answer with a clear mind and heart.

To get there you may like to ask yourself;

• Did or does my spiritual practice make me feel good?
• If so, does it lead to changing my life over time?

I urge you to question what your FEELINGS are based on here.

I have seen over years the patterns and cycles of people who keep going back for the buzz, keep returning to learn from those who claim to teach yoga, kundalini, Tantra, the chakras and have slim to no understanding of the true, genuine paths.

If you are questioning this, then I ask you;

What PRIMARY branch do you study?

Because we as a humanity are supposed to be moving now into Jnana (the path of knowledge or the path of self-realisation) and Raja yoga. But many are still spiralling in the old schools and not creating lasting change and spiritual progress at all.

I want to now share with you some ancient wisdom on how the chakras connect to the physical body. As different states of consciousness work through different chakras and systems of the body – that being the endocrine glands and their corresponding organs;

An overview from top down we have;

1. Crown chakra – connecting to the Pineal gland
2. Third eye – connecting to the Pituitary gland/body
3. Throat – connecting to the Thyroid
4. Heart – connecting to the Thymus
5. Solar plexus – connecting to the Pancreas
6. Sacral – connecting to the Gonads /reproductive organs
7. Root – connecting to the Adrenals

A bit of extra insight before we go deeper into the key 7 chakras;

I want to share that these key chakras or centres carry pranic energy or life force energy for every part of your body. They are in close relation to your nervous system, which is divided into three areas. That being the cerebro-spinal, sympathetic and peripheral nervous system.

From each of the centres vital or pranic energy flows along subtle lines of direction – known as “nadis”.  The nadis are closely related to your nerves and arteries and are said to underlie the body’s nervous system. Pretty important and mighty powerful impact on your entire being if anything goes wrong along the way because you don’t know what you’re doing or aren’t in training with a knowing teacher.

Let’s now build from the bottom up starting with the lower chakras – theless evolved, lower nature. These chakras govern the physical life of the material form and the animal psychic life (which we share in common with the animal kingdom).

Higher chakras above diaphragm connect with the higher nature and are more evolved. They connect to intellectual and spiritual life. They bring about activities in which we can demonstrate we are different to and higher than that of the animal kingdom and, that we are cycling upward on the spiral of evolution.

It may also interest you to know the lower chakras are already developed and open.

Virtually the entire human race has the lower three chakras open – all or mainly all.

Chakra’s below the diaphragm / personality:

Root / Muladhara – 4 petals: Will to Live, to be, anchor energy. Survival instincts, manifestation in the physical world as it also connects you to the world. CORE – the heat of the body is generated here. It also preserves survival instincts.

Sacral / Svadhisthana – 6 petals:  Procreative sense – lower creative centre, mostly with sexuality. Biological instincts, sex nature, lower creative impulses, instinctual living, more primitive – primary animal centre. Hungers, lust, anger etc. Desires are tangible in this centre; an example is the desire for cake.

A little extra insight I want to share with you is that the sex impulse which resides here needs to lift to a higher place. You may have heard of ‘moving sexual energy’ in Tantra. It is in fact the Desire itself which needs to lift to the heart or to the 3^rd eye. As ‘sex energy’ does not move to those centres.

We do not throw too much energy into this sacral centre. If you intend to do that it will amplify your sex centre and you won’t be able to control it or use your higher nature. Hence, as an example the over use of porn and the destruction it can cause a person on their life internally and their relationships and life in general.

You might be interested to know the sacral center is usually more where male desires come from as well.

Solar Plexis / Manipura – 10 petals: Astral centre, moods, feelings, desire; thus your emotion centre to humanity – this is non-tangible desire and feeling like wanting to ‘feel good’. It is usually where more female desires come from. As it connects to your emotions, the emotions of others and the emotions all around you.

It is very dangerous to stimulate on purpose as it can make you unstable.

These three centers often need to be balanced into higher centres. Some who are uncontrollable need to balance lower with higher. As an example; the Solar Plexis balances and finds its highest expression in the Throat centre.

Then we have the chakras above the diaphragm

(These are still relatively incomplete in most of humanity) If you get the higher chakras wrong you can cause damage to the brain. They are very rewarding to learn, but again it’s not about the chakras it’s about doing the work to cultivate the consciousness for the chakras to bloom, and blossom of their own accord in due time.

Heart / Anahata– 12 petals: Naturally this is love, intuition, perception of aspiration. What drives you to learn divinity, feel the divine and know the soul – as the heart is the seat of the soul. (While to FEEL is through the heart, to see or know is with the mind). Especially in the West we need the heart more for we have not all mastered selfless love amid the other qualities of the heart. There is no such thing as too much work on the heart – the energy of LOVE is great. This is NOT including breathing exercises. What I’m talking about is learning to LOVE; to use the heart, to come from a place of selflessness and service. Of giving love and of receiving love.

When I talk of Intuition in regards to the heart I’m referring to a pure form of consciousness.   

In early stages the awakening heart connects to the higher (abstract) astral – Aspiration for higher things; desiring union, wanting to help the world etc. Eventually this connects to the Buddhic plane. Which is the next state of consciousness above the mental plane. Then, in a later time it connects to an even higher plane.

It’s safe to say many of us have big Heart work to do in this lifetime!

Throat / Vishuddha– 16 petals: Activity, concrete mind and higher creativity – the higher version of the creative work that was once done by the sacral centre, which is now lifted into a higher conscious state. The throat centre is also the conduit to the higher mental plane for most people.

Third eye / Ajna – 2 petals: The control centre, connects to mental plan; concrete and middle energies. The personality anchors in the ajna of more advanced people. This is to direct the lower nature by using the lower centres and harnessing them, to concentrate and control the lower; the lower including your sexual desires, emotions, physical urges etc. Also, when developed, it is the centre of higher psychic power. Hence the “all seeing eye”. Growth of will power and knowledge help the increase of this developing. The third eye is also the control centre of the endocrine gland [and thus the pituitary body].

It uses the other chakras and commands those lower nature personality forces, it can be a higher organ of psychic development. It also ranks high on the danger scale if played with and done wrong or over stimulated. The ajna centre works with vision and the intermediate levels of mind. If you want to learn the third eye it is encouraged that you develop discipline and study.

Crown / Sahasrara – 1,000 petals: Embodiment of Spiritual Energy it is the way you connect to your Divine Nature. (Soul will go through heart, then third eye, then crown, usually). Basically, the crown quality is purpose and soul contact. It views the higher part of yourself and how it manifests and flows through you. From mental, to astral / emotions and the physical. People who claim to have an awakened crown centre are likely lying or mistaken. You may feel something, but never feel it is ALL there and that you have reached the final destination so to speak – there is far, far more to go.

Chakras are etheric, physically they are shown in the endocrine glands / organs

Making the next largest chakra an organ;

Your Spleen! – Which is energising, assimilating prana, (prana being life force which we bring into the body through the food we eat, the air we breathe, the sunlight we absorb and the water we drink). The spleen is one of the vitality centres of the body (there being 7 major centres).

Alt Major is another chakra – this is another chakra in the head centre, accessing a different energy support.

Just to keep us humble, it’s important to know that the teachings from the East that we have are just entry / beginner level. As I mentioned, chakras are states of consciousness. Which means their true benefit is not the chakra itself but what it represents. Which are in part the qualities that I’ve just shared with you. So, if you work on Love you don’t need to think about the heart chakra. By focusing on Love, living from Love – that daily selfless service – will do the work.

What we are doing here is focusing on the quality – not the chakra.

Hypothetically, if you only focus on a place on your body and on a colour – what do you think the chance is that you will learn the quality? Instead, if you learn the quality the chakra will open and give it to you.

You’ve been trying to get to the quality behind the chakra, so focus and feel into, live from the quality.

Part of this study and practice is to become more self-aware, particularly of which are your weaker qualities. We have work to do. We are not all enlightenment masters yet.

Even the most advanced humanity is working on the higher chakras. If you have your heart, head and crown open you’d be a living Saint. So, we are developing these. We are working on them. Everyone will have strengths and weaknesses or areas to focus on and strengthen. Some people are very loving, but not active enough in the throat. Some are very intellectually intelligent but not heart open enough. Some are overtly sexual and disconnect from heart consciousness … there are so many varieties of different people at different stages.

The key for you is, if you like working with the chakras, is to learn that they represent qualities, like symbols represent higher truths. They represent something you are learning. You don’t need to do anything – no hands-on work necessary, no colours, crystals placed on and around you. You need nothing other than to learn the QUALITY itself of the chakras. IF colours and crystals etc. worked, why would lamas and monks go into caves for years to learn this? We need to transform our consciousness and see the truth that we have been too blinded by shiny rocks to see. Our body simply learns to receive that consciousness. We need to awaken the skills. Working on charkas is like opening the door to the temple instead of walking into the temple and learning all the knowledge and wisdom that is inside. You pass through a door, you don’t stand there basking in its glory.

If we are truly honest on the Path; we need to know some paths lead to dead ends or dark places, and that we are always learning and not wasting time. Just like we start in kindergarten before we go to primary school. We need to be open to always learning and know all things, the powers you have, and learn to master them then graduating into a higher way to learn spirituality. As we learn more, then stabilise and access powers at will, then teach them, it will organically lead to progress on the path.

Another key is Perspective of your past; What you think you’ve achieved and your true progress. Work practically, be mentally evocative – by that I mean develop your mind – it’s what allows you to harness the heart. It’s not what feels the best. Because if you can’t maintain a feeling you’ll crave it again and again and again, like a drug. Or, you’ll realise it was a fleeting pleasure. That isn’t helping you grow.  You can be on the right path, but let’s do it with efficiency and greater knowledge. Through this continual development of learning to know yourself; body, emotions, mind, soul, spirit over time, then awakening all the centres you will come to spiritual maturity and glory.

Always keeping in mind your truth and integrity along with cultivating your heart, mind, soul connection. For as the Buddha said, “Hold fast to the truth as a lamp … Be a lamp unto your own feet. Look not to anyone outside yourself for truth.” This doesn’t mean you ignore The Ancient Wisdom and its teachings – as they are a gift to us. But you are called upon to test them. How do you test a Truth given to you? You apply it as a way of life. You live and breathe by that Truth till it becomes your own that you can then share and pass on to light the way for others looking to find their way. Then you may well know the Truth is indeed your truth.

May you take this lighted way to uncover the qualities of your centres, knowing this Path is one of a lifetime, or more.

With Love, Elise | S*M