Anahata - The heart chakra
- leilak73
- Mar 8, 2015
- 4 min read
Green and pink are the colours most often associated with the heart chakra. Green is a healing colour. Pink is a loving colour. Love is said to be the greatest of healers. This chakra represents love, joy, equilibrium, empathy, selflessness and devotion. It is also associated with the ability to make decisions outside the realm of karma.
Anahata is the middle of the chakras, linking the lower three chakras to the upper three. Like the breath, to which it relates, it functions as a bridge between body and mind. One can influence the body with the breath, and control of the breath can also quieten the mind.
The cardiac plexus relates to the fourth chakra, as do the lungs, thymus gland and pericardium. This chakra is governed by unconditional love for all beings. It is not dependent on outside stimulation, but is experienced within as a state of being. It radiates outward and attracts love and compassion. It is eternal, enduring and constant.
The heart is the strongest organ in the whole body. The better you feel, the stronger your heart will be. How is the circulation in your body? If you have poor circulation, anahata is not flowing with ease.
In a balanced heart chakra, love, compassion, self-confidence, inspiration and hope dwell here. When the heart chakra is over-active, the ego takes over and there is a lack of love in the heart of that person.
These people tend to be inconsiderate. With an under-active heart chakra, the person may appear numb and to have no sense of self. If this chakra is blocked, the greatness of this chakra can turn into despair, rage, jealousy, hate and/or unrealistic fear. Other imbalances in anahata may appear as lust, fraud, indecision, anxiety, longing, impartiality, arrogance, discrimination and defiance.
When this chakra is free of grief (the demon of anahata), it is fresh, radiant and innocent. The element here is air - the lightest of the elements. It represents freedom, lightness, freshness and softness. It also represents prana, the Sanskrit word for life force. Prana is the most basic unit of energy that all life is made up of.
In order to open the heart chakra, understanding and technique are required. First, one needs to view the world in terms of combination with other things. It requires letting go of the ego, control of the breath, understanding and practice of balance between body/mind; giving/receiving.
Love is something that all beings want and need. It is a unifying force that draws people together and keeps them together. Together with approval, love promotes self-acceptance, which is necessary for loving oneself. If we can see that it is abundant and infinite, we will find that it is self-perpetuating.
Withholding love tends to decrease what we receive. Rejection is a basic human fear which threatens our sense of self-acceptance and can cause one to disintegrate and self destruct by turning against themselves. One feels cut off and alone.
This fear can also work as a protective device, and helps to balance the inward and outward flow of energy. The energy in both directions tends to increase and decrease together.
Love is a matter of seeing that we are already connected to an intricate web that we call life. It is a deep sense of spiritual connection, of being moved and inspired to heights beyond our normal limits. Through it we grow, transcend, triumph and surrender.
It binds together without limiting. It requires both distance and closeness. It is the essence of balance and equilibrium which dwells at the core of us all.
One can perceive the perfection, balance and eternal nature of relationships; once one perceives objects and their activities as relationships. Relationships endure when there is an overall balance. They end when one partner feels that there is an irreparable imbalance. Balance is dynamic and constantly changes with time and circumstances.
Balance with oneself is the best way to try to maintain balance in our relationships with others. As within, so without. When anahata is imbalanced, the balance between the upper and lower chakras has been lost, as well as between body and mind.
Love is an exhilarating experience and we stand the risk of becoming attached to maintaining this state of love. Balance between love and individuality is important. A portion of each must be sacrificed to achieve this balance. When one has bonded within oneself, a loving, accepting and joyful vibration is emanated.
Love is the ultimate healing force. Healing is the act of restoration of balance to an organism or situation. It is believed that all disease is the result of an imbalance. One cannot personally advance whilst others are ailing. We must find time to heal others as we advance along our paths.
The breath is one of the most powerful tools that can be used to transform oneself. It burns up toxins, releases stored emotions, changes the body structure and changes consciousness. It is one of the few things in the body that can be both voluntarily and involuntarily controlled.
By exercising the voluntary control and increasing ones breathing capacity, deep breathing can become a habit. There are breathing techniques called pranayama, which are designed to expand consciousness and purify the body. When the thoughts are quiet, the breath is calm.
The mantra for anahata is “YAM”. Stephanie Snyder's yoga set for opening the heart can be found HERE
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