Guided Meditation on the Chakras

Nayaswami Savitri leads a 40-minute guided meditation on the chakras.
A resident of Ananda since 1975, Savitri is a Minister, Spiritual Counselor, Raja Yoga Teacher, and former Co-Director of the Ananda Meditation Teacher Training program.

If you enjoyed this guided meditation you may also gain insights from Savitri Simpson's book Chakras for Starters: Unlock the Hidden Doors of Peace and Well-Being.

Transcript

Nayaswami Savitri:

Hello everyone, I'm live Nayaswami Savitri. And I'll be leading you through some guided meditations, visualizations, and affirmations for the chakras. I'd like for us to begin, first of all with a prayer, please close your eyes and say this prayer if you would like to, after me,

Heavenly Father, Divine Mother, friend, beloved God

Great Masters. Jesus Christ. Baba Ji Krishna. Lahiri Mahasaya. Swami Sri Yukteswar. Paramhansa Yogananda. Saints of all religions. We lovingly bow before you.

Bless us as we meditate.

Fill us with wisdom, with inspiration.

Bring your light into our beings.

We are forever your children. Bring us home.

AUM. Peace. Amen.

 

I'd like to begin with a chant. This is a chant. The words were written by a great Indian poet named Rabindranath Tagore. When Yogananda came to the United States in the early 20s, he took this beautiful poem and set it to music. It's called “Who is in My Temple”, and it's about the chakras, which is our theme today.

It talks about the temple, which would be our body temple. It says all the doors do open themselves, the doorways would be the chakras, the spinning, whirling vortices of light within us. And darkness means our spiritual ignorance, which flies away when we begin to awaken and open the chakras. So, please join me. We'll just sing a few rounds of this chant.

 

Who is in my temple? Who is in my temple?

All the doors do open themselves. All the lights do light themselves. (2x)

Darkness, like a dark bird, flies away, oh, flies away. (2x)

Meditating on the Chakras

One way of going into meditation, a very interesting way, is working with your chakras. The chakras are whirling spinning balls of light located in various points in your body along a hollow tube of light called the astral spine. This is not your physical spine along your backbone but right in the middle of your body.

So, let's get used to feeling that first of all before we go through the individual chakras and see what they feel like and then meditate with them. Remember, a very important principle is when we were singing that chant, all the lights do light themselves. The light is the prana, or life force, which moves through the chakras. The chakras are actually made of this prana and light. But there's also movement or not movement, which causes some of our problems within our physical and within our emotional bodies. So, we're going to be moving prana through this visualization, affirmation, and meditation for the chakras.

So, first of all, set up very straight. When you're working with the chakras, you have to have a nice tall spine. So, if you're in a chair, sit away from the back of the chair. If you're on the floor on a cushion, just be sure the spine is tall because you want to visualize a hollow tube right in the middle of your body that runs from the base of your spine, right up to the center, not your backbone, but right up through the center of the spine, up into the head up into the crown chakra. There's a little detour here. It's a spiritual lie, but we'll talk about that when we get to that point.

So, close your eyes now, and let's get ready for meditation. And first of all, begin by feeling this hollow tube along which the whirling spinning planets or stars, is what they look like, the chakras made of light within the astral spine, the energy spine.

So, first of all, visualize this like a hollow tube right in the middle of your body, beginning at the base of your spine in the area of the anus or rectum, running right up through the abdomen, right up through the middle of your stomach, right up through the center of your chest, up through your neck, into your head and brain and up to the top of your head. This tube is made of light it's not form, but it's about an inch and a half in diameter if you could see it.

So, imagine it now and try to feel it a little better by swaying to the left and right with your physical body, just an inch or two, not much moving left and right. And every time you move your physical body, see if you can feel that astral spine, that river of light deep within your body. Now sit very still.

Remember to visualize the chakras as we go through them beginning at the first chakra at the base of the spine, as swirling, whirling vortices of light. We're going to try to take all the energy of each chakra and awaken it, purify it, and lifted up the spine to the spiritual eye for further purification, and unification with all that is.

So, take just a moment to locate the first chakra in the base of your spine. You can do this just a little better by squeezing the buttocks together very slightly to stimulate that part of your body and then relax completely. The first chakra is where we stay grounded to the earth. We’ll be talking about the chakras in relation to their elements. These are symbols in nature, which help us to understand how each chakra is different and how it stores karma and light. And what we do with all that energy in each chakra.

So, feel that first chakra now whirling, spinning in the lower part of your body. It controls your feet, your legs, your ability to walk, most of all to stay firm and grounded in the earth.

So, I’ll lead you through a guided visualization, now for the chakra. With your eyes closed, sit very still. Spine is tall. And imagine that you are a boulder, a large rock rooted deep into the earth. unmoving and unmovable. This first chakra has a rock light, quality, strong and firm. This is where our spiritual journey begins here in the first chakra. So, we need to get that foundation firm and solid. You might even want to imagine that this big boulder is sitting beside or in a river, and all the waters may be swirling around a bit, but it's unmovable. Nothing can change it. This is a wonderful attitude to have for meditation. When you sit for meditation to sit perfectly still, unmoving. When you feel that stillness, within the first chakra, relax it. Even though you're firm and strong, always relaxed the energy in each chakra so that it may be moved inward and upward.

Affirm with me now for the first chakra.

I am firm.

I am solid.

I am steadfast.

I am unshakably loyal to truth.

I am firm.

I am solid.

I am steadfast.

I am unshakably loyal to truth.

When I sit to meditate, I am completely unmoving. I am completely unmovable.

I endure all things with calm faith in God.

I endure all things with calm faith in God.

And one more time, softly, take the affirmation mentally and deep within yourself.

I am firm.

I am solid.

I am steadfast.

I am unshakably loyal to truth, unmoving and unmovable.

Now visualize yourself opening the doors of that chakra, letting all of its powerful and firm energy flow up your spine, right up that hollow tube up into your head into your spiritual eye, at the point between the eyebrows. Feel the purification and the great strength of the first chakra. Mentally chant AUM AUM AUM at this chakra, letting it flow offer itself into the great River of Life within you. AUM, AUM, AUM

We'll continue now up the spine to the second chakra. This is the water chakra. It's only an inch and a half above the first chakra. It's like their twin chakras and very opposite from each other. Whereas the first chakra should be firm and unmoving, grounded into the earth. The second chakra is creative, fluid, flowing. The great yogi masters say whenever we come to a river, a stream, a lake, or the great ocean, sit for a moment and meditate on the water element within yourself.

It's so beautiful and creative. never steal, always moving, always changing, it’s a good quality to develop in ourselves so that we won't get stuck so that we can grow and change and learn. But put your attention in that second chakra it's in the general area of your lower abdomen and the sexual organs. Just tense that area of your lower abdomen very slightly and relax it completely. Imagine that you're sitting beside a river now. Watching this beautiful ripples and flows swirling and churning. Let yourself walk into the river now. Just about to your chest and feel those waters swirl around you, even swirling through you, taking away anything that you wish to let go of in this chakra. Love it. Let it flow away.

Feel the beautiful water flowing around you and through you. I flow freely with the tides of grace. Affirm that either mentally or out loud.

I flow freely with the tides of grace

Wave of the sea dissolve in the sea.

I am the bubble. Make me the sea.

Our physical bodies are almost, are a very large percentage of water. Water, let's just be creative. Water lets us flow and change as we need to. Offer all the energy of the first chakra now into the second one, the one above it, and the two of them joined together and strength and fluidity. Offer that energy straight up the spine into your spiritual eye for purification. One final time for the second chakra affirm.

I flow freely with the tides of grace.

Nothing can stop me.

Nothing can hold me back.

I use my creative intelligence to move my energy inward and upward to freedom.

Mentally chant AUM, AUM, AUM at the second chakra, lifting its light again and again up to the spiritual eye at the point between the eyebrows.

Bring your attention now up to the third chakra just behind your navel or a little above it in the solar plexus area. Remember, a chakra is not a physical thing. It's a whirling and spinning ball of light. It stores our karma. It distributes lifeforce and energy throughout the body, especially the areas around that chakra. But when we work with the chakras, remember, they're a very holistic system. Don't just pick out one and work on it alone. Feel them all. Feel the light flowing from them and through them. Because this light is Prana. It's called Conscious Cosmic Energy, and it's intelligent. If you'll just make way for it to move and flow. It knows where to go and what to do to heal you and purify you.

Our attention is on the third chakra now, which is the chakra of fire, fiery self-control energy, great power, and vigor. Just as fire can purify, it can also hurt us if this energy is not flowing in the right direction with self-destructive tendencies or manipulation or abuse of others. This is a very powerful chakra and one that often needs a great deal of work. This is where we really begin our purification process in the chakras with the help and support of the first and second.

Build a little mental fire right in the third chakra, not a fire that will burn you, but a fire that will purify all your qualities and release the power of fiery self-control within you. This is the uppermost chakra of the first three it's the one which can lead us out of our human nature into our divine nature. Feel that fire burn now. Feel the smoke and flames rise up the spine, purifying, releasing, and relaxing the energy in this chakra and all chakras.

Feel the light grow stronger in your first, second, and third chakras as they strengthen each other in their own different ways. And mentally affirm now;

I cast all my thoughts, all my desires, all my past karma into the flames of love.

Purify me, make me one with Thee.

Draw the muscles of your abdomen stomach and slightly to stimulate this chakra Then relax completely relax your abdomen and stomach and let all that light flow up the spine, up the hollow tube, up the river of light, into the spiritual eye, for complete purification. Feel the great joy of this chakra as it awakens. Mentally chant AUM, AUM, AUM at the third chakra.

Now bring your attention up the spine into the heart center, right in the middle of your chest, a very beautiful chakra. This is the chakra of love, of emotional stability, of releasing all attachments and desires. It's the pivotal chakra, but between the first three, this chakra stands right in the middle of the chakra system. Between the first three chakras, which are the chakras of our human nature, and the upper three chakras, which are the chakras of our divine nature. It is here that we begin to move the prana strongly instead of outward into attachments and desires. To being ruled and motivated by our negative emotions, we change that energy into perfect devotion, unselfishness, unconditional love, and compassion. What a beautiful chakra it can be.

Put your attention there and draw your shoulders way back till your chest feels up and open. Relax your hands in your lap, palms upward. Keep the palms up to keep the heart open. Take a nice deep breath. Now inhale through your nose. Exhale through your mouth. Take your left hand and place it over the center of your heart, the right hand on top of it. See if you can feel the beating of your heart. Feel the rising and falling of your chest as you breathe. This chakra controls your heart, your circulation, your breath, or at least the ability to breathe, and also your hands and arms.

As you move your hands away from your chest now and place them in your lap, squeeze your fists together a few times to energize your hands and arms to feel all the energy especially healing energy in this fourth chakra, the heart center.

Also, imagine now, which is very true, there are heartstrings or channels of energy coming out from your heart chakra, little strings, little threads, or even big cords. They go out and attach themselves to people, to things, to conditions. I want this I want that. I don't want this. I don't want that. Every string, every thread, every cord, every cable has something at the end of it which binds us and holds us from our true freedom. The element of this chakra is air. It wants to lift up like a hot air balloon, but it's cabled and held to this earth by our likes, our dislikes, our attractions, our repulsions.

A very good visualization for this chakra is to first feel those attachments and then let them go. Take a big golden sword in your mind and slash through the cords. Slash through the cords, the threads, and everything, and let go or whatever is at the end of it. You don't have to think about everything in the world that you're attached to. But now let it go. Like little children's balloons filled with helium. Lift your eyes up and watch those attachments, desires, and all negative emotions fly away up into the air until they disappear and your heart becomes light as a feather. Lifted up, let the heart chakra now rise its energy, lift its energy inward and upward to the spiritual eye, the point between the eyebrows.

Let's say an affirmation for the heart.

With the sword of devotion, I slashed the heartstrings that tie me to delusion.

With the sword of devotion, I slash all the heartstrings that tie me to delusion.

With the deepest love, I offer myself at the feet of omnipresence.

With the deepest love, I offer myself all that I am, that I have, that I ever hoped to be, at the feet of Omnipresence.

Door of my heart, open wide, I keep for Thee.

Mentally chant AUM, AUM, AUM in your heart chakra and keep lifting that energy upward so, that all emotion may be transmuted into devotion and single-pointed love for God.

Let's focus now on the fifth chakra, whose element is ether. Going through the chakras again was more remember their elemental stages of growth and development.

Earth rooted and firm.

Water, fluid, and flexible.

Fire, self-control, and transmutation of energy.

Heart, devotion, love, genuine, compassionate love for everyone, for they are a part of you.

And then, the fifth chakra, the element is ether, like outer space, very ethereal, very much less form. You see we're getting more and more formless as we go up the chakras.

Tense and relax the muscles of your throat and neck a few times. Make the chord stand out on your neck to stimulate this chakra. To feel it better, place your left hand over your throat and your right hand on top of it. And take a little hum. Inhale, hummmmmmmmm. See how your hands vibrate. Do that again.

Remove your hands away, and let your mind go deep into your throat and neck and feel that whirling spinning ball of light.

How beautiful is this chakra of communication? The place where our brain communicates with the body, it must go through this chakra. And the place where our body must communicate with the brain. It also goes through this chakra. We sing we talk we laugh. But the great yogi masters suggest silence for this chakra because we all probably talk a little too much. It's good to be silent and feel yourself moving out of this physical body into the vast reaches of space.

Imagine yourself now not sitting here in the chair, on the floor, or wherever you're sitting, but moving outward into stars and planets and galaxies, comets whizzing by you and through you, no longer attached to this earth, perfectly calm, perfectly silent, ethereal in your nature. As you feel this chakra and it's great power and great energy, remember it’s silence, and it's calmness.

Mentally affirm now

I am calm. I am calm.

I am silent.

I expand my energy ever outward.

There are no limits to the power and energy of my being.

 My inner silence spreads like the ether throughout the earth, throughout the cosmos.

My silence, like, the ether, spreads through the atoms, the Earth, the stars.

I am calm.

I am expanded.

I Am One with All that is.

Mentally chant AUM, AUM, AUM at this fifth chakra and lift this energy with the help and support of the first four chakras of the little distance now into the sixth chakra and the point between the eyebrows.

We come now to, in many ways, the most important of all the chakras. The sixth chakra, which has two poles, the medulla oblongata, which is in the brainstem right in the middle of your head, and the spiritual eye, which is a reflection from its primary location in the middle of your brain. To feel this polarity of the sixth chakra a little better, take your left hand and reach around behind you and touch the medulla area. This is a little hollow at the back of your skull where it connects into your neck. The medulla is really a little further into the brain, but this is the general area. Now with your right hand, touch the point between the eyebrows. Remember that the chakra is a swirling, quarreling, spinning ball of light. It's not a thing. It's an energy center. This is a powerful chakra. This is the place of our enlightenment where all the light gathers and begins to release us and freedom.

Move your hands away from your head now unrest up in your lap. This is the chakra where we begin to hear the grave sound of AUM like a roaring bursting ocean. Take just a moment to cup your hands over your ears and see if you can hear the ocean sound.

Move your hands away from your ears now and lift your eyes upward. As though you're looking at a beacon of light on a mountain in front of you. If you can't see the light, imagine it. I'll describe it to you now. When seen in perfection, the spiritual eye, the reflection of the medulla, is a ring of golden light, like a great halo of light, also like a tunnel of light. Within that ring of light is a deep blue-violet tunnel. sometimes this color is called Indigo. It's a deep blue color. It, too is like a tunnel right there in your forehead. And at the very center is a tiny, silvery-white star of light. These are the tunnels through which we must pass to free ourselves to become one with all that is. This is the place of enlightenment, but this final journey cannot be made without the help and support and perfect purification of the first five chakras. Remember, they're there now in all their beauty and light, offering their prana to increase the flow of energy into the spiritual eye.

Go now into the deep tunnels. First of all, the golden tunnels stream out in front of you. Follow it along. It's like following a journey in your own spine, a brilliant golden light. Then feel the deep indigo-blue tunnel and go along that tunnel, going with great speed and moving into your own higher being.

And finally, the little white star, perfect superconsciousness, perfect Oneness with God, and all is. Squeeze your eyes tightly together now. Stimulate this chakra. Relax them completely. Relax your eyes and see those lights pass through those lights into perfection.

In Yogananda’s path of Kriya Yoga, we don't work too much with this crown chakra. It's at the top of the head. We focus more at the spiritual eye. But it's fine to know that that crown chakra, the thousand-petal lotus is there. This is our final destination. It's the place of liberation.

When we achieve full and final liberation, we will know that we first have to achieve enlightenment. Enlightenment, at the spiritual eye and through all the chakras. After that happens, a tunnel of energy will automatically open up between the six and seven chakras, and we'll find perfect freedom, samadhi, and oneness with all there is, never a need to work out any more karma or reincarnate, a free soul. This is our destiny. This is our potential. This is our greatest joy.

So, we will close our meditations on the chakras now with a line from Paramhansa Yogananda’s beautiful poem called Samadhi.,

 From joy, I came.

For joy, I live.

In sacred joy I melt.

Say this with me mentally, deeply.

From joy, I came.

For joy, I live.

In sacred joy I melt.

Meditate with me now, feeling all the light and joy of your awakened chakras.

To close our meditation now, let's send out the light of our own being and the light of divine healing outward to anyone you know who's in need of healing energy, also, outward to encompass this whole world.

Keeping your eyes closed, feeling especially your heart center, which is a center of healing, and your spiritual eye for broadcasting light and energy into this world, lift your hands up, rub the palms of your hands together until you feel heat and energy. Points your palms in front of you and chant AUM three times, consciously directing this energy from the depths of your being and from the power of God flowing into you and through you outward to the world

AUM, AUM, AUM.

AUM, Shanti, Shanti, Peace