{Special Guest Post By Ilchi Lee}
How open is your heart chakra? If you are not used to thinking of your health in terms of energy, you may wonder why this question is important.
You can think of the energy in the body as the vital force that animates us. Chakras are energy centers located along the midline of the body. You might visualize these as energy vortexes that extend in front of and behind the body that interact with other people and things in the world. There are seven chakras and each one represents some facet of human experience. For example, the lower chakras deal with issues of sexuality, physical activity, and survival, while the upper chakras govern spirituality, imagination, and the intellect. Opening, balancing, and clearing all of the chakras are important for overall health.
The heart chakra, in essence, is all about love—the kind of love that is absolutely accepting and embracing of all things. Most of us fall short of this sort of unconditional love, and thus we have heart chakra blockage to some degree or another. Any sort of sadness, anger, resentment, judgment, bigotry, or hatred will block the heart chakra. If you watch a very young child, you will notice that human beings come into the world with very open hearts.
Yet, the experiences of life cause us to close down our hearts for the sake of self-protection. When we are judged very harshly, or are made an object of ridicule or hate, keeping the heart chakra open becomes all the more difficult. In such situations, we’re actually on the receiving end of other people’s heart chakra dysfunctions.
It is a perfectly natural reaction to close up one's heart in response to such circumstances, but you can avoid allowing such cultural dysfunctions to undermine your capacity to love yourself and others fully. By striving to keep your heart open, you can find great strength and true and lasting happiness.
Loving unconditionally with an open heart chakra is difficult to achieve; it is easier to focus on what you don’t like about a person or situation. However, without condoning hateful behavior, you can work on recognizing the divine nature inherent in every individual, regardless of the face they show to you. You can see the ultimate blessing in everything and accept and love everything within and outside of you. You can also focus on the love that you give to others, rather than the love you get from them.
Doing so is easier if you can be in tune with and feel your own divine nature, which is an ongoing life practice. Try this meditation that puts you in a mental space to feel your divinity. You may want to tap your chest with your palms or loose fists beforehand to relax the muscles there, deepen your breathing, and help your heart chakra to open.
Find a comfortable position, either standing or sitting without your legs crossed.
With your back straight and shoulders relaxed,
Concentrate on your lower belly
and bring your fingertips together in front of your chest to form a ball.
Through the fingertips, all organs are connected and all chakras are bonded.
Current flows through your fingertips and warmth greets each finger.
Your mind is truly at rest as golden light fills your hands.
Imagine another you hidden within the light.
You are there inside the golden aura of the cosmos.
Observe yourself floating in space,
as pure and unadulterated as the day you were born.
You are neither man nor woman,
without name or title.
Pure life is what you observe.
You are infinitely peaceful,
within a space inviolable to all,
a space of pure consciousness.
From this place of pure consciousness,
body and mind find harmony
and all memories of suffering dissolve,
returning you to the place of zero.
Body and mind become pure and clean
in this place of emptiness.
You return to the place of original being,
where your true shape is the purity of the soul that exists within you always.
Whenever you wish, you may return here to purify your body and mind.
You are a beautiful, unique individual that is destined to touch many other people during the course of your life. By challenging our culture’s boundaries about who it is acceptable to love, and keeping your heart open in the process, you are opening the heart of the entire collective consciousness. You know that great beauty that lies in your heart.
I would like to include a couple of lines from my recent book The Call of Sedona .
“We are individual flowers blooming on a single tree called Life. Because each flower makes the effort to complete its own unique color, shape, and fragrance, the whole tree of Life can emanate greater vital power in all its fullness.”
ILCHI LEE is an educator, mentor, and trailblazer who has developed many mind-body training methods including Dahn Yoga and Brain Education. He is also the founder of Sedona Mago Retreat and the author of thirty-three books, including the New York Times bestseller, The Call of Sedona: Journey of the Heart. For more information about the book, visit www.callofsedona.com.
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