For those of you completely unfamiliar with chakras and their purposes here are the basics. You have 7 chakras located up the middle of your body starting with the root chakra and working their way up to the crown chakra, you also have smaller chakras located in your hands and feet. Here we will only be discussing the 7 main ones. Here is a chart that lists the chakras and their locations on the body.

The chakras are a very important part of many beliefs; for example Buddhists use them to regulate the flow of the kundalini and belief in keeping them clean and in balance to prevent illnesses and other ailments of both the body and the spirit. When your chakras are dirty, blocked or spinning too fast or slow then it is believed to cause illness in that area of the body and slow down spiritual growth. First you need to become very proficient with meditation before attempting to cleanse your chakras for two reasons. Fooling around with your chakras is not a smart thing to do since you can cause them to slow down or spin too fast, second cleansing them takes awhile especially the first time so you need to be sure that you can maintain the time frame involved. I recommend the first few times you open your chakras that you just observe them without tampering with them at all. This will help you become familiar with your balance and how fast they should and should not spin. Also look at the color of each one, if it is too pale then you need to focus on moving more energy into it. If there are dark spots that is usually indicative of blocks or negativity concerning the aspect represented by each chakra. Here I will discuss cleansing the chakras but I will not go into depth of what each chakra represents emotionally and spiritually. For the most part they are self-explanatory and can be figured out. I will do extensive listings of each chakra later on though.

Now we will begin the cleansing of the chakras, find a comfortable meditation position. I personally prefer the Lotus position (sitting cross-legged with each foot on top of the other leg and hands resting on the thighs with palms up and spine erect) but lying down or sitting is fine. Just remember to keep your spine straight through meditating. If you slouch this causes the chakras to fall out of alignment and also changes the way you breathe. Now close your eyes and proceed into a meditative state then starting with the root chakra visualize it opening up. I use the traditional method of visualizing a lotus flower but even just a colored ball of light will work. Now observe the chakra, its colors and look for any dark spots. This chakra should spin extremely slow and each chakra above it spins a little faster in balanced chakras. Now visualize a cone of golden light opening up in front of the chakra with the smaller end facing the chakra now slowly send the root chakra through the cone until it emerges from the other side. This golden cone of light is how you cleanse so as it is passing through make sure you remember to send it through with the knowledge that it will come out the other side clean. This method will cleanse any blocks on the chakra but will not change the speed that it spins so it is relatively safe for beginners. Now proceed to the navel chakra and repeat the process until you have done this to all 7 chakras. Repeat this exercise whenever you begin to feel stressed, it works very well and with each use of this exercise you learn how your body responds to it and increases your ability to meditate for long periods of time.

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