Coordinates of Spirit

Our energy centers operate at subtle levels, invisible to the physical eye.

Yet they affect every aspect of our life, including our vitality, our creativity and our well-being.

In simple terms, you can think of the energy centers as receiving and sending-stations for the energy that flows to you, through you and out from you moment by moment.

Each center is like a step-down transformer that translates this powerful energy from Spirit to a different level of our being, nourishing body, mind and soul.

Each one has a unique part to play in the process of daily living and spiritual growth.

The seven major energy centers are situated at etheric levels of our being along the spinal column at the base of the spine, midway between the base and the navel, at the navel, the heart, the throat, the brow and the top of the head.

We have all experienced energy flowing through our seven chakras, whether we have realized it or not.

The energy of the base-of-the-spine chakra enables us to connect with the earth and nature and to stay grounded and practical as we master the day-to-day, physical level of existence.

Along with the seat-of-the-soul chakra, it governs our sexuality. Through the seat-of-the-soul chakra, we also receive our gut reactions and hunches and we liberate our soul to fulfill her life plan.

Through the solar-plexus chakra, our center of peace, we express and master our emotions and desires.

Our heart center inspires us with the compassion and generosity to be love in action.

Through the throat center, we have access to the tremendous power of will and the spoken word to create personal and world change.

Our third-eye center enables us to focus, see a situation clearly and tap into the highest truth.

And through the crown chakra, we engage our intellect, receive those sudden flashes of illumination and experience enlightenment.

The chakras are points of contact with dimensions of our being beyond the physical, and yet they mesh with the physical. They are coordinates, so to speak, of Spirit right within our own bodies.

The idea that the spiritual world is mirrored in the material world and in our own physical body is an ancient one.

“As is the atom, so is the universe,” say the Upanishads. “Within the pulp of a millet seed an entire universe can be found….In the pupil of the eye, an endless heaven,” writes Sufi poet Mahmud Shabestari.

And the famous Hermetic axiom states, “As is the great, so is the small; as it is above, so it is below.” In other words, the pattern of Spirit is indelibly imprinted within the very fabric of our being.

The world’s sages and healers tell us that as a result of our inner resonance with the divine, the power to heal ultimately comes from within ourselves.

Twentieth-century seer and healer Edgar Cayce, for instance, taught that all healing comes from “attuning each atom of the body, each reflex of the brain forces, to the awareness of the divine” that lies within each atom and cell of the body.

He also said that true healing can only take place once there is an awakening of the spiritual self.

Our body’s seven energy centers are the gateways to that spiritual self. When we understand how these centers work, we can work with them to bring our body, mind and emotions back into balance with our true nature.

Wheels of Life

The word chakra is Sanskrit for “wheel” or “disc.”

Each chakra is symbolically depicted as a lotus that has a different number of petals. The more petals the chakra has, the higher its frequency or vibration.

The ancient sages taught that the primal spiritual life-force (known as the Kundalini) is sealed within the chakra that is located at the base of the spine.

We can unlock that powerful latent energy through acts of love, service to life, meditation and prayer.

As the Kundalini rises along the spine, it activates each chakra along the way and causes the “wheel” to spin, the “lotus” to blossom.

The seventh energy center, the crown chakra, is known as the thousand-petaled lotus. When this center is fully opened, we reach what the Buddhists call enlightenment.

Statues and thankas depict the Buddhas, who have reached this stage, with an aura of fire around their form and a flamelike protuberance springing from the top of their heads.

Christian artists portray this attainment as a golden halo encircling the heads of the holy ones.

As each energy center “spins,” it emanates its own unique frequency and color that keys into one of the seven rainbow rays of light.

If we could see ourselves at spiritual levels, however, we would see that the light emanating from each chakra varies in its intensity and purity, depending on whether the energy flowing through the channel of our chakras is balanced or blocked.

The stronger and more pure emanations indicate a strong and balanced flow of energy.

The weaker and duller emanations indicate a blocked flow of energy at that chakra.

When an energy center is blocked, we can experience fatigue or health problems, emotional imbalances and lethargy. When energy is flowing freely through an energy center, we feel energetic, creative and at peace.

How to Use These Lessons

In today’s complex world, the integration of body, mind and soul doesn’t necessarily happen by itself. It takes conscious attention and focus, and an awareness of the personal initiations associated with the energy centers.

In these lessons, you will find keys that can help you with the ABC’s of developing your energy centers—activating, balancing and cleansing. Each lesson, devoted to one chakra, reviews the initiations we are called to master.

As an adjunct to your chakra work, you may also want to experiment with holistic techniques that take an integrated approach to healing. In our final lesson, we review some of the holistic therapies that deal with the physical, emotional and spiritual components of our well-being.

Each energy center is an archetypal matrix, and therefore each one correlates to different attributes, including a different color, part of the body, positive quality, spiritual tradition, musical instrument, and so forth. To help you attune with the chakras, we have listed some of these correlations at the opening of each lesson. Please note that sources vary on which parts of the body each chakra governs.

In the varied literature on chakras, you will also find differences in the way colors are assigned to the chakras. Some of this information is based on the work of clairvoyants, who can see the vibrations and colors with their “inner” sight. At times the colors denoted by clairvoyants and others may reflect the subdued or even muddied tones that can surround our chakras when they become blocked.

The colors of the chakras given in these lessons represent how these vibrant vortices of light would appear at spiritual levels if they were working at peak performance. We have found it important when meditating on the chakras to concentrate on the pure, original color patterns.

There is no magic formula to vitalize your energy centers. The beauty of life is that each of us is spectacularly unique. Like alchemists of the spirit, it is up to us to take the tools in hand and experiment within the laboratory of self. Fortunately for us, personal growth is a creative process and a sacred adventure.