Reiki - Chakra
05 May 2012
Reiki - Chakra
The concept of chakra features in tantric and yogic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Its name derives from the Sanskrit word for “wheel” or “turning”, pronounced in Hindi; Pali.
While breath channels (nāḍis) of yogic practices had already been discussed in the classical Upanishads, it was not until Tantric works, such as the eighth-century Buddhist Hevajra Tantra and Caryāgiti, that hierarchies of chakras were introduced. According to traditional Indian medicine, the chakras are a number of wheel-like vortices which exist in the surface of the subtle body of living beings. The chakras are said to be “force centers” or whorls of energy permeating, from a point on the physical body, the layers of the subtle bodies in an ever-increasing fan-shaped formation. Rotating vortices of subtle matter, they are considered focal points for the reception and transmission of energies. Different belief systems posit a varying number of chakras; the best-known system in the West has seven chakras.
It is typical for chakras to be depicted as either flower-like or wheel-like. In the former case, “petals” are shown around the perimeter of a circle. In the latter, spokes divide the circle into segments making the chakra resemble a wheel (or “chakra”). Each chakra possesses a specific number of segments or petals.
Texts describing the chakras go back as far as the later Upanishads, for example the Yoga Kundalini Upanishad.
Definitions
Although there are various interpretations as to what exactly a chakra is, the following features are common to all systems:
- They form part of a subtle energy body, along with the energy channels, or nadis, and the subtle winds, or pranas
- They are located along a central nadi, Sushumna which runs either alongside or inside the spine.
- Two other nadis, Ida and Pingala also run through the chakras, and alongside Sushumna. They occasionally cross Sushumna at the location of the chakras.
- They possess a number of ‘petals’ or ‘spokes’. In some traditions, such as the Tibetan, these spokes branch off into the thousands of nadis that run throughout the human body.
They are generally associated with a mantra seed-syllable, and often
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