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Manipura Chakra

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Created on Monday, 02 January 2012 02:03

Mani (jewel) pura (city) is the third chakra, a yellow ball of light located above the navel at the stomach area. Manipura for me is the chakra of our civilization; thanks to its activity our capitalistic empire is flourishing. After taking care of our physical body, heath & home, making sure that we are having fun and enjoying life, we start establishing ourselves in the society. This chakra is all about asserting ourselves in a group, family, society; it is about building our fort or empire (“pura” stands for city). Thanks to Manipura we have got corporations, parties, unions, and countries that exist in our realm.

Motivations that drive us from this chakra are about gaining personal power and control, managing others.  In yoga world this results in patented yoga sequences, yoga styles, and franchising-like yoga studio models. I just recently have read about a law-suit of a yoga teacher against his very student for using the sequence of asanas, which the former has designed. This illustrates immense influence of the global Manipura excess on spiritual disciplines as yoga, very powerful energy that is! Certainly, this energy center is also related to money and wealth for yellow color traditionally symbolized gold (remember, “mani” stands for jewel).

To have a healthy activity in this chakra we need to set boundaries, know what we want and do not want in various relationships. Therefore, when Manipura is balanced, we are in control of the situations and our life, we trust ourselves and have a healthy self-esteem. Whereas when this center is under-active, we tend to be passive and indecisive, easy to be controlled and manipulated, do not get what we want in life (or even do not really know what we want).  We are an easy prey to dominative and aggressive manipulators, whose Manipura energy is in excess.

I find that in order to open our heart fully (Anahata chakra) some very important work has to be done on this level. For people with under-active Manipura this can be challenging as they will have to learn how to push back, not let others manipulate and control, and chose right people to relate to; but for those with over-active Manipura the journey may be much thornier. The problem here lies in the fact that in our society, over-active Manipura is a sign of success. People who can be assertive, manipulative and in control are considered winners, stronger and are respected more. And this is a huge trap for many as they can never relax, always pursuing win-lose path.

Since this level is rather challenging for many, I find that much attention is to be paid to this chakra. If we truly want to pursue the spiritual part of yoga, we are to settle thing down here as otherwise it is almost impossible to open up, love ourselves and love others.

Read more on next chakra, which is Anahata, in a week’s time.  Be happy, healthy and strong!