What an amazing seven weeks it has been, journeying through all seven chakras culminating this week with the crown or Sahasrara Chakra. Located at the top of the head, I see the crown chakra as a portal to infinite consciousness, connection, and potential. I visualize a funnel of energy that keeps expanding the further out you go...infinitely through all time and space.
The crown chakra is represented by the color violet and connects to all expanding consciousness. When we are balanced in our Sahasrara chakra, Geof Jowett from his book, "The Power of I Am", states that "we understand things from a wider context with creativity, compassion, and an expansive imagination. The more balanced and stable my crown is, the more open I am to divine energy and universal consciousness" (p. 161). To paraphrase, when we are connected here, we see things from the wide-angle lens of our life, to how we are merging with all that is and to not sweat the small stuff. It puts things into the big picture perspective of why we are here and how we are all connected.
When we are experiencing life from this crown center, we are coming from our highest self...who we are fundamentally, as well as who we strive to be. This feeling is one of open spaciousness where we truly feel as though we have dissolved into the whole and that no separation exists between all beings. In working with all the chakras we see how each one is affected by the other as we ascend up the chain. The earth element of the base chakra dissolves into the water element of the sacral chakra. The water element is altered as it interacts with the fire element of the solar plexus. Fire is affected by the air element of the heart's fourth chakra. Air expands into the ethers of the throat energy and all elements. As Swami Saradananda writes in the book "Chakra Meditation", "this enables you to transcend worldly experience and to understand your connection with universal consciousness."
It is thought that when we are connected with universal consciousness we experience feelings of freedom (moksha) and bliss (Ananda), but in order to connect more frequently, we need to do the work. "Doing the work" means to truly commit to getting to know and understand the geography of our own inner landscape. It means turning our awareness away from the outer world to our inner world. We withdraw our senses by stopping, closing our eyes and finding stillness (pratyahara). We begin to bring our focus into one thing such as the movement of our breath or a mantra (Dharana). As we continue, we begin to find an inner state of peacefulness (dhyana) which leads us to moments of expanded bliss (samadhi).
Now most of us have only fleeting glimpses of what pure ecstatic bliss feels like, however, the yogis believe that disciplined effort can take us into these states more and more frequently. Sharon Salzberg said recently, "holding onto thoughts is like holding a bird in our hands. When we realize we're doing it, we can release our grip and let go of the bird". The same is true for thoughts. What can keep us from reaching expanded states of consciousness is that we hold onto thoughts and perpetuate their energy by going into the past or future or making a story out of it. When we recognize that we're holding, we can open our hands and let go. And we might have to do this over and over again, but when we do we experience the realness of the present moment and when we're in the present, it's easier to connect to the big picture.
Six of the chakras have bija (seed) mantras: Lam, Vam, Ram, Yam, Ham, and Om but the seventh chakra is silent (there is no sound in space). Another way to connect to the seventh chakra is by wearing violet and repeating affirmations such as:
I connect with spirit.
I invite sacred transformation.
I embrace the unity of all beings.
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