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The following is a variation of a healing and balancing practice that Pir
Vilayat Khan has often used in retreats-- good in early morning or at night.
This practice focuses awareness on the “mantle of light” that stands behind
the physical body. This body of light is a very subtle reality, given emphasis
in spiritual traditions throughout the world. It is an organizing structure
that corresponds to the various chakras, the energy centers described in yoga
and eastern medicine. These centers receive impressions in day-to-day
experience. Many of the impressions become lodged in the centers, and
consequently deaden a certain area or energy meridian. This practice brings
the release of impressions and a revitalization of the chakras.
Imagine you are facing an extremely bright light, like a large searchlight.
Feel the light permeating your cells. The cells, in response to the light,
begin to open and come alive. Feel your body to be transparent, like a quartz
crystal, as you allow the light to penetrate throughout your being. Try to
maintain this concentration for at least five minutes.
Now begin to become aware of a subtle aura around your body, a rainbow of
colors. In the steps which follow, each of the chakras and its corresponding
colors will be a focus for concentration. Try to spend at least two minutes on
each chakra and color, and place your fingers on the chakra to help in
maintaining the concentration. As you concentrate upon the chakra, imagine
that the colored light is radiating, purifying and clearing impressions and
memories that block the chakras.
While touching the general area of the chakra, breathe in with the thought
of bringing the chakra alive, of instilling it with life energy, and breath
out with the thought of radiating energy and light from the chakra.
- First chakra: This is located at the base of the spine, the point of
contact with the earth. The color is reddish brown, a very subdued light.
The light here sometimes seems blocked by the sheer denseness of matter.
Feel your being solid and rock-like.
- Second chakra: This is the seat of the ego and of sexual energy, located
in the small of the back, between the navel and the pubic bone, about three
inches above the bottom chakra. The color is salmon. There is a sensitive
point at the center of this chakra. Feel the strength and suppleness of the
chakra, and accentuate it by concentrating on the color. Feel the connection
with your primal, instinctual wish for survival.
- Third chakra: The next chakra is located at the solar plexus. This is
the center most associated with the emotions. The color is ochre, or
orange-yellow. There is often much stress and constriction surrounding this
chakra. After concentrating upon the color, hold your hand out about five
inches away from the solar plexus, palm facing your chest. Rotate your palm
slowly in a clockwise direction, and have the sense of unwinding and
releasing the constriction. Your hand thus sweeps around the solar plexus,
and you will feel a definite effect of release from this movement.
- Fourth chakra: the next chakra, the heart center, is located about three
inches directly above the solar plexus, in the center of the chest. A rich,
golden light is central to this chakra. Concentration upon this color gives
a sense of strength. It is especially useful when one is feeling depleted or
in need of psychic protection. One could imagine a shield of golden light
surrounding the chest. You will feel a sensitive point in the center of the
rib cage that is the exterior center of this chakra. This center is the
place where spirit and matter meet, the place of the alchemical marriage.
- Fifth chakra: The next chakra is located at the throat. Its center is at
the point where the head and base of the neck meet. The color of this chakra
is a deep emerald green, signifying the dispensation of a life-giving
energy. This chakra, associated with sound and expression, is the
accommodation through which the spiritual realms speak to us, through which
guidance and creativity come.
- Subsidiary chakra (the eyes): The color associated with the physical eyes
is sky blue. Some Tibetan Buddhists utilize this color as a singular object
for concentration, in order to attain a very peaceful condition. As you
inhale, imagine that you are looking at the deep blue sky, and that you
could drink in the blue light through your eyes. Reverse the process on the
exhalation, and exhale the light, , along with any tension that the eyes
hold. Repeat the breath and the concentration a few times.
- Sixth chakra: The next chakra, sometimes termed the “third eye”, is
located in the center of the forehead. A subtle, violet light is associated
with this chakra. It is the seat of intuition and insight. From this center,
certain glands release the body's natural relaxing agents during meditation.
- Seventh chakra: The last chakra, the” crown center”, extends as a series
of concentric circles around the head. A diaphanous white color is
associated with this center. Imagine being in a moonlit landscape of ice and
snow, high in the mountains, at night. Allow the spaciousness and the
rarefied air to permeate your being. Feel the part of your being that is
detached, peaceful and free.. The crown center has no boundaries and from it
one’s consciousness may reach out into the cosmos.
After concentrating on each chakra from bottom chakra to the top, you might
again imagine another rainbow of colors, more subtle, which begins at the
crown center, and which extends further and further out from the body. The
ordering of the light remains the same but the colors continue to become finer
and finer. You can continue the concentration to still another rainbow, ad
infinitum, moving further into an abstract plane of consciousness.
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