1st Chakra Balancing – The Foundation for the Integrated Life

Published December 29, 2011 | By storyteller

chakra balancining

One of my abiding interests, and one which I have returned to in a unique kind of way, is the path of chakra healing. This path is a complete map of human and spiritual development. This path of spiritual growth brings balance to ones life through the integration of

Mind Body and Spirit
Sacred Geometry
Sacred Sounds
Colour Therapy
Numerology and
Levels of Consciousness.

The beginning of this process of integration starts with what is called the Root Chakra or the Muladhara chakra. This is where we all begin. We are all embodied in form on this planet of polar opposites. This is our foundation in this world. The body is the temple of the spirit and in order to progress to the higher stages of personal and spiritual development one must always remain aware that the body is to be honoured in the process of spiritual growth. Let me outline below the map that I will refer to as the Way of the Chakras. This is the way that brings chakra balance and chakra healing. This is a very broad idea outlined in words. This Way of the Chakras and way of chakra healing involves a lifetime and more spiritual of education. This is true spiritual education that invites the revelation of the Divine within human form.

There are seven main chakras. For each of these I will give the name by which it is identified in the West and I will also give the Sanskrit name by which the relevant chakra is identified by in the East. This Chakra Healing – a path of integration – will be outlined over several blog posts. The seven chakra system is outlined below.

The Root Chakra – Muladhara Chakra.
The Sacral Chakra – Polarity Chakra or Svadhistana Chakra.
The Solar Plexus Chakra – Manipua Chakra.
The Heart Chakra – Anahata Chakra.
The Throat Chakra – Vishuddi Chakra.
The Third Eye Chakra – Ajna Chakra.
The Crown Chakra – Sahasrara Chakra.

Very broadly speaking the first three chakras are concerned with the integration of the human personality. The last three chakras are concerned with the unfolding of the Divine within human form. The middle chakra – the heart chakra – is the bridge that connects the human personality with the universal. This is the real meaning and the intended invitation from the practice of Yoga. The word Yoga means to yoke – meaning to join. This joining is a paradoxical joining of the human with the Divine which in reality has never been separate. The movement of the energy through these centres (chakras) is a process that has been referred to as Kundalini awakening. It is not a practice that one should begin without a foundational understanding of the process involved and the risks involved. You cannot force your way into Heaven or into higher states of personal and spiritual development without proper preparation. To try to do so can, and has, lead to the damage of ones nervous system. In the development of the Way of the Chakras less equals more.

Chakra Balancing begins with the Root Chakra

Let us begin to examine this path of spiritual growth. We begin with

The Root Chakra – Muladhara

In the root chakra (Muladhara chakra) all is potential. It represents the experience of our every day life. It is the foundation of our earthly experience. It is our experience of being a body living within the dimension of time and space. At the beginning of our lives our spiritual endeavour is to connect to the body and be well informed within the true meaning of that word. It is our work to become grounded in our physicality. From a psychological point of view the root chakra is where the Self and everything that is Divine within us is asleep. We are in a very real sense the Sleeping Beauty within. Certain chakras have an element connected to them. The element connected to the root chakra (Muladhara chakra) is the earth. It represents the connection to form, to the body and to the need to have our feet firmly on the ground.

The person with a healthy root chakra might well live life from the following perspective. They are able to say no and mean it without feeling this as a threat to who they are. They can affirm their “I am.” They appreciate their body and give it good food, proper rest and are able to sense what it needs when it needs it. They are not obsessive about their body image and neither do they have issues around food such as under eating or over eating. The person who has a balanced root chakra is able to manifest into form what it is they they desire to create in the world.

For a person with a balanced root chakra the world they live is seen and felt, for the most part, to be a place of safety. They have been fortunate to be grounded in a warm and loving environment where their needs were met and their unfolding was encouraged in unique ways. Many of us do not experience the world in such a way and we can so easily be thrown off balance. We can lose our job, we can lose a key relationship. We can experience a crisis in our health. To support the expansion of our consciousness and to move into higher states of spiritual growth we need to work hard to balance and maintain the balance of the root chakra (Muladhara Chakra).

A person with a poorly functioning rook chakra might well live in the realm of their imagination and take little or no care for the health of the body. They take little or no exercise, live mostly in their heads, eat food that has no real life force within it and are not in any way engaged with the earth. This is, for the most part, the experience of the majority of the population of the Western world with its epidemic of obesity and disease associated with body image. It is a form of unconscious body hatred and is evidenced by a form of neglect of the body and in extreme cases results in taking the life of the body. A person with an unbalanced root chakra is an individual who’s sense of who they are is weak. They have difficulty in asserting the essence of the root chakra in the statement “I am.”

The way to begin to balance the root chakra is to establish a program of regular exercise, healthy eating, development of the senses and a proper sleep routine. It also helps tremendously to try and create a sense of safety within at last one area of your life. This is a place where, in a very real sense one can go to ground. One very simply and powerful way to begin is to do the practice that I myself do twice each day. I do this practice in the morning before I get up and once in the evening before I go to sleep. This is a simply yoga practice that has taken me into states of consciousness far beyond those of the everyday world. This is the practice called The Corpse pose.

Although it seems simple Savasana is a pose that has many benefits. Combine this pose with a guided meditation on chakra balancing and you begin to ground yourself within a real sense of “I am.” There is no requirement for you to become an advanced practitioner of Yoga. The problem for many people with this pose is the problem of simplicity. They want something more complex and more demanding. They feel that if it doesn’t involve hard work then there are no benefits. In the area of chakra balancing the tendency is that less is more.

You might learn your own chakra balancing guided meditation. However, if you have not done this practice before it might be best to acquire a guided meditation that you feel is suitable to your individual needs. Make this discovery of this guided meditation part of your personal development process. Take the opportunity to explore what works and what does not work for you rather than be told what might work for you. A guided meditation on chakra healing might not suit you for a number of reasons. The person’s voice for one thing might not feel warm enough. The words spoken might not be words that give you a sense of safety and an invitation to let go. The chakra meditation might include music when all you want is the sound of silence accompanied by the human voice. Try a number of guided chakra balancing meditations. Give each one enough time and remember that this is a slow and a subtle process. Remember too that sometimes, even often, things often get worse before they get better. Your awareness is expanding. What you were once resisting is now arising and being made conscious and is arising to be made whole and to be healed.

Another grounding exercise is journaling. It is the practice of honouring and authorising your journey of individualisation. To being with this practice may not be terribly inspiring but what is important is the intention and the action arising from such intention. You are not required to be an expert in journaling or writing. You are only required to be intent on honouring the revelation you are here to be and are here to be in order to bless the world.

Everyone needs to develop a strong root chakra. it is the foundation on which we are then able to move into the higher stages of personal and spiritual development. A simple way to being is with the practice of Savasana while listening to a guided meditation that you decide suits you best. Then you can begin to ground the experience by journaling about it and into his way authorise your personal and spiritual development in the unique way it is intended. Later this journal can be a way of reflecting on various aspects of your life in relation to exercise, diet and sleep. Later still you can include reflections on your dreams which can then lead to your living the life of your dreams. There are many ways to get grounded. Find one that works for you and try to stay with it for some time. This helps develop commitment and patience. The journey into higher and more refined states of personal and spiritual growth require these two essentials. The third essential is practice. This is the beginning of the ground work that leads to a balanced root chakra (Muladhara chakra).