Chakra
Chakra (pronunciation (help·info)) is a Sanskrit term meaning wheel. There is a wide literature on chakra models, philosophy and lore that underpin many philosophical systems and spiritual energy practices, religious observance and personal discipline. Theories on chakras fit within systems that link the human body and mind into a single unit, sometimes called the bodymind. The philosophical theories and models of chakras as centers of energy were identified through the mystical practice of yoga in Ancient India where they were first codified.
Working definitions
Judith (1996: p.5) provides a useful working definition for chakras:
A chakra is a center of activity that receives, assimilates, and expresses life force energy. The word chakra literally translates as wheel or disk and refers to a spinning sphere of bioenergetic activity emanating from the major nerve ganglia branching forward from the spinal column. There are seven of these wheels stacked in a column of energy that spans from the base of the spine to the top of the head. There are also minor chakras in the hands, feet, fingertips, and shoulders. Literally, any vortex of activity could be called a chakra. It is the seven major chakras that correlate with basic states of consciousness...
In other words, chakra are energy centers in the body located at major branchings of the human nervous system, beginning with the base of the spinal column and moving upward. Chakras are considered to be a touch point or nexus of metaphysical and/or biophysical energy of the human body.
Chakra are explained in different ways, depending on who is doing the explaining. In Chinese medicine, they are often explained in relation to acupuncture points. In some Eastern thought, chakras are considered to be gradations of consciousness and reflect states of the soul--these systems rely less on proof than on experience (under the assumption that 'proving' the existence of chakras is asking to 'prove' the existence of the thought process). A mystic may deal with chakra as a model for their internal and external experience, and when talking about 'energy centers', may be talking about subtle electromagnetic forces which connect to the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of a person.
Organisational constructs
As Bucknell and Stuart-Fox (1986: p.vii) concisely state in implying a dichotomy between Indian Vajrayana and Himalayan Vajrayana:
In the Vajrayana tradition, now preserved mainly in Tibetan sects, it has long been recognized that certain important teachings are expressed in a form of secret symbolic language known as saṃdhyā-bhāṣā, 'Twilight Language'. Mudrās and mantras, maṇḍalas and cakras, those mysterious devices and diagrams that were so much in vogue in the pseudo-Buddhist hippie culture of the 1960s, were all examples of Twilight Language....
History
Judith (1996: p.5) outlines that:
The chakra system originated in India more than four thousand years ago. Chakras were referred to in the ancient literature of the Vedas, the later Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and most thoroughly in the 16th century by an Indian yogi in a text called the Sat-Chakra-Nirupana. In the 1920s, chakras were brought to the West by Arthur Avalon with his book, The Serpent Power."
What is construed as the New Age movement, and to some degree the distinctly different New Thought movement, has adopted and developed the chakra meme.
Etymology
The English word chakra is derived from the Sanskrit cakraṃ चक्रं meaning "wheel" or "circle".[1][2] More generally, the term refers to circular objects or formations, and Apte provides 23 different definitions for cakram used as a noun. Examples include "discus" (a type of divine weapon, particularly associated with the god Vishnu), a potter's wheel, a form of military array, etc.
Bhattacharyya's review of Tantric history says that the word chakra is used to mean several different things in the Sanskrit sources:[3]
"Circle", used in a variety of senses, symbolizing endless rotation of shakti.
A circle of people. In rituals there are different cakra-sādhanā in which adherents assemble and perform rites. According to the Niruttaratantra, chakras in the sense of assemblies are of 5 types.
The term chakra also is used to denote yantras or mystic diagrams, variously known as trikoṇa-cakra, aṣṭakoṇa-cakra, etc.
Different "nerve plexi within the body".
In Buddhist literature the Sanskrit term cakra (Pali cakka) is used in a different sense of "circle", referring to a Buddhist conception of the 4 circles or states of existence in which gods or men may find themselves.[4]
Chakrology is a neologism sometimes employed by Alternative Medicine practitioners or esoteric philosophers for the study of chakras. There are many different chakrologies, some of them based on ancient Indian Hindu Tantric esoteric traditions, New Age interpretations, or Western occult analyses, as well as ancient Greek and Christian references.
There are numerous traditional and modern models of the chakra system of the human subtle energetic body. As the system is subtle, these differences may co-exist and be perceived as foregrounding and backgrounding different qualities or attributes for specific reasons or purposes rather than perceived as vying for ascendancy. That said, the bodymind is a system, refer systems theory and no chakra is supreme. Chakra work in dialogue and in relationship to each other and that is how Ayurvedic Medicine energetic interplay which is directly comparable to the human endocrine system and how different glands chemically signal and communicate to each other.
Hindu model
In Hinduism, the concept of chakras is part of a complex of ideas related to esoteric anatomy. These ideas occur most often in the class of texts that are called Āgamas or Tantras. This is a large body of scripture, most of which is rejected by orthodox Brahmins.[5]
There are many variations on these concepts in the Sanskrit source texts. In earlier texts there are various systems of chakras and nadis, with varying connections between them. Various traditional sources list 5, 6, 7, or 8 chakras. Over time, one system of 6 or 7 chakras along the body's axis became the dominant model, adopted by most schools of yoga. This particular system may have originated in about the 11th century AD, and rapidly became widely popular.[6] It is in this model where Kundalini is said to "rise" upward, piercing the various centers until reaching the crown of the head, resulting in union with the Divine.
This is the conventional arrangement cited by Monier-Williams, where the chakras are defined as "6 in number, one above the other".[7]
Atal Behari Ghosh presents the 6-chakra model but notes that "Opinion is divided as to the number of these cakras; some say that there are 16, and others that there are more."[8]
The Hindu sadhana of Laya yoga works with the chakra system.
Tantric model
The chakras are described in the tantric texts the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana, and the Padaka-Pancaka [9] , in which they are described as emanations of consciousness from Brahman, an energy emanating from the spiritual which gradually turns concrete, creating these distinct levels of chakras, and which eventually finds its rest in the Muladhara chakra. They are therefore part of an emanationist theory, like that of the kabbalah in the west, lataif-e-sitta in Sufism or neo-platonism. The energy that was unleashed in creation, called the Kundalini, lies coiled and sleeping at the base of the spine. It is the purpose of the tantric or kundalini forms of yoga to arouse this energy, and cause it to rise back up through the increasingly subtler chakras, until union with God is achieved in the Sahasrara chakra at the crown of the head.
The Tantric sadhana of Laya yoga works with the chakra system.[10] [11][citation needed]
Vajrayana and Tantric Buddhist model
According to contemporary buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku, the heart chakra is very important for the feeling of existential fullfilment.[citation needed]
A result of energetic imbalance between chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. That leads to looking outside for fullfilment.
When people live in their heads, feelings are secondary, they are interpretations of mental images that are fed back to the individual. When awareness is focused on memories of past experiences and mental verbalizations, the energy flow to the head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without nurturing feelings of the heart a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in the self reaching out for experience.
When the throat chakra settles and energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings.[12]
Chögyal Namkai Norbu Rinpoche teaches a version of the Six Lokas sadhana which works with the chakra system.[citation needed]
Bön model
Chakras, as pranic centers of the body, according to the Himalayan Bönpo tradition, influence the quality of experience, because movement of prana can not be separated from experience. Each of six major chakras are linked to experiential qualities of one of the six realms of existence.[13]
A modern teacher, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche uses a computer analogy: main chakras are like hard drives. Each hard drive has many files. One of the files is always open in each of the chakras, no matter how "closed" that particular chakra may be. What is displayed by the file shapes experience.
The tsa lung practices such as those embodied in Trul Khor lineages open channels so lung (Lung is a Tibetan term cognate with prana or qi) may move without obstruction. Yoga opens chakras and evokes positive qualities associated with a particular chakra. In the hard drive analogy, the screen is cleared and a file is called up that contains positive, supportive qualities. A seed syllable (Sanskrit bija) is used both as a password that evokes the positive quality and the armor that sustains the quality.[13]
Tantric practice eventually transforms all experience into bliss. The practice liberates from negative conditioning and leads to control over perception and cognition.[13]
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche teaches a version of the Six Lokas sadhana which works with the chakra system.
Chinese models
Traditional Chinese medicine also relies on a similar model of the human body as an energy system, except that it involves the circulation of qi energy [14][15], rather than a simple ascent as in kundalini yoga.
In the circuit of qi, called the Microcosmic orbit, energy also comes back down the front torso channel (equivalent to the nadis of Hatha yoga), and enters the tan tiens: when it returns to the heart (and cycles down and reascends to the head) further meditation/contemplation or union with deity develops [citation needed]. In Macrocosmic orbit the qi is also guided through the main channels in the limbs. [16]
With the front tan tiens (autonomic plexuses to organs/glands) branching from cerebrospinal chakras) and two levels of a vitality triangle on/in the back (spleen and behind a 'belly chakra/tantien', and by the arm-nadi branch) on the back, there are 7 (or 8) chakra spots outside the cerebrospinal nadis.[citation needed]
