The 7 Chakras
In Meditation, you will often hear me refer to the chakras, especially when guiding in meditation. I will ask you to open your crown chakra, third eye, and heart.
I recently came across a newsletter from Alberto Villoldo of The Four Winds, where he described the shamanic belief of chakras, and I thought I would share the article with you.
For more information on chakras, check out “Chakra 101 .”
What are the chakras, how many are there, and how do they work together?
The chakras (a Sanskrit word meaning “wheel”) are swirling disks of energy. They spin three to four inches outside the body, rotating clockwise in the same direction that the spiral arms of the galaxy revolve. The chakras link to our spine and central nervous system and are a direct pipeline to the human neural network.
The descriptions of the chakras we are most familiar with come from yoga, but we can find references to the chakras among the Hopi, the lnka, the Maya, and many other aboriginal cultures around the world.
Shamans in the Americas do not believe in a division between the body and the spirit or between the visible world of form and the invisible world of energy. Whereas some schools of yoga might say that you are not your body, the shaman says that you are your body and much more.
Shamans know that the visible and invisible worlds permeate and suffuse each other; we are not separate from nature and were never kicked out of the garden. We know
that all matter is a manifestation of Spirit and infused with Spirit.
The chakras represent elemental human qualities. Rather than suppress our instinctual desire and passion, the shaman hones them into finely tuned instruments. I believe that fear is compassion in seed form. Heal the fear, and compassion bursts forth. The instinctual self must not become the enemy. Anger, greed, and lust are all hidden resources that can be transformed into love, clarity, wisdom, and courage. Everything in nature is holy, and every chakra holds the seeds of our illumination and who we are becoming.
Like the organs in the body, each chakra performs a unique function. Each chakra also has a unique frequency that we perceive as one of the seven colors of the rainbow. The chakras in a newborn child display their pure color, from red in the first chakra to violet in the seventh. As we grow older, the colors in the chakras become dull. The trauma and loss in our lives leave their toxic residues behind. The sludge that adheres to a chakra does not permit it to vibrate at its pure frequency, and physical aging is accelerated.
The Amazon shamans believe that when you clear all your chakras, you acquire a “rainbow body.” Each center vibrates at its natural frequency, and you radiate the seven colors of the rainbow. According to legend, when you acquire the rainbow body, you can make the journey beyond death to the Spirit world. You are able to assist others in their healing, and you can die consciously since you already know the way back home.
While the practitioners of yoga recognize seven chakras, my mentor, Don Antonio, taught me that we have nine chakras. Seven of them are within the physical body, while two are outside the body. He called the eighth chakra the wiracocha, which is the name of the Creator or Great Spirit (the word means “sacred source”). The eighth chakra resides within the Luminous Energy Field. It hovers above the head like a spinning sun. It is our connection with the Great Spirit, the place where God dwells within us. The ninth chakra is the Self that has never been born and will never die. This Self is prior to time and never enters the river through with time flows. It is prior to space and existed before the universe manifested.
