There is no such thing as obligatory, automatic evolution! Evolution is the result of a conscious “conflict” that is necessary exclusively for the human being, by virtue of the fact that he is equipped with a thinking mind and a brain – which he uses at most at 18%, normally 5-7% – with a capacity for expansion of memory and its functions that is practically still unknown but potentially unlimited! Nature, in fact, has no need for evolution: it reproduces and survives, as long as the environment does not become extremely hostile, simply by “existing”. It is man – or rather his Soul Consciousness – who feels the need to evolve, who longs for evolution because he “knows” that it is possible. Indeed, it is “natural”! But evolution, as already said, is not automatic at all. It is in fact necessary to overcome those survival mechanisms which, while protecting the life of the human being in every way and to the best of their ability, on the other hand strongly limit his evolution, because it proves too complicated and costly, for the economy of the “human structural system”, to be able to fully step outside the comfort zone built and nurtured over a lifetime, through which he protects his “wounds”.
What is essential to understand – and this can truly make the difference – is that we are not, as we are often led to think, earthly physical beings who sporadically try to have a spiritual-divine experience, but rather we are divine entities, Soul and Spirit together, having experiences in this physical body so that they may evolve and return to the Source in more evolved and more complete conditions! Each of us is a cell of an Infinite Single Energy Body and there is no separation. As I said, we are Light, we are Energy, we are Information, we are Consciousness! Thanks to the Universe, the number of those – doctors or health consultants, psychologists or energy practitioners – who conceive of the human body no longer as a self-contained physical structure, disconnected from its surrounding environment, from the other than self and from the Field, but rather as a psycho-physical-energetic system connected to and embedded within a much broader spiritual context, is constantly growing, so that we can begin to consider “illness” as an energetic imbalance and, at the same time, a message from the entire “human” system communicating a state of unease, providing its causes and any possible resolving processes. As in Egyptian-Essene therapies, in Reiki, in Pranic Healing, in Theta Healing and in many other psycho-energetic treatment methods, it is the patient who is the fulcrum of their own healing, even though it takes place with the help of a therapist who acts as an energetic channel and therefore as a catalyst for resolution.
Arcangelo Miranda writes: “Jesus, as the I-Christ, states in the Gospel of Thomas: <<Split the wood, I am there. Lift the stone and you will find me there…If those who guide you say to you: behold, the kingdom (of God) is in heaven! Then the birds of heaven will precede you. If they say to you: it is in the sea! Then the fish of the sea will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and outside of you!>>[1] I write this because what is necessary to understand is that there is no difference between the Universal Higher Consciousness outside of us and Its Spark within us, between the awareness a human being can have and that of a bird or a stone, except in terms of evolution. Ultimately, even the stone has its own consciousness and is “God in that stone”. After all, “the stone knows it must be the stone!” This is its consciousness. It could not be so if there were not Someone within who created it! Arcangelo Miranda also proposes seven levels of consciousness, each of which relates to the activation and use of a specific area of the brain. The first three levels are of a dual nature. The first involves obtaining energy through fascination. The second involves obtaining energy through victimhood. The third, finally, involves obtaining energy through the direct manifestation of power. Consciousness at these three levels is fragmented and tied to the personality, which “involves behavior of overpowering others in order to obtain energy”[2]. From the fourth level onward, consciousness abandons its duality and detaches from its bond with the personality. Let us stop here for now; we will pick this up again later. Let us now suppose we divide the structure of our body into different “sectors”, certainly not in the sense of separation and discontinuity, but rather in that of the diversification of functions inherent in the “Human Structure”. These sectors could be, as a convenient form of illustration, likened to the well-known energy centers of Eastern philosophy called chakras in Sanskrit (wheel), as they have the form of rotating vortices of energy, which possess typical characteristics that energetically charge the human structure, allowing for physical life in function of a spiritual evolution, in terms therefore of the acquisition of awareness and resolve, as we have seen in the preceding lines. Ultimately, they allow for individual growth, inevitably passing through seven different stages of evolution.
There is a beautiful book by Anodea Judith, titled “Il libro dei chakra” which clearly and straightforwardly explains the connection of the chakra system with psychology – particularly Jungian psychoanalysis – citing this quote from C.G. Jung: “The unconscious is not, by nature, only evil; it is also the source of the greatest good – not only darkness but also light, not only bestial, semi-human and demonic, but superhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the term, “divine”[3]. I am very intrigued by the small chapter on “The Demons of the Chakras”, in which the author uses the term demon “not to indicate some kind of evil creature, but as a way of naming the counterforce that apparently opposes the natural activity of the chakra. (…) The presence of the demon prevents the chakra from doing its work, but that challenge also forces us to become more aware of that work, so that in the end we can do it better”3
I find it very interesting that, if we live unaware of what this “demon” is preventing us from doing, we unintentionally grant enormous power to it, and place an immense strain on the energy center in question, which “rows against us”. Only through awareness – but this is by now well known – can we manage to use any condition to our advantage, even the one that seems most disadvantageous to us!
Since it is a counterforce that challenges the energetic activity of the center so that it may develop, structure and balance itself, it is logical to deduce that there is a correlation between the development and maintenance of each energy center and that of the personality as well. Each energy center completes its development over 7 years, and the development of each energy center, within the broader overall development of the child, then adolescent, then adult, lays the foundation for the energetic structuring of the next one. Should this structuring be missing, it would influence or block the development of both the subsequent and the preceding chakras, given that, as we know, there is no separation at all: “Everything is connected” and this is preparatory to the functioning of the whole energetic (and physical) body, also, obviously, within the macrocosm that contains it; the microcosm and the macrocosm are two aspects of the same reality within what, in its unified totality, represents Truth.
History and origins
The Chakra system originated in India more than four thousand years ago; it is a profound representation of the Universe across seven main levels (eight if we consider the Nous, an energy center located 30 cm above the head), and the arrangement of our chakras represents the organizational structure we build for ourselves to face the world. They came to us in the West through the tradition and practice of Yoga, a discipline specifically studied and practiced to connect the individual with the Divine through the use of mental and physical practices that unite our worldly life with our spiritual one. It is precisely by understanding this inner organization of ours, this energetic structure – because it is indeed a matter of Energy, as chakras do not exist physically, that is, within the density of matter – that we are able to perceive the influence of all our needs, our perceptions and our psychophysical representations.
The Chakras are also called “seals”, since they represent doors that open automatically at the right time in relation to our spiritual evolution. The energetic spirals or “vortices” indicate the contrasting energies of the Psyche and the Spirit: impetuous energies contrast with spiritual energies, and all of them must come together until balance is reached. They are related to our endocrine glands, and through them they nourish all their corresponding physical organs with Prana (Universal Vital Energy, which is called by many names, including Ki, Chi, and many others, but let us remember that Energy Is One, whatever name is given to It). Their specific task is therefore to receive it, channel it and express it, and they take the shape of an inverted funnel (hence the term vortex). In this sense, chakras can be thought of as transceiver stations operating on different frequencies!
Their activity affects, besides glandular activity, also the psychophysical health of the body and its outer form, as well as our thoughts, our behaviors, and consequently our chronic physical conditions, which are nothing more than energetic imbalances. In relation to their location within the physical body, each Chakra is associated with a specific state of consciousness.
But that’s not all. Each chakra also has its own philosophical theory and, finally, an archetypal element that distinguishes it. The yogic path, through the practice of meditation, among other things, leads to the acquisition of increasingly evolved states of consciousness so that any of the imbalances mentioned above can be rebalanced. The Archetypes that distinguish the main chakras are: earth for the first; water for the second; fire for the third; air for the fourth; sound for the fifth; light for the sixth; consciousness for the seventh.
Except for the first chakra, which has its vertex pointing downward, and the seventh, which has its vertex pointing upward – therefore two vortices with a single vertical opening – the others have one opening in front and one behind: the front represents our “giving” in life, while the back represents our “receiving”. The term chakra literally means wheel or disc and is the term considered most appropriate by the yogis who coined it, to represent a rotating sphere of bioenergetic activity that expands from the main nerve ganglia into the spinal column, that is, the nervous-energetic tissue corresponding to the spine.
The chakras appear as a flower, specifically the lotus flower, which closes and opens more or less rhythmically, and whose petals vary in number. Each chakra, at its innermost part, just as flowers have a stem, possesses a small channel that connects it to the Sushumna, that is, the Central Channel, located precisely along the Spinal Column. Chakras rotate clockwise under conditions of balance; otherwise, they rotate counterclockwise, tending to close and no longer absorb the energies fundamental to their proper functioning.
We will now analyze, for each individual chakra, its specific physical, symbolic and psychological characteristics, exploring the theme of the demon and providing the mantra that supports its balance.
“The Soul is the individual expression of Spirit, and Spirit is the universal expression of the Soul” Anodea Judith
A “blockage” occurs when two equal opposing forces meet on the same plane. Since nothing can be eliminated but everything must be included, what one aims for in order to achieve the balance of that particular chakra consists precisely in the integration of these two forces. We could say that a chakra can be blocked fundamentally by childhood traumas, psychic programs installed since childhood, cultural conditioning, limiting habits that cause suffering, and much more, also on the physical level.
Anodea Judith writes in her book “Il libro dei chakra” (1998, Neri Pozza Editore, page 31):
“To unblock a chakra you need to act on several levels:
- understand the dynamics of that particular chakra
- examine your personal history in relation to the aspects of that chakra
- use exercises and techniques
- balance excesses and deficiencies”
If excesses or deficiencies exist, they denote the implementation of adaptation strategies absolutely necessary to compensate for an imbalance stemming, first and foremost, from traumas, from difficult contingent conditions that produce stress or fear, and which block the natural flow of energy in the specific chakras. All that is needed to make the energy flow freely again in these chakras is rebalancing: if energy is lacking, it is necessary to introduce energy; if, on the other hand, energy is excessive, what is needed is to discharge the excess. There are many possibilities for intervening in the rebalancing of these energy centers, as many as the levels at which memories can be frozen. It is therefore essential, often in order to achieve a complete and lasting balance, to intervene at multiple levels in order of perception and vibration. Depending on the degree of involvement of the mind (that is, of thinking) versus the heart (that is, of feeling), the various levels of intervention can involve, in order, psychoanalysis, Jungian psychotherapy or other derived forms, bioenergetic psychotherapy, family constellations, shiatsu, the various energy therapies oriented toward the subtle bodies and the aura, meditation (Vipassana, Transcendental, Mindfulness…), ThetaHealing, Reiki and many other forms of therapy.
[1] Author’s note: “LIFE I segreti della ghiandola pineale”, Arcangelo Miranda, Io Sono Edizioni, p. 396 [2] Author’s note: “LIFE I segreti della ghiandola pineale”, Arcangelo Miranda, Io Sono Edizioni, p. 397 [3] “Il libro dei chakra”, Anodea Judith, Colibrì Edizioni, p. 51