Meditation & Relaxation
Relaxation methods are modern day survival techniques, which should be learned when you not under a lot of stress.
When you are stressed you will find all sorts of reasons for not starting to meditate & relax.; if you don’t recognise & deal with stress, the increased effects of it can be bad for your health.
A relaxed body is essential for meditation – if your body is still, your mind follows, when your mind is still, meditation can begin.
Chakras & the elements
Your chakras need to be kept in balance for your mental, physical & spiritual health to be at its best.
Sometimes chakras are called closed or open, a better description is active or passive, because it reflects the movement of energy through them.
Different kinds of natural elemental energy provide food for your chakras.
Recognising their qualities makes it much easier for you to balance your chakras.
If you practice relaxation exercises, you will be able to sense whether your chakras are responding to the flow of natural elemental energy.
The Elements
There are five elements – Earth, Air, Fire, Water & Spirit, each has its own character, qualities & strengths.
Each of the seven chakras is linked with one of these elements.
You can work with the elements to help clear blockages in your chakras caused by the pressures of every day life.
By keeping your chakras clear of blockages, you will improve your ability for spiritual development; don’t think of the elements as abstract ideas, esoteric teachings give them form, i.e. beings, goddesses or gods.
Earth Elementals: Are beings who live in & through the earth dimension, i.e. crystals, fairies, gnomes, goddesses, gods, mountains, trees & trolls.
Working with these energies helps you develop your base chakra & is linked with the Indian element of Prithivi.
Air Elementals: Are beings who live in & through the air dimension i.e. fairies & goddesses & gods linked to mountaintops.
Understanding these energies completes your heart/lung connection strengthens your heart chakra & is linked to the Indian element of Vayu.
Fire Elementals: Are beings who live in & through the fire dimension, i.e. keepers of sacred flames & salamanders.
Understanding fire elementals improves your solar plexus chakra, helps the conversion & absorption of food into colour/light/pranic energy & improves your awareness of the Indian element of Tejas.
Water Elementals: Are beings who live in & through the water dimension, i.e. guardians of sacred springs & wells, river goddesses & gods & water spirits – undines.
These elements are linked to your sacral chakra, the sacred waters of your body & the Indian element of Apas.
The above four elementals work with your first four chakras, your chakras above the heart vibrate better with the spiritual realms better than the elemental & the Indian words linked to the spiritual realms are Akasha (space), Atman (soul), Dik (direction in space) & Kala (time).
The Energy Pathways
According to yogi tradition, there are seventy two thousand energy channels called nadis within your subtle body, that connect your aura & chakras to your physical body.
Some of these channels, or meridians are used in acupuncture.
Meditation & yoga focus on three nadis thought to be the primary channels, in order to purify them & enable life force, or prana to flow freely.
Ida Nadi:
The left, or lunar channel, which is connected to the right side of your brain, flowing down to the base of your spine.
Pingala Nadi:
The right, or solar channel, which is connected to the left side of your brain, flowing down to the base of your spine.
Sushumna Nadi:
The great channel nadi, which is connected to your spine & your central nervous system.
The Ida & Pingala nadis cross & recross the Sushumna at your seven chakra points & meet up at your brow chakra, bringing a spiral of energy through your body, centred around your spine.
