Light Journeys: A User's Guide to Chakra Meditation

By Lucinda Green

You have a dynamic system in your body of more than 2,000 chakras (energy centers) that change constantly and affect your physical, emotional, and mental well-being. You need not be at the mercy of this powerful system. In Light Journeys, Dr. Green focuses on the seven major chakra centers located along the spinal column and shows you how to interact consciously with your chakras. In so doing, you will develop the skills to dramatically improve your sense of harmony, balance, focus and concentration as well as your health, well-being and creative expression. Specific Meditations address aligning your chakras, reclaiming your personal power, opening your heart, exploring the interrelationship between the chakra centers, increasing and balancing yourself energetically, gaining insight, understanding and problem solving. This is a hands-on,practical and most useful approach to a powerful and subtle energy system.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lucinda Green
• Release date: Aug 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476397719

Lucinda Green

Lucinda Green, Ph.D. was born to meditate. She is the founder and director of Rocky Mountain Insight, a Buddhist Vipassana meditation Center. Dr. Green first began meditating in 1967, and while living in India in the early 1970’s, pursued studies of philosophy, yoga and meditation as part of her undergraduate collegiate education. She began Vipassana meditation in 1976 and in the late 1970’s met her root teacher Ruth Denison. This meeting proved to be an auspicious event which led Lucinda into a life long study and practice of the Dharma, teachings of the Buddha, These teachings were avidly pursued through studies at Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, CA. and with numerous Buddhist teachers including Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, Christopher Titmus, Rina Sircar, and U Silananda.. Upon receiving her Ph.D. in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology in the mid-eighties, Dr. Green rewarded herself by traveling once again to Asia where she donned monastic robes and lived as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka under the tutelage of Venerable Ayya Khema, whom she considers her second teacher. Upon return, Dr. Green received Dharma transmission from her mentor Ruth Denison, becoming a lineage holder in the Burmese tradition of Buddhism. It is her profound joy to share the Dharma. Additional Resources Dr. Green has produced numerous recordings of guided meditations for living a balanced life, breathing techniques for stress reduction, and Dharma talks for spiritual growth.

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Light Journeys

A User’s Guide to Chakra Meditation

LUCINDA T. GREEN, PH.D.

Published by Treelight Productions, Inc. at Smashwords

Copyright © 2012 Lucinda T. Green, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied or otherwise reproduced without the written permission of the author.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Publisher

Treelight Productions, Inc.

PO Box 6386

Colorado Springs, CO 80934-6386

Book Editing and Cover Design

Kenneth Guentert, The Publishing Pro, LLC, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Cover Illustration of Chakras

Claudelle Girard

Illustration of Location of Chakras

Susan Turner

Table of Contents

***

Preface

SECTION I—TELL ME ABOUT THE CHAKRAS: THE BASICS

1. Introduction to the Chakras

2. The Chakra System as a Map

3. Basic Functions of the Chakras

4. Purposes and Uses of Chakra Meditation

5. Working with Color and the Chakras

6. Relationship of Health to Chakra Imbalances

SECTION II—MEDITATIONS

7. Guidelines

8. Calm and Focus

Meditation: Exploring the Chakras and Grounding Cord

Meditation: Making Discoveries

Tips: Handy Devices

9. Balance and Harmony

Meditation: String of Lights

Tips: Applying the String of Lights

Meditation: Aligning the Chakras

Tips: Aligning the Chakras

10. Energy

Tips: Promoting Right Use of Energy

Tips: Interrelationships between Specific Chakras

Exercise: Clearing the Throat Chakra

11. Insight and Understanding

Meditation: Heart Chakra (done in pairs)

Tips: Giving and Receiving

Meditation: Transforming Limiting Beliefs

Tips: Transforming Limiting Beliefs

Meditation: Connecting with Your Purpose

12. Problem-Solving

Meditation: Working In-Depth with Personal Power

Meditation: Problem-Solving from the Sixth Chakra

Meditation: Problem-Solving from the Seventh Chakra

13. Chakras in their Healthiest States: Visualizations

14. Reminders

PART III—JOURNAL WORKSHEETS

1. Working with Color

2. Guidelines for Meditation

3. Grounding Cord

4. Exploring the Chakras

5. Making Discoveries

6. Applying the String of Lights

7. Aligning the Chakras

8. Exploring Relationships between Specific Chakras

9. Clearing the Throat Chakra

10 Heart Chakra Meditation

11. Transforming Limiting Beliefs

12. Transformed Chakra Messages

13. Working In-Depth with Personal Power

14. Problem Solving from the Sixth Chakra

15. Problem Solving from the Seventh Chakra

16. Visualization: First Chakra

17. Visualization: Second Chakra

18. Visualization: Third Chakra

19. Visualization: Fourth Chakra

20. Visualization: Fifth Chakra

21. Visualization: Sixth Chakra

22. Visualization: Seventh Chakra

Bibliography

CDs and MP3s Available

About the Author

Preface

***

IN 1970 I LIVED IN BANGALORE, Southern India, where, under the auspices of Callison College, a cluster college of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, I studied history, culture, religion, art, Vedanta philosophy, Karnatic flute, and Indian cooking. It was in the land of Bharat, Mother India, that I first became acquainted with the chakras. I conducted a study of the system through the tutelage of Ramachandra Rao, an Indian professor of philosophy and religion.

Our primary text was The Serpent Power by Sir John Woodroffe. I poured over the tome, learning the deities and animals associated with each chakra, the number of petals on each flower, and the seed syllable sound associated with each center. It was all very esoteric. While I questioned the depth of my understanding, I loved the endeavor of immersing myself in the mystery of it all.

I had my first direct conscious experiences with the chakras four years later during continued studies in Berkeley, California. At that time, I came to understand certain childhood and young adult phenomena as specific awakenings of certain chakras.

Since that time, I have continued in-depth research and studies of the chakras and meditation practices working with the chakras.

When I was first introduced to chakras so long ago in Bangalore, little did I know how deeply the understanding and meditation practices would affect me throughout my life.

The intent of Light Journeys is to provide skillful guidance that allows you to engage fully and directly with this ancient system so as to benefit your life. The user’s guide provides the information necessary for you to knowledgeably interact with the system and make it come alive for you.

When I moved from amassing knowledge and information about the chakras, a necessary and invaluable step, to direct engagement through meditation, the chakras became a living transformative experience in my life.

There is learning the map, then there is applying the map. The focus of the user’s guide is skillful application. Please refer to the bibliography for other wonderful books.

The meditations are the heart of the book. They are divided into categories according to purposes served. We begin with overall guidelines, followed by Calm and Focus, Balance and Harmony, Energy, Insight and Understanding, and Problem Solving. Exercises given in the book are of my own creation, except for the grounding cord and heart chakra done in pairs, or otherwise noted.

Chakra meditation brings the benefits of calm, concentration, focus, balance, harmony, relaxation, and release of tension. Actively working with the chakras—which is to say, working with the content of what you discover in the meditation—will bear the fruit of insight, transformation, and freedom.

May Light Journeys serve as a gem that supports your meditation practice and your awakening.

Lucinda Green

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Back to Table of Contents

Section I

TELL ME ABOUT THE CHAKRAS

The Basics

***

Back to Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to the Chakras

***

THE WORD CHAKRA MEANS WHEEL and is literally a wheel of energy that spins out and creates matter. We have more than 2,000 chakras located in our bodies. This book explores the sevenfold chakra centers located along the vertical axis of the spine. Other major chakras include one in each of the hands, feet, elbows, and knees. The chakras are referred to as the psychic glandular system, the organs of subtle anatomy. Each chakra relates to a particular gland located in the body.

Chakras are three-dimensional vortices, constantly expanding and contracting, similar to the pupil of the eye, which expands and contracts as needed to regulate the amount of light entering the eye. When a chakra becomes greatly contracted, it can be referred to as closed.

The opening of a chakra can be compared to a nozzle attachment on a hose, which regulates the intake and output of water or, in this case, energy. One regulates the movement of water through a hose by increasing or decreasing 1) the size of the hose and/or 2) the amount of water let in or out of the hose. In much the