Let’s start talking about chakras! And why don’t I start in the first one?
As next Saturday the full moon will influence the meridian of the heart I thought it could be nice to know a little bit more about the fourth chakra: ANAHATA.
The heart chakra or 4th chakra is the bridge between the lower and earthly chakras and the upper and spiritual ones and it performs the step from ME to US. This transitional chakra is represented by the Star of David: two overlapped triangles. One triangle has the vertex down, making the spiritual energy descend to the material world and the other one with the vertex up is ascending the material to the spiritual world.
The basic principle of Anahata is the balance. What is balanced lives for long and the balanced relationships are the real ones. Only finding this harmony with ourselves and therefore with the others we will be in peace. Yet, as our heart is not static because it’s always beating, we have to think about a dynamic balance which changes with time allowing the person to move freely within the relationship. At this point we are synchronising the beating of our heart with the rhythm of Life and the Universe.
It is in this freedom where we find LOVE (yes, in uppercase). Because it is Love with no judgement, conditions or labels, approaching us to our neutral mind. Love is the expansive state of the spirit. It does not depend on anything or anyone (and here we find a difference with the second chakra that depends on the target of our passion). It is altruistic, compassionate.
If you stop to think about the words passion and compassion etymologically you will find this:
Passion: suffering (from the latin word passio and verb path)
Compassion: suffering together (compassio in latin)
Any time passion is not controlled in favor of human intuition, it will bring destruction; ninety percent of the time your pain comes from passion, not from compassion; and ninety percent of you have no intuition with your passion…
… Passion is not for others, passion is for you; compassion is not for others, compassion is for you. Be passionate for yourself, and be compassionate to yourself.
YOGI BAJHAN
Please do not misunderstand! Compassion is a capacity of understanding the others and their behaviour patterns, of walking in their shoes rather than to feel pity about them!
When the heart chakra is open and receives the energy from the lower triangle (1st, 2nd and 3rd chakra) we get to have a deeper ability to appreciate others. The auto-conscience is not limited to our own perception anymore. Then we really feel the other’s existence and the vision of ourseves changes. We expand and find spiritually because we know that we are not alone anymore and we are able to transcend suffering. When this chakra is strong we will see painful events of the past with compassion (and not passion) and we realise that we can really get over them.
ANAHATA REPRESENTS OUR RIGHT TO LOVE
In physical terms this chakra involves of course our heart. As I mentioned before, we should forget about this romantic concept of it. The heart is a tough chunk of muscle that works and serves the body at all times. It is the most continuously giving structure in the body. The heart teaches us about love through service, again compassion through Karma Yoga (doing the right thing in every moment without being attached to the results).
The lungs are also part of the 4th chakra because air is the element of Anahata: what is light, subtle, the oxygen that goes from our lungs to our blood nourishing every single cell thanks to the beating of our heart. Filling us with lovely Prana, the vital energy.
One other important but quite unknown part of our body that belongs to this chakra is the thymus gland. This gland has a crucial play in our immune system.
The thymus shrinks with age and so our defences. It is not causality that we feel a nice expansion in our chest with happiness but also a shrinking when we are hurt. Think how you get sick in moments of pain and stress because your defences go suddenly down and our heart chakra suffers a block. The extreme is Lupus disease that provokes an attack to the body by our own immune system, as a sign of lack of recognition and acceptance of oneself!
Another way to detect an unbalance heart chakra is through respiratory or vascular problems. Depression, lack of self-esteem, loneliness… or in the opposite side we can become so generous that we can even forget about ourselves are also signs of an unbalanced 4th Chakra.
How to balance this chakra?
Wear green, think green. Breath consciously, sing mantras or any music that you love or makes you feel great. Be grateful, pay attention to the energy that links you to other people without discrimination. Just do anything with your heart (walking, cooking, anything!).
Practice all poses for chest opening like camel, wheel, locust, fish, ego eradicator. Move your arms as an extension of your heart and feel your hands and secondaries heart chakras. PRANAYAMA!
Look for any kriya for the heart (I specially love the kriya for green energy and prosperity).
And always have in mind that heart opening is an experience that involves body, mind and spirit.
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