What are the chakras and what do they do in the body? If you’re like me, you’ve been curious and have easily found websites containing information about them. However, bits of story here and there are unconvincing. And the meaning and import of what chakras are and what they do remains vague in our minds.
The term chakra probably originated in the Indian ancient writings of the Vedas. At the time, the term chakra identified points of energy exchange in the body. In modern times and in the west, authors and healers adopted the concept of chakras to explain our states of health. Thus, books on many topics are paired with the term. A reader can choose between books (or internet sites) on chakras and food, chakras and psychology, chakras and acupuncture, etc. The list goes on.
Chakras Affect Wellbeing
To get better acquainted with the real meaning of chakras as energy points, I wanted to know the effect they have on wellbeing. I wondered how a center of energy could strengthen a person physically and mentally.
Chakra Healing Therapy is the first book I’ve read cover-to-cover on the concept of chakras. So, I hoped the book could reveal their nature, even if from a western, not necessarily ancient Vedic perspective.
Upon reading Chakra Healing Therapy, I found a well-written explanation of where our bodily energy comes from and how it can be balanced from a psychological point of view.
The author, Glen Park, who lives in Great Britain, has 30 years’ experience in therapy. She enriches each chapter with personal narrative on recent research. Her work with clients informs the therapy, along with the Alexander Technique, that she proposes for their bodies’ energies, their physical and emotional challenges.
Chakra Healing Therapy: Awaken Spiritual Energies and Heal Emotional Wounds.By Glen Park, 2020. Published by Destiny Books, a Division of Inner Traditions International, Rochester, Vermont.
In Chakra Healing Therapy, Park discloses the connections between the mysterious chakra or energy center and human consciousness. Using a basic palette of description, research, physical, psychological, psychic, and spiritual levels of awareness, she organizes these concepts to show a whole range of expressions about life. Her emphasis is on the inter-relatedness of all of the chakras.
In order to familiarize us with the location of each chakra, the author provides graphic illustrations from Indian, Hebrew and western healing traditions. As well, a color plate section illustrates where the chakras are located in the body and how they are represented in the variety of religions. Points of reference on the human body are given, such as the position on the spine (named vertebrae such as C7/T1 for Throat Chakra) and associated nerves and glands. Each chapter includes the chakra yantra (graphic symbol), Sanskrit name, English name, and general meaning.
Are Chakras Also Spiritual Nodes?
You might be wondering as I was, whether the spiritual aspect of the chakras would be approached as well? Are chakras indeed spiritual nodes or centers? The mysterious aspect of the chakras is their connection with the spiritual or unseen energy of life. Author Park includes this view of the chakras as an accessory to physical and emotional healing.
Three of the Seven Chakras are Foundational
The lower three chakras are foundational to life for human beings. They advance from birth through adolescence and support us as we develop into adulthood. These three are the base or Root, the Sacral, and the Solar Plexus Chakras. Author Park’s detailed account of child development in tandem with the energy of the chakra is revealing, especially for adults looking back on their childhoods.
Informed by physical needs and functions, the health of the lower chakras is dependent upon a happy childhood and the evolution of our brains as we learn to express our individuality and relate to others. Thus, research and findings in Developmental Psychology are presented in the text to show connections between our lives and the health of our chakras.
After the first three, the next higher chakras are energized by spiritual quest. Between the lower three and the higher three chakras, lies the Heart Chakra.
“The Heart Chakra is the Realm of Deeper Emotions”…
Glen Park, Chakra Healing Therapy, page 129
I think you’ll agree, the Heart Chakra has the supporting role in the health and wellbeing of body and soul. I sensed Park’s creative ingenuity in her description of the Heart Chakra. She combines its physical relationship to the other six chakras with her perception of the heart in love with the universe. The Heart Chakra invites us to cultivate the witness, the loving heart whose aim is to love unconditionally, as it, too, wants to be loved without criticism.
Whether formed from these desires, or initiating them, the Heart Chakra is at the center of our lives as humans. Healing energy comes from the heart. So, we can relate to the physical part with thoughts about “a sense of connection to all life” (page 129) and the psychic level of connection.
Energy to Envision, Manifest and Synthesize
Last are the chakras which help us envision, manifest or synthesize in response to the universe. These chakras are the Throat, Eye or Brow and the Crown Chakras. In each case, a relationship exists between the chakra and the Heart. According to Chakra Healing Therapy, the body makes use of a chakra’s energy to work in two directions, going up to higher chakras and also down. Thus, the more spiritually-oriented chakras have a counterpart in the lower chakras.
Park’s analysis of each chakra combines psychological research with exercises a person can do to activate or heal an energy center of their body. For example, exercises are geared towards matching the attribute of the chakra, such as meditations for the Crown Chakra, visualizations for the Eye or Brow Chakra, voice exercises for the Throat Chakra, journaling exercise for the Heart Chakra as well as revisiting the three lower chakras.
What I wasn’t prepared for was how easily the chakras can be mapped to the western views of psychology, western religions, and western researchers in human behavior. Chakra Healing Therapy is modelled on typically Western ideals, as it pairs eastern concepts with our notions of bodily energy. Finally, an approximate value for the term chakra is found in the western viewpoint of chakras and psychology.
There is room from the author’s point of view to attach more importance to the spiritual aspect of energy than we normally practice. Knowing this can lead to discovery, once barriers are removed. As well, the author’s genuine desire to enlighten us about relationships an area of high interest for all of us. She speaks about unconditional love and offers a view of the Heart Chakra that is hard to contest.
The seven chakras help clear up some of the mystery about how the human body functions and how it reacts to being, living in the world. A chakra has specific physical and psychological functions, and can even contribute to the happiness in a person’s life, and contribute a spiritual sensitivity as well.
Find more about the chakras and energy centers, here.
See more about Indian ancient writings called the Vedas, here.
