Saturday, May 7, 2011

Lower Chakra Imbalance: The Key To "Success"?

This is a great book:

Eastern Body, Western Mind:
Psychology and The Chakra System
As A Path To The Self by Judith Anodea
http://www.amazon.com/Eastern-Body-Western-Mind-Psychology/dp/0890878153

"The chakras start with
survival (at the base of the spine),
followed by sexuality (lower back),
power (solar plexus), love (heart area),
communication (throat), intuition (brow),
and cognition (crown)."
~ editorial reviews


LOWER CHAKRA IMBALANCE -
THE KEY TO "SUCCESS"???

One interesting thing this book talks about is how easy it is for people with an emphasis on the lower chakras to achieve worldly success. According to the author's research, there are many, many people in this world who have a significant chakra imbalance which actually promotes a life of self-reliance, outward achievement, and financial success. This is actually a serious illness, but, since the society we live in is sick in the same way, these people actually excel in our present society despite their illness.

"It is no measure of health, to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Nevertheless, the ultimate result of all this "success", is that these people, despite all the security and comfort they have accrued, the respect they have earned from their contemporaries, and the (often prodigious) fruits of their labors, -- despite all of this, -- these people end up feeling alienated from humanity, empty inside, and completely unfulfilled by their success. In the latter part of their life, they begin to see the value of developing the upper chakras, but, by then, it is often too late. A life of goal-oriented thought and action, which recognizes only appearances and results, has left them with no time to form meaningful relationships, to question and examine all the perspectives which they have swallowed whole out of the hands of whatever culture they were born into, or to dream all the wandering dreams they have repressed for the sake of taking a narrow path to arrive at a preconceived goal.

The flipside of this would be people who tend to be thinkers and dreamers, and who have over-developed the upper chakras. These people are stigmatized by this society, and frequently end up homeless, locked-up, self-annihilated, or dependent on others. In the past, and in less "modern" societies, they would tend to become the shamans, artists, story-tellers; the central movers and organizers of society.

Can we imagine a society in which both types are equally honored, while an ultimate balance of the chakras is sought by both?

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