Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

understanding does not sound threatening, like awakening a mystic serpent in the spine, but it is essentially the same thing. As we have seen, power is neither good nor bad, but can be manifested or used in either direction. Releasing energy from the atom, or even by burning wood, is an example of the same kind of process—freeing latent energies. Fire from wood can be used to cook our food or burn down our house. Used intelligently, it is quite safe. To awaken our potential fully, we must give attention to all the levels of consciousness being described in the chakra mapping. This essentially is the message of this map of the subtle body.
    Understanding this subtle body mapping can aid in balancing our lives. There are people who “test” chakras and others who “read” chakras. This practice is sometimes possible and might be helpful, but we do not need to use a pendulum or a psychic to know ourselves. With self-observation and reflection, we can learn to discern whether we are grounded, whether we are balanced in our physical and material lives, if our sensual and sexual energies are off, if our love channels are closed and need attention, or if we have lost our spiritual connection. Some teachers speak of mechanical methods of opening chakras and their associated levels of consciousness. These methods may have some use, but are not complete in themselves. For example, to develop the throat chakra, the communication center, some people use certain postures, breathing exercises, sounds, or even crystals, but we must also learn to communicate and express ourselves in social contexts. Or, if sexual energies are blocked, certain postures, breathing techniques, and chants may be of some help and aid in focusing, but we will still have to work directly on the issues causing the problem. The chakras can be an outline, a metaphor, or perhaps a barometer guiding toward wholeness, but no map is ever the terrain, and we must always walk the actual ground of experience to reach insight and understanding.

Chakras and Levels of Being
    The chakras not only represent mysterious esoteric qualities, but actual levels of being in all aspects of life and in all areas of experience. The first chakra, the earth center, corresponds to the physical, material levelof life. It is located in the sacrum, where we sit on the earth and where our bowels move earth out of our bodies. Being “grounded,” keeping our “earthly” needs of food, clothing, shelter, and finances in order, relate to this center. No matter how high we get on the spiral of energy and awareness, we must always stay grounded back to the earth. We must have a connection or grounding and outlet for the higher levels of energy for which we become a conduit. Grounding implies keeping our lives in order on the earth plane within our bodies, our livelihood, and our relationships.
    The second chakra, or water center, located a little farther up the spine in the area of the bladder, ovaries, or prostate, is the center of sensation, sensuality, and reproduction. Reproduction is an activity involving an exchange of fluids and swimming cells. Balancing this center involves harmonizing our sensual and sexual energies. The third center is the fire center of power, intention, will, and force. It is located at the center of gravity in the body near the level of the navel and corresponds to the digestive fire and solar plexus. This is the place where fire burns in the body, where our personal power resides.
    These first three chakras, the lower centers, are considered centers of our basest powers. This is because if we function without being informed by higher qualities of love and awareness, we may be selfish, immature, or even violent. We may be motivated solely for power, sensation, or acquisition. The power center can dominate the sexual or earth levels. Working with this level involves balancing personal power. Power, we know, has an enormous potential to corrupt. The more power we have, the more self-examination and introspection we need to have integrity with the potential of that power. Similarly, the more power someone outside of ourselves has, the more scrupulous and watchful we must be in questioning and critiquing that person.
    The fourth wheel of energy, the heart or air center, corresponds to the lungs and heart in the body. Opening this center implies the awakening of love and compassion. The heart and chest area are where webreathe and feel love, spirit, and