Focusing Technique and the work with the Chakras

A chakra, in the esoteric world, is usually defined as a kind of energy center connected to an inner movement of our mind, and each chakra is really a space of consciousness made up of emotional and mental movement that has a somatic expression, a movement in certain areas of our body. I think there's another way to look at the world of the chakras. You can see the chakras as an inner strategy for coping with suffering, and at this stage I'll mainly be talking about the lower chakras.

At the heart of the spiritual view, a person is in a state of illusion in which he doesn't really know who he is, and he sees himself as a separate entity, cut off from the world around him. Even if he believes in God or in some eternal existence, it's still on the level of something that exists outside the "I," somewhere. Out of this separateness comes the inner state of dukkha, existential suffering.

Our consciousness isn't in a static state, and what it's trying to do is to free us from this suffering so that we'll reach a place of security and happiness. According to the deep views from the world of tantra, of Vedanta, and of other esoteric traditions as well, that place is found only when a person reaches awakening, the experience of the absolute and finding our identity with it. When a person is in a state of ignorance, different patterns come up in him that try to solve the basic problem of suffering in ineffective ways, ways based on a lack of understanding, and often they complicate things for him far more than they help. And this is where the idea of the chakras, according to this model, comes in.

If we use terms from the world of Focusing to understand what a chakra is, we could say that at its base it's a somatic experience happening in the body, it has its own felt sense and its own implying, meaning it calls for a certain movement. That movement calls for pushing the process forward, something that rests on a very deep, basic belief that by moving forward we're making progress. This isn't something that comes up consciously, it's something that comes up out of the whole body of the human system.

Here I'm only touching on it in a basic way, to create a frame, and I'll break it down in depth in future posts.

Muladhara chakra is connected to matter and to grounding. When a person is dominantly in this stage, he'll look for ways to stabilize himself through accumulating possessions, money, and finding stability within the material world. It can also connect to the reproductive drive, and in general to an approach of building material things and more stability in the world as a strategy for finding calm and quiet in a world whose foundation is constant change.

The person in the second chakra will look for it through the pleasure of the senses and through stability in romantic relationships, a kind of search for wholeness and unity, but through the connection with another person. Here it often comes through sexual expression and emotional connection, and he'll also look for it within social bonds and the attempt to belong to social circles, often while losing his psychological authenticity, out of a preference for connection and stability over authentic expression.

The person in the third chakra will do it through seeking power and strength. Strength, power and money are his strategy for finding calm, connection and security.

None of these strategies can really give a person what he's looking for, because whether it's stability in the material world, romance, or power, in the end it's a search for stability inside a changing world, and every achievement, whether it's a good relationship or a position of power, will eventually dissolve, simply because reality is constantly changing.

This view isn't just a theoretical idea, detached from life and from practice. Understanding our inner strategies, and understanding how little they actually help us, is the basis for forming a right intention, a right practice, and a movement in life that takes us out of our limiting habits and understandings.

Each of us can notice this movement. Sometimes, for example, we see something we're strongly drawn to, and out of that a movement rises, an inner call to complete the move, and we really believe this is the right thing for us. Within a structured practice of contemplation and tantra, we'll pause for a moment and observe the automatic movement, and out of that an understanding can arise about whether it's really serving us or not. This is an integral part of any spiritual or therapeutic work that helps us free ourselves from patterns that limit us.