7 Things We’ve Been Getting Wrong About The Chakras

This article originally appeared on Yoga Journal

The chakras hold a lot of fascination for people. But there is a great deal of misunderstanding around them as well. Because yoga as we know it today has developed from many different lineages, schools, traditions, and practices, the term and the concept of chakras have been reinvented, misconstrued, diluted, commercialized, and taken out of context. To be sure, it's a rather abstract concept, so understandably vulnerable to misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

The term chakra refers to the wheel-like centers of consciousness in our subtle body. It comes from the Sanskrit, chalana karoti iti chakra, which means that which propels, causes, animates, and inspires movement. Chakras are prana or energy pools, whirling towards and eventually merging into the ocean of consciousness through our focus, intention, and mediation. As such, they are an important and powerful part of the practice--and worth our attention and study.

How can we deepen our understanding on this subject? Start with untangling myths about the chakras.

Here are seven things you may have been getting wrong about the chakras.

1. How to Pronounce The Word

It's pronounced chuck-rr(uh). The uh sound at the end is barely spoken. It's just there to support the pronunciation of the rolling R sound. It's not chahk-rah, shuck-rah, chack-rah, or shack-rah.

Sanskrit is considered to be the language of vibrations. And in this case, vibrations literally mean prana, so the language places a lot of emphasis on breath. When you are saying a word, you are making a very measured exhalation. So if we mispronounce chuck-rr(uh) as chak-raah, for example, we are prolonging the A, which means you’re prolonging the exhalation. This longer exhalation adds a unit of prana which changes the vibrational frequency of the word and, therefore, how it is experienced and understood.

As someone for whom English is a second language, I completely understand that sometimes exact pronunciation can be challenging. It’s okay. Even if we are not able to completely pronounce Sanskrit words as we hear them, at least at the back of the mind, the internal echo or the internal pronunciation is clear. That's important.

2. Those Rainbow Colors

Chakras are not actually those seven successive rainbow colors. Color is one of their aspects but not the only one. Each chakra is also associated with a bija (seed) mantra, a deity, and an element.

The association with colors is to aid in visualization during the practice of dharana (meditative concentration) and in other devotional practices and rituals. In fact, the colors change based on the context. For example, a chakra may be one color if we're focused on the element associated with it, but another color if we meditate on its mantra.

Seeking out “chakra-colored” clothes, jewelry, candles, crystals, or even foods won't awaken the mind to higher levels of consciousness or help us heal or detox or gain balance. Those benefits come from practicing all the limbs of yoga.

3. Where They Are Located

When we are trying to connect with the chakras, they are best visualized three dimensionally within the body. Not in the back of the spine, not in the front of the body, but as if they are suspended on a channel in the center of your body that connects your crown to the perineum. So when we refer to the third eye chakra, for example, generally we talk about it as between the eyebrows. But its three-dimensional center will be in the head somewhere between the ears. That would be the most appropriate place of focus and concentration. However, when you are just beginning to work with the chakras, it’s absolutely okay to bring your awareness between the eyebrows if that makes it more accessible for you.

4. Their Association With The Physical Body

When we think about the anatomy from the perspective of yogic texts or tantric texts, the physical body, the subtle body, and the causal body are not separate, but a continuum. The vibration or energy becomes more tangible as we move towards the physicality of the body, and subtler when we move towards the subtle body.

Without a doubt, the subtle body is related to the physical body, but I think the confusion happens when we try to make them equal. We cannot say that brain is equal to mind. We cannot say the mind is equal to consciousness. We cannot say breath is equal to prana. In the same light, plexuses are not equal to the chakras. One is more of a physical concept and one is more of a subtle concept.

Plexuses are places in the body where a lot of nerves meet, and nerves are sometimes associated with nadis, but what flows in our nadis is prana. Nerves carry electrical or chemical impulses. Prana is a subtler content that flows in the subtle body. The two are completely different.

So, yes, the solar plexus is related to manipura chakra in terms of the region of the body where it resides, but the solar plexus is not the same as or equal to manipura chakra.

And here’s the thing: All plexuses are associated with all chakras. We say chakras are energy centers, but they may be more specifically described as spaces of awareness for our centers of consciousness. All chakras are connected to the entire body through the pathways of prana. So we can say everything in the physical body is connected to all chakras.

5. How Many Chakras There Are

There are so many different texts--yogic, tantric, and others--and each talks about chakras in a different light. For example, some texts consider chakras to be void spaces; others describe them as one inside the other. Different schools of thought teach that there are 14 or 21 or even 114 chakras, not just the seven. But in each text, the significance of the chakras is the same. Our connection with them helps us reach the state of yogaha, sometimes described as completeness or wholeness. It is that state of oneness and noneness and everythingness and nothingness. Yogaha is the result or consequence of yoga practice; yoga is the method, means, or technique.

6. How Mantras Are Associated With Chakras

Mantra chanting is either the vocalization or internal memorization of certain syllables. Those syllables are tied together like a string of beads--a japa mala--connected by the thread of prana. Mantra is the most ancient form of pranayama. When you are chanting a mantra aloud, each syllable is produced from a different place--the vocal cords, the back of the throat, the lips coming together, the tongue touching the back of the upper teeth. The organs of speech shape and mold and fold the prana before those syllables are uttered externally-even when we may be only contemplating upon or visualizing a mantra. And that prana resides in the chakras.

Each of the chakra regions is associated with certain padmas (petals). And each petal is associated with a very specific bija akshara, a seed sound derived from a syllable such as lung, shrim, ram, ham, and others. When you recite mantras, it's almost like working with the keys of a piano or the strings of a musical instrument. Every time we recite a mantra, we are pressing those keys at different places. And as we do that, the prana gets amplified, fine-tuned, or directed in a certain way.

Some people think of chanting mantras as a way to clear the chakras. But rather than describe mantra as a means of cleansing the chakras themselves, instead, think of working with mantras as a way to cleanse your mind or emotions. You would not be strengthening the chakras, but strengthening your connection to these internal focal points. There is a difference. There is also a difference when you say cleansing the chakras versus cleansing the mind or cleansing the emotions. When you are clearing and strengthening your connection and addressing your emotions, you are slowly coming to the point of centering, stillness, and inner calm.

7. Avoiding Chakra Talk In Yoga Class

How can we not talk about one of the most important elements of yoga? The language of yoga is not just biceps and triceps--although there's no denying they are a part of the practice. But yoga also includes working with the chakras as well as the nadis, prana, mind, vrittis, doshas.

If we are going to address these concepts in class, though, it's important that we are comfortable with them. If we just memorize some terms and regurgitate them, it shows. We can more comfortably, confidently, and clearly share what we have learned about chakras when we speak from a place of experiential understanding. So spend time with yoga and become comfortable with its language. It is important to find a trusted teacher and follow a path so your study doesn’t become a mish-mash without any concrete direction. As my teacher Shashi Khoshla says, "Yoga is not to be done; it is to be explored and realized."

Ultimately, yoga is not just the practice of asana, pranayama, mudra, bandhas, etc. Everything is yoga. When your whole life is yoga, it becomes living, embodied practice and state. Seek that yoga in yoga.

For more information on chakras, watch Indu Arora's Instagram Live Q&A.

About our contributor

Indu Arora is a yoga and Ayurveda teacher and the author of three books about yoga. She teaches and mentors other yoga teachers, but calls herself "a student of a lifetime." She will offer a 50-hour session called "Laya Yoga of Chakras" starting April 21.

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