What is Chakra According to the ancient Hindus?

The human body consists of 88,000 chakras, also referred to as continuously spinning or active energy points that act as portals to receive, interact and transmit life forces between an individual and his surroundings. Chakra is Hindu for spinning wheel. Of the body’s 88,000 energy points, seven are regarded to have major importance in the overall function of our being.

Although there is no common denominator between the ancient Hindu and Chinese cultures, they are very similar in their interpretation and explanation about the role of these energy points in our health and lives in general. Both the Hindus and the Chinese look at the body’s major energy points as playing important roles in our conscious and subconscious experiences. And that these seven energy points are the keys to a healthy and successful life.

Chakras are defined in various ways but there is one common thread among all of the definitions and explanations whether from the Chinese medicine point of view, the Hindu’s mystical understanding of an individual’s internal and external experience or modern psychology’s explanation of human our consciousness and thought processes.

The chakras’ unceasing interaction with our body and the environment even during our sleep gives them a direct influence over our physical structure and appearance including our bodily processes, health and our emotions. A glitch of any one of the major chakras is an indicator that something is wrong with our physical/emotional health which may directly or indirectly be noticeable.

The reason for this is because each of the seven major chakras is linked to a corresponding endocrine gland in our body. Any imbalance in the function of a chakra affects our physical and emotional processes and manifests a disturbance in the usual pattern of activity or behavior through the endocrine gland linked to it.

Maintaining the Optimum Functions of our Chakras Using the foundations of the ancient Hindus and Chinese’s understanding and interpretation of the functions of our body’s energy points, especially the seven major ones, we can safely arrive at the conclusion that not all our illnesses are viral; some are very likely related to the malfunction of one or all of our chakras. Physical symptoms of illness may not be present or minimal at the very least, but our feelings of discontent, stress, excitement are signs that something is wrong with us either on the physical, spiritual or emotional levels.

Forgotten or repressed emotional baggage due to traumatic experiences in the past is one of the major causes of chakra imbalance. Since most people have a habit of burying bad memories in their subconscious, we are unaware that these buried emotional toxins have an effect on our bodies at the cellular level. It is therefore necessary to come to terms with our emotional baggage and resolve them in order to maintain the proper balance of our chakra and heal our physical self in the process.

Advantages of Chakra Healing What most people are not aware of is that we have the resources to control and manipulate our energy points to our advantage. By knowing how to influence and manipulate the functions of our major chakras we can then control how they function so that we can achieve the benefits of balance and harmony, not only within us but with our surroundings as well.

Some people prefer to attend yoga exercise classes as the breathing and physical exercises used in the practice of yoga are beneficial to maintain chakra balance in the body.

One commonly used chakra healing method is through yogic meditation which enhances the ability of a person to relax his mind and body at will. Meditation is one highly proven method that promotes natural healing and relaxation techniques.

Despite the fact that we can see or touch our energy points, aside from the above there are other ways that we can keep them healthy in order for them to better support our body.

The human body has to be healthy and fed properly in order for us to have balanced chakras. There are foods that help maintain the balance of each of the seven primary chakras.

Root-type vegetables, protein-rich foods and spices nourish our root chakra. The sexual and creativity (sacral) chakra needs sweet fruits, nuts and cinnamon, vanilla, sesame and caraway seeds; the stomach/solar plexus chakra which is responsible for enhancing our self-confidence and self-love are can be nourished by eating breads, pastas, cereal, dairy products, yogurt and minty spices.

Our energy points that affect the heart and throat are sustained when we eat green, leafy vegetables, drink plenty of liquid, green tea and fruit juices.

By eating blueberries, grapes and drinking wine or grape juice, we help nourish our brow/third eye chakra which is responsible for making our third eye senses sharper and more attuned to our psychical abilities.

Our crown chakra, the center of our spiritual and emotional center needs detoxification through fasting and/or ritual inhalation of incense and herbs.

With these simple methods of influencing our body’s energy points (chakras), we are at the same time also influencing our physical wellness towards a more responsive way of life completely with our body and our environment. They are very simple ways but very effective at the same time in order for us to achieve a goal of physical and emotional wellness.