Chakra
A chakra is a meditation-aid in the form of a psychic or psychospiritual energy-center in the subtle body, as visualized in a variety of Hindu and Buddhist tantric yoga and meditation practices.
Medieval Buddhist texts from 8th century CE mention four or five chakras, while Hindu sources have various numbers. The best-known variant has seven chakras, as described in Sir John Woodroffe's 1919 book The Serpent Power, a rough translation of Pūrṇānanda Yati's Ṣaṭ-chakra-nirūpaṇa.
Modern Western Occultism views chakras as actual though esoteric energy-centers. This view arose in the 1880s with H. P. Blavatsky and other Theosophists, and was subsequently shaped by Woodroffe's The Serpent Power, and Charles W. Leadbeater's 1927 book The Chakras. Psychological and other attributes, rainbow colours, and a wide range of correspondences with other systems such as alchemy, astrology, gemstones, homeopathy, Kabbalah and Tarot divination were added later.
Etymology
Lexically, chakra is the Indic reflex of an ancestral Indo-European form *kʷékʷlos, whence also "wheel" and "cycle". It has both literal and metaphorical uses, as in the "wheel of time" or "wheel of dharma", such as in Rigveda hymn verse 1.164.11, pervasive in the earliest Vedic texts.In Buddhism, especially in Theravada, the Pali noun cakka connotes "wheel". Within the Buddhist scriptures referred to as the Tripitaka, Shakyamuni Buddha variously refers the "dhammacakka", or "wheel of dharma", connoting that this dharma, universal in its advocacy, should bear the marks characteristic of any temporal dispensation. Shakyamuni Buddha spoke of freedom from cycles in and of themselves, whether karmic, reincarnative, liberative, cognitive or emotional.
In Jainism, the term chakra also means "wheel" and appears in various contexts in its ancient literature. As in other Indian religions, chakra in esoteric theories in Jainism such as those by Buddhisagarsuri means a yogic energy center.
Origins
The word chakra appears to first emerge within the Vedas, though not in the sense of psychic energy centers, rather as chakravartin or the king who "turns the wheel of his empire" in all directions from a center, representing his influence and power. The iconography popular in representing the Chakras, states the scholar David Gordon White, traces back to the five symbols of yajna, the Vedic fire altar: "square, circle, triangle, half moon and dumpling".The hymn 10.136 of the Rigveda mentions a renunciate yogi with a female named kunannamā. Literally, it means "she who is bent, coiled", representing both a minor goddess and one of many embedded enigmas and esoteric riddles within the Rigveda. Some scholars, such as D.G. White and Georg Feuerstein, have suggested that she may be a reference to kundalini shakti and a precursor to the terminology associated with the chakras in later tantric traditions.
Breath channels are mentioned in the classical Upanishads of Hinduism from the 1st millennium BCE, but not psychic-energy chakra theories. Three classical Nadis are Ida, Pingala and Sushumna in which the central channel Sushumna is said to be foremost as per Kṣurikā-Upaniṣhad.
According to David Gordon White, hierarchies of inner energy centers were introduced about 8th-century CE in Buddhist texts such as the Hevajra Tantra and Caryāgiti. These are called by various terms such as cakka, padma or pitha. These medieval Buddhist texts mention only four chakras, while later Hindu texts such as the Kubjikāmata and Kaulajñānanirnaya expanded the list to many more.
In contrast to White, according to Feuerstein, early Upanishads of Hinduism do mention chakras in the sense of "psychospiritual vortices", along with other terms found in tantra: prana or vayu along with nadi. According to Gavin Flood, the ancient texts do not present chakra and kundalini-style yoga theories although these words appear in the earliest Vedic literature in many contexts. The chakra in the sense of four or more vital energy centers appear in the medieval era Hindu and Buddhist texts.
The 10th century Kubjikāmatatantra describes a system of five chakras which serve as the seats of five sets of divine female beings, namely the Devīs, the Dūtīs, the Mātṛs, the Yoginīs and the Khecarīs.
Classical traditions
Meditation aid
The important chakras are stated in Hindu and Buddhist texts to be arranged in a column along the spinal cord, from its base to the top of the head, connected by vertical channels. The tantric traditions sought to master them, awaken and energize them through various breathing exercises or with assistance of a teacher. These chakras were also symbolically mapped to specific human physiological capacity, seed syllables, sounds, subtle elements, in some cases deities, colors and other motifs.The chakras are traditionally considered meditation aids. The yogi progresses from lower chakras to the highest chakra blossoming in the crown of the head, internalizing the journey of spiritual ascent. In both the Hindu kundalini and Buddhist candali traditions, the chakras are pierced by a dormant energy residing near or in the lowest chakra. In Hindu texts she is known as Kundalini, while in Buddhist texts she is called Candali or Tummo.
The chakra relates to subtle body, wherein it has a position but no definite nervous node or precise physical connection. The tantric systems envision it as continually present, highly relevant and a means to psychic and emotional energy. It is useful in a type of yogic rituals and meditative discovery of radiant inner energy and mind-body connections. The meditation is aided by extensive symbology, mantras, diagrams, models. The practitioner proceeds step by step from perceptible models, to increasingly abstract models where deity and external mandala are abandoned, inner self and internal mandalas are awakened.
Subtle body
The chakras are part of esoteric ideas and concepts about physiology and psychic centers that emerged across Indian traditions. The belief held that human life simultaneously exists in two parallel dimensions, one "physical body" and other "psychological, emotional, mind, non-physical" it is called the "subtle body". This subtle body is energy, while the physical body is mass. The psyche or mind plane corresponds to and interacts with the body plane, and the belief holds that the body and the mind mutually affect each other. The subtle body consists of nadi connected by nodes of psychic energy called chakra. The belief grew into extensive elaboration, with some suggesting 88,000 chakras throughout the subtle body. The number of major chakras varied between various traditions, but they typically ranged between four and seven.The classical eastern traditions, particularly those that developed in India during the 1st millennium AD, primarily describe nadi and chakra in a "subtle body" context. To them, they are in same dimension as of the psyche-mind reality that is invisible yet real. In the nadi and cakra flow the prana. The concept of "life energy" varies between the texts, ranging from simple inhalation-exhalation to far more complex association with breath-mind-emotions-sexual energy. This prana or essence is what vanishes when a person dies, leaving a gross body. Some of this concept states this subtle body is what withdraws within, when one sleeps. All of it is believed to be reachable, awake-able and important for an individual's body-mind health, and how one relates to other people in one's life. This subtle body network of nadi and chakra is, according to some later Indian theories and many New Age speculations, closely associated with emotions.
Buddhist tantra
The esoteric traditions in Buddhism generally teach four chakras. In some Buddhist tantric sources, these chakras are identified as: manipura, anahata, vishuddha and ushnisha kamala. In one development within the Nyingma lineage of the Mantrayana of Tibetan Buddhism, a popular conceptualization of chakras emerged, arranged in increasing subtlety and order. The names of the four basic Buddhist cakras are derived from the four kayas : nirmana, sambhoga, dharmakaya, and mahāsukha, which correspond to four of the seven chakras in the Shaiva Mantramarga universe, namely Svadhisthana, Anahata, Visuddha, and Sahasrara. However, depending on the meditational tradition, these vary between three and six. The chakras are considered psycho-spiritual constituents, each bearing meaningful correspondences to cosmic processes and their postulated Buddha counterpart.A system of five chakras is common among the Mother class of Tantras and these five chakras along with their correspondences are:
- Basal chakra
- Abdominal chakra
- Heart chakra
- Throat chakra
- Crown chakra
According to Samuel, the Buddhist esoteric systems developed cakra and nāḍi as "central to their soteriological process". The theories were sometimes, but not always, coupled with a unique system of physical exercises, called yantra yoga or phrul khor. Chakras, according to the Bon tradition, enable the gestalt of experience, with each of the five major chakras, being psychologically linked with the five experiential qualities of unenlightened consciousness, the six realms of woe.
The Tsa Lung practice embodied in the Trul khor lineage, unbaffles the primary channels, thus activating and circulating liberating prana. Yoga awakens the deep mind, thus bringing forth positive attributes, inherent gestalts, and virtuous qualities. In a computer analogy, the screen of one's consciousness is slated and an attribute-bearing file is called up that contains necessary positive or negative, supportive qualities. Tantric practice is said to eventually transform all experience into clear light. The practice aims to liberate from all negative conditioning, and the deep cognitive salvation of freedom from control and unity of perception and cognition.