4th Chakra and Rajasic Sattwa

This Week (5): The Fourth Chakra, The Anahata Chakra. The Heart Chakra

Location: Heart - 1 finger width to the right of the spine
Basic Right: The Right to Love and Be Loved
Bija Mantra: Yam
Celestial Body: Venus
Color: Green
Developmentally: 3 to 6 Years
Element: Air
Goals: Balance in relationships and with self, compassion, self-acceptance
Guna: Rajas
Major Psychological Life Area: Love
Malfunction: Deficient: Isolation, low self-esteem, collapsed chest, shallow breathing, melancholy.  Excessive: Codependent, care-taking, clinging behaviors
Plane: Peace, joy, compassion, and understanding

Sense: Touch
Yoga Path:  Bhakti Yoga (devotional yoga)

Yantra: Blood-red petals, a blue 6-pointed star

The last definition of Tantra that Mani Finger (my teacher's first guru) gave to my teacher, Yogarupa Rod Stryker was this:

Tantra:  The satisfaction of touch.  To have your heart touched, to feel awe and wonder of having your heart touched.  To live with wonder; to have the heart touched with the sacred; the living wonder.

3rd Chakra and Rajasic Sattwa

This Week (4): The Third Chakra, The Manipura Chakra. The Navel Chakra, Power Center
Location: Solar Plexus
Basic Right: The Right to Act
Bija Mantra: Ram
Celestial Body: Mars, Sun
Color: Yellow
Developmentally: 18 months to 3 years
Element: Fire
Goals: Vitality, strength of will, purpose
Guna: Rajas
Major Psychological Life Area: Power
Malfunction: Ulcers, timidity, domination, fatigue, digestive troubles
Plane: Attachment, pain, psychic center

Sense: Sight
Secondary Chakra: The Hands
Yantra: Dark purple petals and a red triangle

The U.S.A. is a 3rd chakra country -- it is obsessed with power, very identified with ourselves and locked into our identity.  3rd chakra is about ambition.  This fire component is what moves us forward.  Life in the USA is Rajas Dominant -- we are the hardest working, least vacationing people in the world and we have all the stuff to prove it.  Ultimately, all of this takes us out of balance and our quality of life is declining, our lives feel empty (many people are on anti-depressants) dominated by unhealthy, hyperactive, blind ambition.

The dominant guna for 3rd and 4th chakras is rajas and our goal in the next two weeks of class is to create Rajasic Sattwa within the body -- pure rajas creates imbalance, but rajas with a sattwic component is balanced, enlivened and serves the goal of yoga - to serve Consciousness.

The Asanas we do for Rajas are:

Backbends (especially those done on the stomach like salambasana and dhanurasana); arm balances, standings and twists (3rd chakra especially and balance the practice with samana --equalizing energy).

In pranayama (breath), we emphasize the inhalation to build energy --to build the energy of change and enthusiasm -- even holding after inhalation if we can do it with steadiness.  The awareness naturally goes outward on holdings, but with mindful awareness directed inward, a rajasic sattwic state is realized.  We will continue to work with breath ratios -- counting our breath-lengths and demanding awareness in shaping the breath to keep the awareness inside.

The major bandha is uddiyanda banda by exhaling completely and drawing the internal organs in and up to the back body.  This stimulates the 3rd chakra.

 

In meditation the emphasis is on light or space.  If awareness is unable to stay inside at the end of the practice then the sequencing was too rajasic, too activating.  You should be able to settle into the light of your own heart and hear Nada -- the unstruck sound of the soul.  The goal in savasana is to have a thread to inner connection and the ability to attune to inner vibration and energy.  

The key to steeping this activating practice in Sattwa is Bhavana (devotional energy).  The goal is to cultivate a connection to the soul, to inner knowledge and keeping the mind internally clear and balanced.