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Anahata Chakra

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Created on Friday, 13 January 2012 02:35

Anahata (unhurt or unbeaten) is the forth chakra, a green ball of light located at the heart area. Anahata is the “yammie” chakra (its seed syllable is sound YAM) of love, kindness, affection, sharing, compassion, friendliness, forgiveness. If in third chakra, we talked of more superficial (though still very important) relationships with colleagues, class mates, partners etc., in Anahata we talk about parents, old friendships, life partners and children etc. 

On this level to have a healthy harmonious energy center, the most important thing is to truly love ourselves for what we are. This love does not mean loving ourselves for this or that, for certain achievements and victories; instead this love is unconditional. When we start working with Anahata we should, as Sogyal Rinpoche often says, instead of looking outwardly, start SEEING inwardly. We have all experienced it one way or another, by feeling quiet when looking at the sky, when feeling happy being on our own, when hugging someone we love and feeling tingling sensation in the chest, when helping a suffering being we did not know before, during meditation or yoga. Only after we discover and fall in love with our pure being, which is unconditional and perfect from the beginning, can we develop true compassion, kindness and love towards others.

When we do something out of love, like teaching yoga from Anahata, we want to share the gift of yoga with others. Just like in a pure relationship, two people will want to be together for the simple reason of sharing life, happiness, and also pain.  Marriages and friendships on this level are usually very deep long-lasting relationships of sharing, compassionate, affectionate people. In my life, I am very lucky to have met open-hearted people, with whom I feel at home, beautiful, strong and vibrant. And we do not have to meet very often to feel this connection; it is just there as it is profound, deep and quiet.

On the contrary, when the Anahata is over-active, people are almost suffocating us with their love and care, we feel as if we have to run away and hide. At first, this behavior seems nice and pleasantly surprising (it does not happen too often in our Manipura society), but later we can realize that the love that is poured onto us is not very authentic. Often such love has selfish reasons (e.g. person wants to be “love & light” always or a needy mother wants something from her child) and after a while it becomes a burden for the receiver. And for sure we have all met those with passive heart center, the distant and cold, who cannot express their feelings and love.

What I notice is that when one chakra is over-active, often the chakras just next to it will be underdeveloped. Think of a CEO of huge company, a successful businessman (active Manipura), for instance. Often these guys do not know how to relax and enjoy (Swadisthana), or if they go out, their motto is “work hard, play hard”. The result of this is most probably a heart attack by the age of 50. The same guys will have lots of difficulties to express their emotions and love, be open and kind (Anahata) even to their own children, all because in the hostile business environment their skills of sharpness and ruthlessness became hyper developed.

Anahata balance is very important nowadays, we should all find that pure space in our hearts and try to cultivate it. I find that here actually starts our real yoga journey. There are numerous masters out there who teach on this, like HH Dalai Lama, Amma, etc. or those, whose example inspires this energy center, like Mother Theresa or Anuradha Koirala (Maiti Nepal). We should follow their example and be very cautious of our motivations as we do not want to do good for the sake of boosting the ego.

Read me more next week on Vishuddha chakra and be happy, healthy and strong!