The Third chakra

• Name: Manipura, manipurak, nabhi
• Meaning: City of Jewels/gems
• Location: The part of the vertebral column that corresponds to the navel region
• Colour: Gold
• Element: Fire (red/rising sun)
• Food: carbohydrates, starch
• Body Associations: Feet and legs, digestive system, liver, muscles
• Predominant sense & Organ: Sight & Eyes
• Ruling Planet: Sun (masculine)
• Mental: self-worth
• Behavioural pattern: Like a snake
• Sound: Ram
• Plane: The Celestial Plane

The solar plexus/Manipura chakra is the third chakra, the energy centre of the body, it is found four finger breaths above the navel area, where it meets the lower and upper triangles.     The Manipura chakra is the seat of self-confidence and power, it gives energy, dynamism, and achievement.  The energy of Manipura chakra is pride, ego and the ability to control.

The chakra is the centre of gravity for transformation and healing. It has 72,000 nadis (channels of energy that release vital energy...

The second chakra

• Name: Svadhishthana, Adhishthan, Shaddala
• Meaning: Dwelling of the self
• Location: Genital regions
• Colour – Orange
• Element: Water (Purity)
• Physical plane: Sacral spine
• Body Associations: Bladder, genitals, kidney, large bowel, prostate, uterus
• Predominant sense: taste
• Sense organ: tongue
• Ruling Planet: Mercury (lunar, Feminine)
• Day: Wednesday
• Behavioural pattern: Butterfly
• Sound: Bang, Bhang, Mang, Yang, Rand, Lang
• Plane: Astral Plane (space between heaven and earth)

 The Sacral Chakra is the second of the seven chakras. It is located just below the navel, right in the centre of your lower belly and the lumbar spine.

The svadhisthana chakra is the abode of creation and change.  It is connected to the reproductive organs and water. A balanced and healthy pelvis aligns the whole body and keeps the body's structure strong, by supporting the legs, spine, hips, and knees. The function is to create, interact, evolve, and expand. Once the second chakra is...

A Journey of Chakras

Chakra One - Muladhara

Colours make our life and connect close to our emotions.  How do you see colours:

• Are they integral part of your life
• Does your wardrobe contain
  • clothes of all the colours
  • Black and white
  • Pastel colours
  • Muted colours

• Do you rely on moods to help you decide what colour to wear?
• Does colour inform your day
• How do you feel when you wear certain colours?
• Do you see colour connected to your emotions
• Do you get challenged emotionally and intellectually when you see an array of colours

Lots of questions, I know… But it’s when you reflect and ask these questions that you begin to understand yourself and the power of colour.

In my personal life, I went from wearing bright colours for years to wearing just black, white and grey.  This transition was unconscious responding to my work in the banking environment.  My mood became sombre and subdued.  When I become ill due to stress and took some time off to...

The Law of nature proves that our universe, or physical reality, is not objective. Our experience is created with our mind and perception. As Yogis we are aware that abundance comes in many different forms.  The universal flow embodies negative and positive forms in our environment.  How we receive the universal depends on our mindset.  If the mind resides in the positive and neutral state, prosperity, and abundance flows, however, if the mind resides in the negative state, it creates doubt which blocks the flow of abundance.

Once this concept is understood, we begin to retrain the mind for positive and neutral state, abundance in every part of life begins to flow. The Universe opens its portal to us.  The mind and heart connection are other key element in the process of retraining.  The heart-based living raises our vibrations and charges our electromagnetic field, thus creating a new physical reality.

Here are suggestions to develop an abundant mindset:

...

What is a sense of purpose?

We grow up with expectations created by parents, the education system, and the environment, but these are expectations.  They don’t always give us a sense of purpose.

A sense of purpose helps us to have clarity as to why we do what we do daily. It gives a reason to get up in the morning.  So, when do you realise that you have a sense of purpose in your life to reach goals? 

There are many goals in life, e.g., to study, work, train for a profession, and serve the community, these goals motivate us to work hard, towards achieving our purpose and give our life direction for a meaningful and satisfying life.

How does one cultivate a sense of purpose?  Life is made of going to work, paying off bills, raising children and leisure time.  But this is controlled by our environment, and it can be difficult to break away from the routine. The routine sucks you in and usually, illness or tragedy diverts the attention.  The sense of...

Permacrisis

Permacrisis is an extended period of instability and insecurity. "Permacrisis sums up just how truly awful 2022 has been for so many people”.

Do you feel on the edge most of the time worrying about your financial situations and other life situations you have no control over? Are you sick of being worried?

Are you looking for deals in the supermarket for food, have you curtailed your shopping list, or have started to micromanage your spending?

The pandemic was a long and unusual pause in our daily robotic life.  The time enabled us to review our lifestyle, and many of us were able to adapt to working from home and thus saved money.  But none of us was prepared for the crisis that soon followed with the price increase in food and fuel.

Have you had a chance to sit down quietly and think of letting go of anything you don’t need – both physical objects and clearing the mind…  But more importantly, have you sought out techniques to...

We are universal beings so whatever happens around us affects us.

How we respond depends on us. We can create drama around the event, which I call Neuro Drama or develop resilience.

Emotional intelligence enables us to process events and behaviours to protect ourselves and develop positive relationships.   It involves developing a flexible body and mind.   In Yoga, I often see students who are physically inflexible and interpreted as stubborn (inflexible mind).    The stubborn mind and inflexible body prevent from moving on in life, thus creating Neuro Drama.

Life is full of adversity and stress has now become part of life.  We are continuously bombarded with negative information via multimedia.   We have a choice to either succumb to the outside negative noise or take responsibility for how we respond.

We can’t plan our whole life without stress, but we can learn to deal with how we respond and how to diffuse the inner storm...

The universe is made of several layers, with layers beneath us, layers around us and layers above us. Our body corresponds to the universal layers and has its own multiple layers.  The physical body is the visible layer, we can see.  However, all the other layers are invisible, but when we are in tune with our environment and ourselves, we engage with all the 11 bodies.

You can’t control the events around you, but you can control how you relate to those events.  Instead of being reactive, you can use your 11 bodies so that your inner peace remains unspoiled. 

Our thoughts can direct energy such as the negative mind which limits programs about life and about self, such as, you’re too fat, nobody appreciates you, etc.  It’s time to change what you pay attention to and focus on your greatness, subtlety, grace, and majesty.  The psychic heat you generate by focusing on your greatness will just burn up all that old pain!

These are...

The Five Koshas

Our body is made of several layers and bodies.  The physical body is the one you see.  The other subtle layers are experienced through breath, yoga, and the environment.

The Physical body is a tangible cover for the self.  The skin is the permanent clothing to protect our physiology, which functions automatically.  The advanced technology enables us to see the interiors of the body and understand the function of the body, but it does not help us to understand the subtle function of the body, such as Chakras, the meridian lines, and the Marma points.   The unseen and sensory body enables us to connect with the intuition, the Chakras, the 11 bodies and the Koshas.  

The Koshas are the one element of the function of your physical body.  The knowledge helps to understand the Self.

The Koshas (five layers) are:

Annamaya Kosha - the food sheath

The Annamaya Kosha belongs to the physical body. The Physical body is one you can...

The consumer society encourages us to surround ourselves with objects and create attachments to those objects.

Attaching our emotions to objects clutters our physical space leading to living an emotionally trapped life.  The cycle does not let us move beyond the emotionally and physically charged space.  It clutters our conscious mind to live the past.

• Holding on to the past creates pain, prevents growth, and does not fix anything
• The past becomes the identity, and people are afraid to lose their past identity
• Letting go also means letting go of people in our life

It is not easy or straightforward.  The process can be painful and long, oddly enough sometimes all some people know is pain and it is comfortable.  Self-compassion and love for yourself are usually starting points.  By letting go we are letting go of our old self to create a new self.  Allowing the layers of the old self to peel off gently, helps with the creation of the new self. Just the...