General questions about chakras

07.Discussions on AYP Pranayama, Mudras + Bandhas
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Dear forum,

forgive me for asking something about a quite general subject someone can read a lot about, even here on AYP with Plus subscribtion, but I don’t have one, and in order to move forward on that topic, I found it best to directly ask here. Also, not sure where to post this, but I think chakras are most closely associated with the pranamaya kosha, our energy body, and this is the pranayama section…

Chakras are without a doubt a central element in tantric pracitises, and since tantra also influenced certain physical yoga styles, Hatha Yoga as well. But I think the concept has gotten overloaded and sometimes confusing, owed to the explosion of yoga and tantra from india into the world and how western influence might have altered what we understand as chakras today. So I wanna ask some specific questions hoping to get some clarity, and I wanna start with something seemingly simple:

Their colors. Whenever we see modern depictions of chakras, it’s always that typical rainbow pattern, always depicted with such unquestioned certainty that one could think that these colors are somehow scientifically verifiable, and that the chakras would actually exist as something visible to the bare eye.

But that color pattern never emerged before the 19th or even 20th century, I think. At one occasion, I managed to ask a local yoga teacher about the chakra colors, and he told me privately that he thinks that this rainbow thing is totaly “cheesy”. I tend to agree with him. So what are the chakras’ true colors? Or does it even matter?

I leave it with this question here for now. Thanks for your attention.

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Hi Ben,

I would say the best thing to do about the colours of chakras is to simply not worry about them, and to practice, and then discover them for yourself. It is certainly not as simple as the rainbow colour chart that you see everywhere, but that rainbow chart is also not too bad. Maybe it is a bit “cheesy”, but it is also not completely inaccurate. Green can be seen in the heart chakra at times, but also pink, and red, and white at times. A deep blue colour is often seen by people as the ajna chakra is opening, and I have often seen this myself. But I have also seen white, and gold there. The crown is mostly white, with gold and silver, but I have also seen flashes of purple and blue. And I have seen red at the root.

So, it is not as simple and clear-cut as those chakra diagrams would imply. But then all diagrams have to somewhat simplify things. They are not so bad that I would not put one on my wall and enjoy seeing it every day.

It is also not important. It does not make any difference in terms of practices, or the process of spiritual awakening. Seeing chakras, and seeing the energetic channels in the body is a very beautiful aspect of the spiritual path though.

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Hi Ben,

p.s.

You may find this interesting. It is part of a 16th century Sanskrit text written by a sage called Purnananda Swami, where he describes part of the subtle nervous system in the pelvic region. As you can see, he also mentions many different colours in just one part of the subtle body.

Verse 1

In the space outside the Meru, placed on the left and the right, are the two Siras, Sasi and Mihira. The Nadi Sushumna, whose substance is the threefold Gunas, is in the middle. She is the form of Moon, Sun, and Fire; Her body, a string of blooming Dhatura flowers, extends to the middle of the Kanda to the Head, and the Vajra inside Her extends, shining, from the Medhra to the Head.

Verse 2

Inside her is Citrini, who is lustrous with the lustre of the Pranava and attainable in Yoga by Yogis. She (Citrini) is subtle as a spider’s thread, and pierces all the Lotuses which are placed within the backbone, and is pure intelligence. She (Citrini) is beautiful by reason of these (Lotuses) which are strung on her. Inside her (Citrini) is the Brahmanadi, which extends from the orifice of the month of Hara to the place beyond, where Adi-deva is.

Verse 3

She is beautiful like a chain of lightning and fine like a (lotus) fibre, and shines in the minds of sages. She is extremely subtle; the awakener of pure knowledge; the embodiment of all Bliss, whose true nature is pure Consciousness. The Brahma-dvara shines in her mouth. This place in the entrance to the region sprinkled by ambrosia, and is called the Knot, as also the mouth of Sushumna

Verse 4

Next we come to the Adhara Lotus. It is attached to the mouth of the Sushumna, and is placed below the genitals and above the anus. It has four petals of crimson hue. Its head (mouth) hangs downwards. On its petals are the four letters from Va to Sa, of the shining colour of gold.

Verse 5

In this (Lotus) is the square region (Cakra) of Prithivi, surrounded by eight shining spears. It is of a shining yellow colour and beautiful like lightening, as is also the Bija of Dhara which is within.

Verse 6

Ornamented with four arms and mounted on the King of Elephants, He carries on his lap the child Creator, resplendent like the young Sun, who has four lustrous arms, and the wealth of whose lotus-face is four-fold

Verse 7

Here dwells the Devi Dakini by name; her four arms shine with beauty, and her eyes are brilliant red. She is resplendent like the lustre of many Suns rising at one and the same time. She is the carrier of the revelation of the ever-pure Intelligence.

Verse 8

Near the mouth of the Nadi called Vajra, and in the pericap (of the Adhara Lotus), there constantly shines the beautifully luminous and soft, lightening-like triangle which is Karmarupa, and known as Traipura. There is always and everywhere the Vayu called Kandarpa, who is of a deeper red than the Bandhujiva flower, and is the Lord of Beings and resplendent like ten million Suns.

Verse 9

Inside it (the triangle) is Svayambhhu in His Linga-form, beautiful like molten gold, with His head downwards. He is revealed by Knowledge and Meditation, and is of the shape and colour of a new leaf. As the cool rays of lightening and of the full moon charm, so does His beauty. The Deva who resides happily here as in Kasi is in forms like a whirlpool.

Verses 10-11

Over it shines the sleeping Kundalini, fine as the fibre of the lotus-stalk. She is the world-bewilderer, gently covering the mouth of Brahma-dvara by Her own. Like the spiral of the conch-shell, Her shining snake-like form goes three and a half times round Siva, and Her lustre is as that of a strong flash of young strong lightning. Her sweet murmur is like the indistinct hum of swarms of love-mad bees. She produces melodious poetry and Bandha and all other compositions in prose or verse in sequence or otherwise in Samskrita, Prakrita and other languages. It is she who maintains all beings of the world by means of inspiration and expiration, and shines in the cavity of the root (Mula) Lotus like a chain of brilliant lights.

Verse 12

Within it reigns dominant Para, the Sri-Paramesvari, the Awakener of eternal knowledge. She is the Omnipotent Kala who is wonderfully skilful to create, and is subtler than the subtlest. She is the receptacle of that continuous stream of ambrosia which flows from the Eternal Bliss. By Her radiance it is that the whole of this Universe and this Cauldron is illumined.

Verse 13

By meditating thus on Her who shines within the Mula-Chakra, with the lustre of ten million suns, a man becomes Lord of speech and King among men, and an Adept in all kinds of learning. He becomes ever free from all diseases, and his inmost Spirit becomes full of great gladness. Pure of disposition by his deep and musical words, he serves the foremost of the Devas.

Verse 14

There is another Lotus placed inside the Sushumna at the root of the genitals, of a beautiful vermilion colour. On its six petals are the letters from Ba to Puramdara, with the Bindu superposed, of the shining colour of lightning.

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I guess in these verses the term “Lotus” means Chakra? Or at least some type of sub-Chakra, or “mini-Chakra” if that makes any sense?

Whenever I work on any chakras of mine (mostly pranamayama with bandhas plus a mental focus on one of the typical chakra regions like the pelvic floor for muladhara chakra), I never “see” any colors. I only feel some tingling or itching and sometimes heat, but no visual feedback, ever. I guess we are all very different in our perception of how chakras “open”.

These verses allready lead me to my next question: How many chakras are there? The common concept today is seven, of course, and it’s as common and unquestioned as the colors of the rainbow assigned to them. But this is also different, isn’t it? Depending on which yogic or tantric school you follow, the number could be lower or much, much higher…

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Hi Ben,

Yes, the chakras are often referred to as flowers with petals, or lotus flowers. It gives the sense that they open, or “bloom” like a flower.

When people’s inner senses begin to activate, they can activate in any order. So, for one person clairsentience (the ability to feel things in the subtle realms) may develop first. For another person it could be clairvoyance (the ability to see things) and for another clairaudience (the ability to hear things). But eventually everyone will experience all of their inner senses opening.

And there are hundreds of chakras in the human subtle nervous system. The seven chakras that people often talk about are the seven that they consider to be the most important for yogic practice. So, these are called major chakras with the rest being minor chakras. Some schools of yoga consider only five to be major, whilst there are schools that consider 9, 11, or 13 to be major. It is not really import and depends mostly on the practices that are taught in the school. If we did practices that involved the eighth chakra which is several feet above the top of the head, we would probably talk about the eight major chakras. But, as we don’t, then we stick to seven.

Minor chakras very rarely get mentioned, such as the chakras in the palms of the hands and in the soles of the feet, or the minor chakras surrounding the crown. But they do still play an important role in the process of spiritual awakening.

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Interesting topic, how we perceive our purification, in siddhis, colors, feelings, sounds, actions; and through any and all of it, simply witness and release and gently remain with the mantra. It is freedom to not have to understand everything to experience that.

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Thank you so far.

Now I come to what I believe is a much more important issue than colors or numbers.

Are chakras actually “there” in any objectively and measurable way? Or are they just mere templates or focal points for meditation?

Chakras are often associated with glands or neural knots within our bodies. But many authorities in the field of yoga are quick to emphasize that chakras should not be confused with these physical organs, as they are supposedly not anything physical themselves.

Okay I say, fair enough. Then chakras would not exist on the physical realm, instead they are part of the subtle body. But that only brings in new confusions:

How are chakras and that subtle body than to be understood? Are they still something that really exists objectively and just conveniently aligns with our glands, but can never be measured?

Or could it be that chakras are a mere template for guided meditation? At least, according to the yoga sutra by Patanjali, that would be the case: In the third chapter of the yoga sutra, Vibhuti -Pada, there are some examples listed about the direction of Samyama (deep meditation), that means what object of focus a yogi should concentrade and eventually meditate on. Among these examples, there also some physical regions of the own body. Verse 3:30 talks about samyama on the navel circel, which would be manipura chakra, or 3:31 talks about the throat, which is Vishuddhi chakra, and how focus on that eliminates all hunger.

At least to me, that concept seems most convincing to me: Not that there are some pre-existing energy-fields somewhere at different heights of my spine that only need to be “opened”, but rather my own attention to these regions will produce some psychosomatic reactions with varying consequences.

Or, as I read in some other article about the misconceptions surrounding chakras: That chakras are prescriptive, not descriptive.

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Hi Ben,

Chakras are real, but they are not physical. Not everything that exists in the universe is physical. The reason that we tend to think it is, is because most people only have their physical senses activated. If everyone had their five subtle senses activated, then we certainly would not believe this!

Humans actually have eleven senses. There are the five physical senses, and then the mind is a sense, as we can perceive thoughts and memories. Then there is a subtle sense that corresponds with each of the five physical senses, making eleven in total. If you read through the AYP lessons, Yogani often talks about being able to see, feel and even hear things, that most people cannot.

So, if you cut a human body open, you would not see a chakra. But, if your inner vision was activated, you would be able to see them. And someone who has never heard of a chakra before, would be able to see them. You would also be able to see the chakras in other people’s bodies and see many other things, such as beings made of non-physical light.

It is true that in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, he uses the chakras in a prescriptive way. In other words he says “perform samyama on [a location in the body where one of the chakras is]”, without stating that these chakras are real. But, just because something is used in a prescriptive way, does not mean it does not exist. If someone said “focus your attention on the last door in the hallway”, the door would be being used in a prescriptive way, but would still exist. Some of the early classical Tantric texts also use chakras in this prescriptive way.

In my own case, I first became aware of chakras by being able to see them and feel them.

And it is also true that many physical glands and organs in the body are located close to the chakras and are related to them in functioning.

I filmed a video for YouTube a while back where I discussed the question of whether chakras are real, or not. That is here:

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Thank you Tristan, even though my conclusion on the chakras and how to approach them is different, for now.

I have to say that I expected some replies by more people here and hoped to instigate a vivid discussion about just that, the way of how chakras are existing or not and how to activate or open them. But that didn’t happen for now…

Therefore, one more question which I think could help me further educating myself on this topic: What, in your opinion, would be the best literature on chakras, classic and contemporary alike? Preferably literature that is still accessible, I should add. Should such a list or similar already exist on this side, you may just point it out, no problem.

Thanks again.

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What, in your opinion, would be the best literature on chakras, classic and contemporary alike?

Hi Ben,

There is a booklist here. If you do a wordsearch on “chakras” on that page quite a few books come up. I have not read them personally.

I have put a few videos on YouTube where I talk about different chakras. These can be found by following these links:

The heart chakra

Ajna chakra

The crown chakra

The eighth chakra

For the most part, chakras are considered to be “under the hood” in AYP. This is an analogy based on the idea of driving a car. To drive a car, we need to know how to use the steering wheel, indicators, pedals etc. But we don’t need to know how an ignition system works, or an alternator, or crank shaft pulley. Those things are all under the hood, and only the motor mechanics need to understand them. AYP is mostly about the actual process of spiritual liberation. Of course, people can be interested in how it all works inside, but it is not the most important thing. That is why there is very little on chakras, and the mechanics of them, in the AYP writings. As people practice, they see them when they need to, feel them when they need to and hear them when they need to. Everything happens as it should.

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I recently read a book about astral projection, where a similar question about the reality of such experiences arose. I quote from the book

"From the mystical point of view, nothing is ‘real’ except ‘Reality’ itself. This world we live in is mere illusion, or Maya, a phantasmagoria of shifting images which have no real existence outside the dreams of the cosmic consciousness. The same thing is true of the superphysical realms, according to this philosophy.
To the man in the street, though—and I include myself in this category—the world is real enough, and the definition of the word ‘real’ must somehow use the world as a basis. Therefore, when we ask whether or not the astral plane is real, we mean ‘real’ in the sense that the world is real. It does not matter whether or not anything is real mystically if we use this yardstick.
Now philosophers will say that the world is real because we experience it, and in that sense anything else that we may experience, including dreams and hallucinations, is also real. That forces us to refine our problem somewhat, and define two types of reality—social and non-social. A dream is real to you since you experience it, but it is not real to anyone else. Hence, it is a non-social reality. It belongs only to a single owner, whereas a speeding automobile, which will become rapidly real to anyone who stands in its way, is a social reality.
The problem, then, is to determine whether astral projection experiences are realities in the social, and not the mystical, sense, and that simplifies everything.”

The above is an excerpt from Steve Richards’ The Travelers Guide to the Astral Plane.

So replace in the above text the concept of astral traveling with chakras, and then we can ask whether chakras are real in the social sense. That is, are they part of a consensus reality of a group of sufficiently trained or skilled people with enhanced vision? If any two people within that group would agree on what they are seeing when looking at the chakras of a third person, then chakras would be part of empirical science. This group could describe what they are seeing as best as they can, so that everything that can be said about chakras could be catalogued and classified, similar to what botanists or astronomers were doing before coming up with any theoretical understanding. Astronomers with their mighty brains and telescopes established that galaxies are ‘socially real’. So it’s not unheard of that the social reality of some things is first established within an expert group of people.

I was musing about socially real siddhis in another thread. Certain socially real siddhis would demand a revolution in our understanding of nature, in particular fundamental physics. The current framework is simply not compatible with e.g. ‘socially real’ chakras, which also explains the generally dismissive stance of the scientific community (as a whole) towards psi research. Extraordinarily convincing data is needed for paradigm changes in fundamental physics, but they happened before and started with anomalies in data. It seems that from a yogic perspective there is little enthusiasm to contribute towards establishing such extraordinary data. And I still don’t understand why there isn’t a moral imperative to do so.

Of course the simplest explanation is that those socially real siddhis that are incompatible with fundamental physics simply don’t exist, which obviates the moral imperative to study them.

I demand from my future self to review this thread should I have anything interesting to say, that is interesting to my current self writing this, just in case my future self might have become uninterested in such topics.

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Hi Tensor, Ben and all,

So just to clarify, when I said that chakras are real I was saying that they are socially real in the sense that one chakra can be observed by several people at the same time and they would all be seeing the same thing. Another phrase for this is “objectively real”. So we say that the moon is objectively real because it can be seen by several people at the same time. Not everyone can see the moon because blind people can’t. So, it is not necessary for everyone to be able to see something for it to be objectively real.

So, chakras are as real as people, cars, mountains, planets, spoons, bicycles and so on. Of course all those things don’t really exist because they are mind-created form constructs based on an underlying undifferentiated energetic vibration. But if we are going to say that mountains, cars and houses are real then we should say that chakras are real as well.

As for physics, what we have now is only the physics of 2025. Physics was very different 200 years ago and 200 years before that. Who knows what it will look like in 200 years time? Personally I believe that chakras and nadis are formed of a non-physical light that humans have not yet been able to measure with any instruments. So, I believe that an understanding of the chakras by scientists will require a fundamental change in our understanding of physics.

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I’m just getting deeper into the AYP practices and had a few general questions about chakras. I’ve read through a few lessons and forum posts, but I’d love to hear more from people with actual practice experience.

  • How much attention do you give to individual chakras during your sessions?

  • Do you feel them clearly, or is it more subtle or symbolic for you?

  • Do sensations change over time (like some becoming more active or intense than others)?

  • And how does this tie in with Spinal Breathing Pranayama for you — do you focus on chakras directly, or just let the breath do its thing?

I’m still in early stages but curious how it unfolds over time. Thanks in advance for any insights :folded_hands:

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I don’t focus on any chakra, and just let the breath do his work.

Actually, we shouldn’t focus on any chakra during practises. Just following the procedure of the practise we are doing. When u are noticing u are off thr procedure u just easly go back to it!

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Hi Val_G,

I get your curiosity :nerd_face:

Like th1996 said, there isn’t any attention on the chakras in Spinal Breathing Pranayama but just on tracing the spinal nerve while breathing slowly and fully. Now since the top end and bottom end of the spinal nerve coincide with the locations of two chakras (third eye at the top and root chakra at the bottom), one might get the impression that one should put extra attention on these chakras, in addition to just tracing the spinal nerve. But that isn’t the case. When you add mulabandha and sambhavi mudra to SBP you can stimulate these chakras while tracing the spinal nerve up and down without splitting your attention.

There is a more advanced practice called Cosmic Samyama where each of the major chakras is faintly touched and released at the same time as the corresponding sutra is faintly touched and released. In this practice I feel the chakras very clearly, and how they feel (and are experienced in other ways) has changed a lot over the time I have been doing this practice. It might be best if I don’t try to describe in detail how they feel and how their experience has changed, because it will be different for all of us, and it is much more fun and easier to discover this for yourself, without the danger of getting caught up in trying to recreate experiences of others. Yogani wrote about this in lessons 379.2 and 379.3 in the context of Deep Meditation:

The only reason to discuss experiences that occur in meditation is to coax practitioners back to application of the procedure, and to boost confidence to proceed with consistency. Other than that, there isn’t much reason to discuss the scenery. It is yours. You can notice it with enjoyment (or not) whenever it comes along, and then ease back to the mantra. Whatever is there is there until it isn’t anymore, and there is no benefit in being concerned about anything being there or not being there, or in analyzing what it might be.

So “coaxing practitioners back to application of the procedure” is a more important feature of this forum than its potential to be a source for the scientific investigation of chakras (e.g. cataloguing commonalities in how they are experienced, how that experience evolves, and whether they are “socially real”, etc).

There is also an enhancement for core Samyama and Deep Meditation called Solar Centering, where the sutra or mantra, respectively, is located at the solar plexus. I feel that place as distinctive as other chakras, and also clearly distinct from the navel chakra, but it feels more neutral than the other major chakras that have a more blissful or more ecstatic quality.

So there are some practices in the AYP toolbox that work directly with chakras.

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