Yoga Nidra to Connect to Yourself

The crown chakra was the focus for this week's classes.  This energetic centre is very much about finding your perfection, finding your truth, and finding your connection within and with yourself.  My ongoing journey has very much been about coming back to a connection with myself.  I will forever be grateful and indebted to my teacher David Goulet and my training at Pyramid Yoga.  This is where it truly began for me and where it was emphasized that there is no guru greater than the guru within.  David was there to give us the information, show us the techniques and have us experience what had worked for him, but if we discovered, through experience, that it wasn't right for us . . . . it wasn't our way . . . then we needed to let it go.  It was one of the first times I experienced a teacher and teaching that didn't expect me to blindly follow their way and their system.  I was taught and continue to follow the idea that things need to be experienced before I can determine if it is right for me or not.  

The 7th Chakra

mandala courtesy Sacred Centers, Anodea Judith

The first energy centre located outside the physical body – the crown chakra – is associated with awareness and consciousness.  Though it takes being aware of the physical body to reach this level, the 7^th chakra is not as concerned with the physical.  In numerology, the number 7 is the number of trust, devotion and a deeper connection to ourselves and to the life force . . . . all qualities of the crown chakra.  Working with this energy centre is about trusting what you know, searching for truth, both about yourself and about existence in general, and  becoming aware that reality is often hidden behind illusions.  Getting past these illusions is often the key.

“Sahasrara” is the Sanskrit term assigned to this energy centre, and it refers to the one thousand petal lotus flower.  This flower is a spiritual symbol in many traditions and often represents spiritual potential.  The lotus flower grows through dirty, muddy water and experiences much of its growth before it rises out of the muck to become a magnificent flower.  Likewise on our path to awareness, we go through heavy, dark times in order to become fully conscious of our light and magnificence.  This week in class, we'll draw our attention to this space that sits just above our head, and the potential that we hold physically through inversions.  For more information and work with the crown chakra, continue reading below.

This Is Where It Ends/Begins

The first chakra outside of the physical body is the 7^th chakra (also referred to as the crown chakra).  The journey doesn’t end here as there are more energy centres located higher up above this chakra, so there is continual energy flow moving upwards as well as energy moving back down into the physical form.  Like all things that seemingly end, it’s not so much an ending as it is a transformation.  All endings result in new beginnings. 

The Sanskrit term for this chakra is Sahasrara.  It is the only one of the seven major chakras that is located outside of the body, so it is where it all comes together.  By working on bringing all of the lower six chakras into balance we can more easily gain access to the crown chakra.  By bringing balance and awareness to all of these energy centres (which results in harmony and understanding of our bodies, minds and different areas of life), we can see how truly wonderful and amazing we are.  This is THE goal of the crown chakra . . . to help us identify our light.     

Movin' on Up

This week we are arriving at the top step in our chakra stairway.  Just because it is at the top, however, does not mean it is any more important than all the other steps that came before it.  We must be rooted and grounded in our bodies (root chakra) before we can start to interpret our emotions (sacral chakra) which will lead us to our passion and give us clarity on the direction we want to go (solar plexus chakra).  Once we have set our sights on our path, we can make decisions and lead with our heart (heart chakra) while we share our dreams (throat chakra) with those around us becoming even clearer on developing a picture in our mind (third eye) of where exactly we want to be.  The 7^th chakra is what brings it all together.  It’s almost like hindsight.  We now know exactly why things happened the way they did and why we had to go through certain experiences on our journey. 

I KNOW

Do you know your magnificence?  Do you know how brilliant you really are?  Can you feel that bright light shining within you?  These are the things that we touch upon as we make our way up to the 7th or the crown chakra.  The crown chakra is a bit different than our other centers as it is the first one that is not located within our bodies.  So, this chakra moves beyond form and is not so much about the physical.  It’s about awareness.  Knowing and feeling that “thing” . . . that spark that is in everyone and everything – it’s the very essence of our being.     

I Am Divine

“He who knows others is wise, but he who knows himself is enlightened” Lao Tzu 

As mentioned in the last post, our society and culture seems to be based on the concept that someone or something outside of ourselves knows what is best for us.  We rely on our society to tell us how to behave, on our government to tell us what rules we should follow, on our religion to tell us how to be moral, on corporations to tell us what to buy, on our doctors to tell us what medical treatment we should follow, on our friends and family to tell us what path we should take in life, etc.  I’m not proposing that we chuck everything and allow a free for all.  What I’m trying to illustrate is how maybe the decisions we think we are making for ourselves are actually decisions that are based on how we are told we “should” be living.  Have we really taken the time to get to know ourselves, to know who we are and what is best for us?  Or, is it easier to let those things and people outside of us tell us who we are and answer these questions for us?

Find Your Light

“It is not so much a matter of trying to get somewhere as it is removing the blocks to seeing that we are already there.  The goal is not to climb to the crown chakra as quickly as we can, thinking our journey comes to an end in some conceptual enlightenment, but to be as conscious as possible about the entire journey – to bring as much depth and wisdom as we can to each and every level” Anodea Judith 

Coming up past the crown of the head, we arrive at one end point of our chakra journey.  We reach up to find the crown chakra.  I won’t refer to it as the end as our energies are continually moving up and down, around and through all of our chakras in continual motion and action.  We can never truly arrive as the minute we feel that we have reached a destination, or learned a lesson or acquired some knowledge, we come to a new beginning with so many more areas to explore.