The Eastern psychophysiological system of the chakras
fills a gap in contemporary psychology, giving us a matrix that can be used
to classify energy needs that have been programmed into us as human beings.
Using the chakra system supplies essential vocabulary and reference points,
enabling us to recognize feelings within ourselves more easily. It provides
insight into how blocks in the energy system come about, helping us deal
with them more effectively. Awareness, the first step in processing, is
facilitated.
The chakras are energy centers but also may be thought
of as centers of consciousness, feeling, need, or experience. They are the
“drives” to which psychology broadly refers. Each chakra, or
center, as they are also known, provides a particular frame of reference
through which our personal perception of the world comes to us. As we grow,
we change our main focus from “lower” centers to “higher”
ones. Our view of the world changes, our level of consciousness matures,
we have a different experience. We develop the higher capacities of human
potential.
The chakras are where
our blocks are located
We all have at least a minimum of activity in each
of these centers, but certain ones will be strongly developed while others
will not, depending on the person. Because of our personal history of suppression,
we have conditioned ourselves to block energy from flowing harmoniously
through the centers. Reconditioning ourselves to allow energy to flow easily
through the centers is an important part of our inner work as well as that
of any psychological therapy.
The chakras are located coincident with the physical
body but are not part of the physical – that’s why they have
never been found by any scientist exploring the body. Being centers of energy,
they are located in what we might term the energy body. The energy body,
also called the astral, emotional, or psychic body, may be considered to
be an energy form identical to the physical body that coincides with it
but is distinct from it, with different characteristics or “rules”
of behavior, and which may even be separated from it under certain conditions,
including sleep. It is where our emotional sense of “I” is located.
In normal waking consciousness, we do not usually
sense the difference between the energy and physical bodies. Feelings and
emotions that actually occur in the chakras of the energy body are felt
as if in the physical body. For practical purposes, then, we combine the
two bodies in our work, referring to them as the body function, the home
of the feeling capacity. Hence, the emphasis on getting in touch with the
body as the route to feeling.
