The first chakra is Muladhara, from the Sanskrit mula meaning “root” and adhara meaning “support.”
Physical characteristics
This first energy center is located at the base of the spine, in the area between the anus and the perineum, and it functions as the support for the entire system. It faces downward – toward the earth – like an inverted funnel, and together with the seventh, it is one of only two energy centers made up of a single “vortex.” It is connected to all the solid parts of the body (spine, bones, teeth, nails), to the blood and cell formation, to the parts of the body in the pelvic area (anus, rectum, colon, prostate), and to its associated glands, the adrenals.
On an energetic level, this Chakra expresses the physical desire to “exist,” in sharp contrast to the will “to be” of the seventh. Its main function is tied to the physical body and, by meeting primary needs such as breathing, drinking, eating and resting, it enables survival. On a physical level, being connected to the adrenal glands, it enables the production of adrenaline and noradrenaline, responsible for regulating blood flow according to the need to respond to various external stimuli, such as changes in temperature, and all sorts of other needs.
Through this Chakra we connect to the Earth and to Nature: indeed, Muladhara governs the element Earth and the sense of Smell. Through the first Chakra we are connected to our life purpose, to our incarnation, and it is through this energy center that the consciousness held within the collective unconscious becomes manifest.
Its color is bright, vivid Red, like the Earth’s core and like blood, both tied to physicality. It is a very stable color, radiating neither inward nor outward, and it symbolizes matter. We know that chromotherapy acts on the brain through the hypothalamus, the central nervous system structure in our brain that regulates all the endocrine glands. All the Chakras are closely connected to these glands: indeed, just as there are seven main bodily chakras, there are just as many endocrine glands[1].
Its sense is Smell, the first sense a newborn actively uses. Indeed, animals tend to recognize each other mainly through smell, and through this sense they recognize the scent of Fear, that is, the adrenaline that is released through the pores when this primordial sense is activated.
Symbolic characteristics
It is connected to the sign of Aries, ruled by the planet Mars, which expresses primordial life energy, the energy of new beginnings, and the energy of the capacity to express aggression; it is also connected to the sign of Taurus, ruled by the planet Venus, whose energy is tied to pleasure, to what drives us to satisfy every instinct and need, and thus is the energy that connects us to the resources needed to survive — which is why it is linked to the element Earth that gives us stability — as well as the energy of possession and sexual pleasure, and also the energy of self-creative expression; it is connected to the sign of Scorpio, whose ruling planet is Pluto, whose energy expresses itself through unconscious attachment, transformation and renewal; it is connected to the sign of Capricorn, ruled by the planet Saturn, whose energy expresses itself through organization and stability.
The symbol used to represent it is complex, made up of a red triangle pointing downward – the female organ – enclosed within a yellow square – the element Earth – inside the circle that is the Chakra’s own symbol; the square thus represents the Earth, gravity, but it also represents balance and stability. It is thus connected to earthly energy: were this connection to be missing, we would find ourselves in a state of uprootedness, as if “the ground had been pulled out from under our feet”! Together with the square symbol, there is a lingam (that is, a phallus) with a golden serpent coiled around it three and a half times. The serpent symbolizes the Kundalini (kundala, meaning “coil” from “coiled”), described as follows by Christopher S. Kilham:
“In the world of yoga there is nothing more misunderstood, sought after, vilified, slandered, revered, feared and misconstrued than Kundalini, the primordial energy that animates us, the one Gopi Krishna calls <the seat of all spirits>[2]. “The potential of kundalini is immense, almost inconceivable. The practice of yoga strengthens the channels of the energy system and prepares the body to receive a more powerful flow of kundalini energy. Meditation, moreover, stimulates its activity, increasing its power. Yoga training of the energy channels and the mental preparation gained through meditation can allow each of us greater kundalini activity and a more intense circulation of energy…The wisest thing to do when kundalini begins to flow powerfully within you is to surrender to the new experience. Do not fight kundalini, do not obstruct it — it is more powerful than any force you have ever encountered… The chakras and the pathways of primary energy will be active and vital, opening more and more each day as kundalini grows within you. Know that the need to practice yoga and meditation comes precisely from kundalini: it is the force that pushes you forward, that encourages you to find new ways to purify the body and strengthen the mind…There are also certain typical somatic aspects that arise from an increase in kundalini energy, the most common of which is a sensation of warmth at the base of the spine. It is a sensation that can be very pleasant, as if you were sitting on something warm, and it is often accompanied by a strong sexual impulse”[3].
Although it is symbolized as a serpent coiled at the base of the spine, Kundalini is actually an active force in the brain that stimulates the Chakras, which is why it is defined as the primordial energy that activates Life Energy. It is thus a primary psychobiological force; it is the Energy that animates us, gives us life, and orients the body and mind. Kundalini is always active, powering the entire human energy system (through the three energy channels that originate from it: Sushumna, Ida and Pingala), stimulating a continuous circulation of Life Force by means of the neuro-hormonal hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad-adrenal axis.
Muladhara is represented by a Red Lotus with 4 petals, inscribed in gold with the last four consonants of the Sanskrit alphabet; inside the flower is the Grey Elephant with 7 trunks – the elephant is probably the most stable animal, and the one with the greatest presence on Earth today, and it also appears in the original chakra drawings found in the text “Yogatattva Upanishad” – a symbol of our stability, our firmness and our endurance.
The number associated with the First Chakra is Four, and this can easily be seen in the petals of the Lotus that represents it. There are four cardinal directions, four stages of human life, and four lunar phases. It is considered the number of concreteness, the number of solids, of matter, but also of logic, reason and orientation. On a practical level it acts as an “opening and closing,” a realization of solidity in reality, and it helps us unconsciously activate our ability to realize and express whatever is most stable within us, that which most ties us to our incarnation, understood as the “spiritualization of matter.”
The Crystals recommended for activating Muladhara are those of black or dark color, of any degree of luster or transparency. Among these we can mention:
- Black or Red Obsidian
- Black Onyx
- Pyrite
- Tourmaline
- Red Jasper
- Hematite
Psychological characteristics
Before going further, let’s clarify a few things: most of the time, psychological and existential problems arise from an inconsistency of awareness between “what we truly are” and what our “personality” is and how it manifests — a personality that is the product of ingrained superstructures (which we are forced to take as absolute) imposed by society, pseudo-culture, parental and school upbringing, and so on.
When this constraint blocks us, harms us, limits us on the path of our Soul — supported by the Ego that we needed to build — we produce what we call “psychosomatic illness,” which can range from simple neurosis to psychosis. What happens is that we no longer recognize ourselves; our survival system takes over and our balance goes haywire, making us believe we are “sick”: “I am inevitably driven to seek my true identity — not the fictitious one of the personality’s superstructure built solely through external reality — through inner searching, through deep contact with my Soul and with its true needs.” When this dichotomy exists, this conflict so deep — beyond everything we will see further on in relation to the higher chakras — our spiritual and energetic balance first, and our psychic and physical balance later, will inevitably be compromised! And for each chakra there will be a corresponding “somatic” manifestation.
This means that Kundalini, which is Intelligent Personal Life Energy, does not rise unless everything is ready! How could it, if the time is not yet ripe? It neither wants to nor can, because doing so would cause harm to the human being’s energetic and psychophysical organism! Mario Scardino, a wise and eminent psychotherapist, writes: “Only those who escape the labyrinth of superstructures can be happy…but only those who are happy can escape it!”
Let us now move on to analyze the psychological characteristics of the First Chakra.
The functioning of the First Chakra determines our health and physical condition, which is why, on the level of personality, it is the seal that determines the I Exist.
The demon of the First Chakra is Fear. It is the fulcrum of our existence — it is no coincidence that it concerns the energy center of grounding, stability, security (including financial), self-preservation and physical identity (also established through affiliation with societies, groups, etc., all of which represent an evolution of the age-old tribal congregation). Especially for this last reason (feeling part of a “tribe”), religion is connected to this Chakra, while spirituality is connected to the seventh, the highest in our physical body!
Fear is the true source of all our problems, the cause of our anger, and, ultimately, the opposite of Love! In shamanic therapies too, it represents the true “demon” from which one must free oneself in order to live an existence centered on stability, security, balance, openness toward ourselves, toward others, and toward the world around us, on availability and thus on Love. The greatest fear is not that of dying, but that of fragmenting into a formless de-structure whose characteristics are unrecognizable.
The primary Fears connected to this Chakra are those tied to physical survival, to abandonment by the group, and to a lack of purely physical organization. This is our starting Chakra; if this energy center is not well grounded, built on strong foundations, the entire structure above it will inevitably show deficiencies in stability, energy and endurance. Our feet must be fully in contact with the ground, to perceive “physical contact,” the connection with Mother Earth and the Energy that She radiates. In essence, our relationship with the first Chakra takes concrete physical form in the relationship we ourselves establish with our physical body. We begin to observe our body, at times without even recognizing it: but who am I? I need “to be someone,” to give myself an identity, a name, a role. If I do not recognize myself, how can I give a direction to my existence? Often, working on the first Chakra also means accepting, including and transforming the rigid “tribal” beliefs we unconsciously carry within us. The fear/demon that grips us is also that of perceiving that we “do not exist unless we are someone” on a social level, or at the very least “something” — but we must start from something! And the starting point is to feel that we belong to an idea!
For this reason, at this energetic level, the structural involvement concerns both the “tribe” and “religion” — the feeling of belonging to something, or believing that one does. And it is precisely “belief” that is the key to the whole system! Belief not as the antithesis of awareness, but of our fear, of our demon at this Chakra, understood as the coming into consciousness of what we unconsciously know and have always known about ourselves! As Mario Scardino states again, “The only certainty that man can rationalize is the delegation to belief.” This is because each of our mostly unconscious beliefs shapes and structures our mind, which, by formulating each of our thoughts that then translates into verbalization, creates — as stated repeatedly — the reality around us. The question, then, is this: why do we so stubbornly insist on believing the conscious mind which, as a famous phrase in psychoanalysis puts it, “lies shamelessly”? Lacking deep awareness of our true nature, our deepest true needs, and the nature and path of our Soul, we have no choice but to rely on our certainties regarding our first energy center, that is, on the foundation of our “structural I.” This, then, is the energy center on which our personality is built: the starting point for facing, with an “identity document,” the journey of our Soul in this vehicle, represented by our body-shell.
We know that everything is relative and that everything is in the process of becoming: nothing is static. So, where we are now, in the Here and Now, in the present moment, which is truly the only moment that exists, we stand astride what we have been and what we will be: to do this we must trust. Trust in something, whatever it may be, to anchor ourselves to and from which to set out on our “umpteenth” journey. This something, on both a rational and an atavistic, ancestral level, we find in the “group,” as an extension of our own identity — an identity built on the construction of “certainties” of truly being what one is! But are we sure we know “what we are”? In truth, there are very few certainties! They surely exist, but they amount to a handful of concepts, a truly small number of “ideas.” Right now I would like to be certain of what I am writing, but what is true in this moment is no longer the same in the next, because everything is absolutely relative, as Albert Einstein demonstrated more than a century ago and as the sages and enlightened ones already knew five millennia earlier. As a starting point for this inner journey, I would like, despite what I have just written, to list one fundamental certainty of the human structure relative to each Chakra considered, since it is precisely by thoroughly analyzing each certainty mentioned that one can recognize oneself in its opposite, represented by each of our previously listed demons. Man’s sense of security, then, depends on the certainty he has built for himself, on the opinion he has internalized about the world around him, and on how fully he recognizes himself in this conviction. The certainty of this first energy center is “I EXIST”, understood as the psycho-physical-character structure at the beginning of its evolution: in this sense, the verticality of the seven main energy centers arranged along the spine (not by chance corresponding physically to the spinal column, the structure that characterizes being erect and, at the same time, upright on one’s own path). Let us start from here: with excellent foundations one can build an immense skyscraper, but without them it will not be possible to build even a tiny, weak little house![4]
The main outcome of Muladhara, therefore, consists in the survival of our physical body in this incarnation, in the decision to live, to keep our feet firmly on the ground, to provide for ourselves and for our own “family or tribe” — a term that is not merely a synonym for family but is also an Archetype, one that carries connotations far beyond its conventional definition — and to express self-creative energy in “creating one’s own existence,” the prerequisites that lead to a stable, well-centered life, as well as the all-important foundations for all the other energy centers.
Through awareness of our incarnation and Grounding with Mother Earth, from whom we draw strength and stability, we are able to respond to our need for logic, order and structure, so as to orient ourselves “in time and space”: a vision that thus goes beyond the symbolic, since it is strongly characterized by our five senses.
The less grounded we are, that is, the less energetically connected we are to Our Mother Earth, to the Planet on which we live, and from which we should draw all the Energy of stability and connection that produces in us this sense of concrete belonging, the more we lead a life disconnected from being earthly beings, from that basic awareness our incarnation provides us, and consequently from our own body! Contact with our body inevitably passes through contact with Our Mother Earth. The “body” through which our Spirit expresses itself is the Earth. It is often thought that, in order to be spiritual, to be more connected with the Divine, with the transcendent, to be in Awareness and to draw on all the intuitions the Universe provides us, there is no need to connect with the material, physical, earthly aspect of our life: it would seem like a mere waste of time and energy. Nothing could be more wrong! If one is not connected to the Earth, to the material, the dense, to the earth’s surface, with one’s feet firmly planted on the ground, this strongly limits — at times totally prevents — the realization of what is called the “sky-earth channel,” that is, the energetic cylinder through which Light, Energy and Information pass from the Nous — our eighth energy center, thirty centimeters above our head, in complete and total connection with the Higher Consciousness — through us, so that we can direct and use them to our benefit and to the benefit of those around us. In practice, we can safely say that we human beings are like a battery, which without the connection of both poles cannot transfer electrical energy and is therefore completely useless. Our actions, therefore, are no longer guided by our Consciousness in perfect coordination with the Higher Consciousness, resulting in an evident and lasting state of dissociation. Our life purpose, our mission, is completely unknown to us: we do not know “who we are,” we do not know our path, and we do not even know why we are on this planet, in this physical body of ours: we are at the mercy of the forces of our “destiny,” understood in the most unaware sense we are capable of giving it.
Functional characteristics
When Muladhara is in balance (that is, active and centered-aligned), one perceives living a life integrated with the natural cycles of life, so that the alternation of phases of “activity” and “rest” can fully regenerate our energetic structure; the state one lives in is characterized by the achievement of every goal we set for ourselves, thanks to an unshakeable and absolute primordial trust that will finally make us feel the Earth as a safe place, capable of meeting all our needs – from food to protection for ourselves and our family, to abundance and financial security for our future –.
When Muladhara is not in balance, when it is unbalanced and disconnected from the other chakras, the personality sphere can display a heavy attachment to material possessions, an excessive search for security, and a sexual weakness that leads to a perennial and unaware dependency, as well as refuge in food and alcohol. The lack of balance in the first energy center induces us to exceed in an extreme desire for possession of anything that satisfies us in some way, often in both an impulsive and compulsive manner; it causes us difficulty in freely managing both giving and taking/receiving, to the point of suffering disorders related to constipation and being overweight. Finally, a form of imbalance in Muladhara greatly favors the compulsive tendency to keep oneself “safe” by establishing distance and remoteness — that is, separation — from others and from everything around us. This also increases the likelihood of becoming dependent on excessive egocentric behaviors and tendentially lustful attitudes that, in this case, become permanently embedded in our habitual structure.
The dysfunction of Muladhara (that is, its blockage) produces anger, rage or violence as reactive and defensive mechanisms of the “demon” of the first energy center, namely Fear. The terror underlying this mechanism consists of a deep fear of losing what provides us with a fundamental sense of well-being and security. Furthermore, a kind of disharmony in the first energy center also expresses itself through physical and emotional weakness, excessive worry and a strong sense of insecurity, a tendency to depend too much on others, up to difficulty facing everyday life — with depression, phobias or other psychological disorders —, a lack of consistency in what one chooses to do, and an inability to complete any project or commitment undertaken.
Tool for balance
It should also be noted that yogis have assigned each Chakra a special sound called the Bija Mantra, which represents the “seed-sound” best suited to activating each energy center. This special mantra, to achieve its maximum effectiveness, must be recited in Sanskrit. The reason, although often unknown, is very simple: even though the vast majority of those who use these mantras do not know Sanskrit, and so it would seem absolutely pointless to use this ancient, unknown, nearly extinct language to imprint a command or activation on the energy center in question — the immense benefit of each mantra lies not in its meaning but in the vibration or vibratory frequency of the correctly pronounced syllables. Each Chakra has a seed-syllable, the gem that contains the Chakra’s entire potential. Each petal of this gem emits its own specific sound. These petals correspond to the oscillatory frequency of the chakra’s subtle body. Muladhara has the lowest frequency because it has only four petals.
The Bija Mantra for the first chakra is LAM. In a standing position, stamp your feet on the floor, and mentally focus on the affirmations: “I am present, I am on the Earth, I exist, I breathe.” Bring your attention to the whole area around the perineum, Muladhara, trying to “become aware” of it and perceive it, and pronounce the Bija Mantra LAM, beginning to vibrate with its sound — thanks to the deep M. Visualize roots emerging from this area of our body, roots that descend down the legs and, from the feet, sink deeper and deeper into the ground until reaching the incandescent core of our Mother Earth; from there, visualize all the energy, warmth and light/color (that bright, vivid red, just like lava) rising back up to the feet and from there upward, moving your attention inside the body, observing the bones, the teeth, and asking yourself: “are they strong? are they fragile?” Continue on, entering through the anus into the colon, reaching the adrenal glands, and remaining in observation without judgment: “I trust, I trust life, I trust the Earth that supports me; I trust myself and I vibrate to the sound of the mantra LAM.” Then rise up, along the trunk and spine, the shoulders and arms, all the way to the fingernails. Finally, pronounce or mentally visualize the following set of affirmations:
“I trust, I trust myself, I trust life, I trust Mother Earth who supports me.”
If, during this meditation and its accompanying visualization, one actively focuses on a clear and well-defined intention, success will not be long in coming.[5]
[1] Author’s note. Endocrine glands produce hormones and, since they lack an excretory duct, release these hormones directly into the bloodstream. It is the bloodstream’s task to carry them to every organ. This process is vital to their function, since every organ or tissue in our body needs the chemical substances that only the endocrine glands are able to produce on their own.
[2]“I cinque esercizi tibetani – attivare i chakra e ritrovare la salute”, Christopher S. Kilham, TEA editori, pag. 47 [3] “I cinque esercizi tibetani – attivare i chakra e ritrovare la salute”, Christopher S. Kilham, TEA editori, pag. 49-50 [4] Everything regarding the first center is in contrast with the “will to be” of the seventh chakra: I AM. It is no coincidence that the spiritual path par excellence is that of returning to being, the path toward “ourselves.” [5] NB: for an in-depth study of the Chakras, we highly recommend “Il libro dei chakra” (Anodea Judith, Colibrì Edizioni); “Anatomia dello spirito” (Caroline Myss, Anima Edizioni); “Manuale dei chakra” (S. Sharamon and B.J. Bajinski, Mediterranee Edizioni).