Within the West, subtle energy is explored through practices such as aromatherapy, mantras, Reiki, hands-on healing, flower essences, radionics, sound therapy, colour/light therapy, and crystal/gem therapy, to name a few.
Several models will be explored in the following sub-headings
Hindu Tantra
In Hinduism, the concept of chakras is part of a complex of ideas related to esoteric anatomy. These ideas occur most often in the class of texts that are called Āgamas or Tantras. This is a large body of scripture, most of which is rejected by the traditionalists. The chakras are described in the tantric texts the ''Sat-Cakra-Nirupana'', and the ''Padaka-Pancaka'', in which they are described as emanations of consciousness from Brahman, an energy emanating from the spiritual which gradually turns concrete, creating these distinct levels of chakras, and which eventually finds its rest in the Muladhara chakra. They are therefore part of an emanationist theory, like that of the kabbalah in the west, lataif-e-sitta in Sufism or neo-platonism. The energy that was unleashed in creation, called the Kundalini, lies coiled and sleeping at the base of the spine. It is the purpose of the tantric or kundalini forms of yoga to arouse this energy, and cause it to rise back up through the increasingly subtle chakras, until union with God is achieved in the Sahasrara chakra at the crown of the head.
There are many variations on these concepts in the Sanskrit source texts. In earlier texts there are various systems of chakras and nadis, with varying connections between them. Various traditional sources list 5, 6, 7, 8 or even 12 chakras. Over time, one system of 6 or 7 chakras along the body's axis became the dominant model, adopted by most schools of yoga. This particular system may have originated in about the 11th century AD, and rapidly became widely popular.
The central role of the chakras in this model is the raising of Kundalini, where it pierces the various centers, causing various levels of realisation and resulting in the obtention of various siddhis or occult powers, until reaching the crown of the head, resulting in union with the Divine. The methods on how to raise kundalini are generally secret, but a number of methods have been published, for example the Bihar school of yoga begin with a number of preparatory practices such as asanas and pranayama to purify the nadis, and then a number of practices and meditations specific to each chakra, and finally the raising of the kundalini through special kriyas, which terminate in the vision of ones causal self
Vajrayana (Buddhist Tantra)
The Tibetan theory of chakras play an important role in all the Highest Yoga Tantras. They play a pivotal role in all Completion stage practices ( as opposed to Generation stage practices ), where an attempt is made to bring all the subtle winds of the body into the central channel, to realise the clear light of bliss and emptiness, and to attain the 'illusory body' of a divinity .
The Tibetan system states that the central channel begins at the point of the third eye, curves up to the crown of the head, and then goes straight down the body to the tip of the sexual organ. The 2 side channels run parallel to, and without any space in between, the central channel, but they begin at the 2 nostrils, the lunar channel ends in the sexual organ, and the solar channel in the anus.
Along the central channel are positioned 10 chakras, of which usually 4 or 5 are expounded as being important. They are located in the following positions:
# Third eye between the eyebrows
# The wind wheel on the forehead
# The crown wheel on the top of the head
# The throat wheel
# The fire wheel between the throat and the heart
# The heart wheel
# The navel wheel
# The secret place, 4 fingers below the navel
# The jewel wheel on the sexual organ, near the end
# The tip of the sexual organ
The channels run through parallel through them, but at the navel, heart, throat and crown the 2 side channels twist around the central channel. At the navel, throat and crown, there is a 2-fold knot caused by each side channel twisting once around the central channel. At the heart wheel there is a 6-fold knot, where each side channel twists around 3 times. An important part of completion stage practice involves loosening and undoing these knots.
Within the chakras exist the 'subtle drops'. The white drop exists in the crown, the red drop exists in the navel, and at the heart exists the indestructible red and white drop, which leaves the body at the time of death. In addition, each chakra has a number of 'spokes' or 'petals', which branch off into thousands of subtle channels running to every part of the body, and each contains a sanskrit syllable.
By visualising a specific chakra, the subtle winds (which follow the mind), enter the central channel. The chakra at which they enter is important in order to realise specific practices, for example, meditating on the syllable 'Ah' in the navel chakra is important for the practice of Tummo, or inner fire, the basis of the 6 yogas of Naropa. Meditating on the 'Hum' in the heart chakra is important for realising the Clear Light of bliss and emptiness. Meditating on the throat chakra is important for lucid dreaming and the practices of dream yoga. And meditating on the crown chakra is important for consciousness projection, either to another world, or into another body.
In general, the higher tantras, starting with the Guhyasamaja tantra, are very uniform in their descriptions of the chakras, channels and drops. The Kalachakra tantra has a slightly different system, which also relates the chakras with astrology.
According to contemporary Buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku, the heart chakra is very important for the feeling of existential fulfilment.
A result of energetic imbalance between chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. That leads to looking outside for fulfilment.
When people live in their heads, feelings are secondary, they are interpretations of mental images that are fed back to the individual. When awareness is focused on memories of past experiences and mental verbalisations, the energy flow to the head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without nurturing feelings of the heart a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in the self reaching out for experience.
When the throat chakra settles and energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings.
Chögyal Namkai Norbu Rinpoche teaches a version of the Six Lokas sadhana which works with the chakra system.
The kye-rim (Tibetan) and dzog-rim (Tibetan) stages work with the 'chakra' (Tibetan: ''khorlo'').
Bön
Chakras, as pranic centers of the body, according to the Himalayan Bönpo tradition, influence the quality of experience, because movement of prana can not be separated from experience. Each of the six major chakras are linked to experiential qualities of one of the six realms of existence.A modern teacher, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche uses a computer analogy: main chakras are like hard drives. Each hard drive has many files. One of the files is always open in each of the chakras, no matter how "closed" that particular chakra may be. What is displayed by the file shapes experience.
The tsa lung practices such as those embodied in Trul Khor lineages open channels so ''lung'' (''Lung'' is a Tibetan term cognate with prana or qi) may move without obstruction. Yoga opens chakras and evokes positive qualities associated with a particular chakra. In the hard drive analogy, the screen is cleared and a file is called up that contains positive, supportive qualities. A seed syllable (Sanskrit bija) is used both as a password that evokes the positive quality and the armour that sustains the quality.
Tantric practice is said to eventually transform all experience into bliss. The practice aims to liberate from negative conditioning and leads to control over perception and cognition.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche teaches a version of the Six Lokas sadhana which works with the chakra system.
Western derivative models and interpretations
In the Western hemisphere, a concept similar to that of prana can be traced back as far as the 18th century's Franz Anton Mesmer that used 'animal magnetism' to cure disease, however it is only in 1927 that the shakta theory of 7 main chakras that has become most popular in the Western hemisphere was introduced, largely through the translation of two Indian texts, the ''Sat-Cakra-Nirupana'', and the ''Padaka-Pancaka'', by Sir John Woodroffe, alias Arthur Avalon, in a book titled ''The Serpent Power''. This book is extremely detailed and complex, and later the ideas were developed into what is the predominant Western view of the Chakras by C. W. Leadbeater in his book ''The Chakras''. Many of Leadbeater's views that directed his understanding of chakras were influenced by previous theosophist authors and in particular Johann Georg Gichtel, a disciple of Jakob Böhme, and his book ''Theosophia Practica (1696)'' in which Gitchtel directly refer to inner ''force centers'', a concept reminiscent of that of chakras..
Due to the similarities between the Chinese and Indian philosophies, the notion of chakras was quickly amalgamated to Chinese practices such as acupuncture and belief in ki. The confluence of these two divergent healing traditions and the common practitioners' own inventiveness have lead to an ever-changing and expanding array of concepts in the Western world. According to medical intuitive and author, Caroline Myss, who described chakras in her work ''Anatomy of the Spirit'' (1996), "Every thought and experience you've ever had in your life gets filtered through these chakra databases. Each event is recorded into your cells...", in effect your biography becomes your biology.
The chakras are described as being aligned in an ascending column from the base of the spine to the top of the head. In New Age practices, each chakra is often associated with a certain colour. In various traditions chakras are associated with multiple physiological functions, an aspect of consciousness, a classical element, and other distinguishing characteristics. They are visualized as lotuses/flowers with a different number of petals in every chakra.
The chakras are thought to vitalise the physical body and to be associated with interactions of a physical, emotional and mental nature. They are considered loci of life energy or prana, also called shakti, qi (Chinese; ''ki'' in Japanese), koach-ha-guf (Hebrew), bios (Greek) & aether (Greek, English), which is thought to flow among them along pathways called nadis. The function of the chakras is to spin and draw in this energy to keep the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health of the body in balance, and are said by some to reflect how the unified consciousness of humanity (the immortal human being or the soul), is divided to manage different aspects of earthly life (body/instinct/vital energy/deeper emotions/communication/having an overview of life/contact to God). The chakras are placed at differing levels of spiritual subtlety, with Sahasrara at the top being concerned with pure consciousness, and Muladhara at the bottom being concerned with matter, which is seen simply as crudified consciousness.
Rudolf Steiner (one-time Theosophist, and founder of Anthroposophy) says much about the Chakras that is unusual, especially that the chakra system is dynamic and evolving and is very different for modern people than it was in ancient times, and will in turn be radically different in future times. In contrast to the traditional eastern teachings, Steiner describes a sequence of development from the top down rather than the bottom up. This is the so called 'Christos Path' which has not always been available to humanity. He also seems to ignore the Thousand Petalled chakra at the crown of the head and instead cryptically mentions an Eight Petalled chakra located between the Ten Petalled and the Six Petalled ones. In his book ''How to Know Higher Worlds'' Steiner gives clear instructions on how to develop the chakras safely into maturity. These are more like life disciplines than exercises and can take considerable time. He warns that while quicker methods exist, they can be dangerous to one's health, character, or sanity.
New Age writers, such as Anodea Judith in her book ''Wheels of Life'', have written about the chakras in great detail, including the reasons for their appearance and functions.
Another unique interpretation of the seven chakras is presented by writer and artist Zachary Selig. In the book ''Kundalini Awakening, a Gentle Guide to Chakra Activation and Spiritual Growth,'' he presents a unique codex titled "Relaxatia", a solar Kundalini paradigm that is a codex of the human chakra system and the solar light spectrum, designed to activate Kundalini through his colour-coded chakra paintings.
Additionally, some chakra system models describe one or more Transpersonal chakras above the crown chakra, and an Earth star chakra below the feet. There are also held to be many minor chakras, for example between the major chakras. Chakras are also used in neurolinguistic programming to connect NLP logical levels with spiritual goals on the crown, intellectual on the forehead and so on.
Endocrine system
The primary importance and level of existence of chakras is posited to be in the psyche. However, there are those who believe that chakras have a physical manifestation as well. The author Gary Osborn, for instance, has described the chakras as metaphysical counterparts to the endocrine glands, while Anodea Judith noted a marked similarity between the positions of the two and the roles described for each. Stephen Sturgess also links the lower six chakras to specific nerve plexuses along the spinal cord as well as glands. C.W. Leadbeater associated the Anja chakra with the pineal gland, which is a part of the endocrine system.
Edgar Cayce said that the 7 churches of the Book of Revelation are endocrine glands.
The Spectrum of Light
A recent development in Western practices dating back to the 1940s is to associate each one of the seven chakras to a given colour and a corresponding crystal. For example, the chakra in the forehead is associated with the colour purple, so to cure a headache you would apply a purple stone to the forehead. This idea has proven highly popular and has been integrated by all but a few practitioners.Mercier introduces the relation of colour energy to the science of the light spectrum;
"As humans, we exist within the 49th Octave of Vibration of the electromagnetic light spectrum. Below this range are barely visible radiant heat, then invisible infrared, television and radiowaves, sound and brain waves; above it is barely visible ultraviolet, then the invisible frequencies of chemicals and perfumes, followed by x-rays, gamma rays, radium rays and unknown cosmic rays.
Understanding existence and physical form as an interpretation of light energy through the physical eyes will open up greater potential to explore the energetic boundaries of color, form and light that are perceived as immediate reality. Indian Yogic teachings assign to the seven major chakras specific qualities, such as color of influence (from the 7 rays of spectrum light), elements (such as earth, air, water & ether), body sense (such as touch, taste, and smell), and relation to an endocrine gland.
