My dear friends...

Did you know that the chakras of the body have a function and a purpose that most people do not understand? Last week in this space we took our first look at the human experience of “yearning” as a tool of awareness. Our exploration of this continues this week by describing this sensation in a way that opens the door to a larger understanding of the use and function, purpose and role of your body’s chakra centers. We have heard much about these centers in our body over the years, but seldom, if ever, have we heard how they “operate,” or why they are there. Let’s use the experience of “yearning” to take a look at this.

While yearning is a mental process, it can, like all mental processes, produce physical experiences. Yearning can produce a sensation in the stomach; what we might call “jitteriness” or a “jumpy tummy.” Deep and sad yearning can even cause a dull pain there. This is because yearning is an energy, and there is an energy center in the area of your body where your stomach is located. This energy center is called a chakra, and it is one of seven such centers in your body.

Energy centers translate the spiritual into the physical, the invisible into the visible, or, more broadly, what is thought into what is felt.

In short, chakras are the mechanisms that turn Knowing into Experience.

It is fascinating that, given how vital these energy centers are, millions of people are not even aware of them, or don’t believe that they exist. They do exist, and they can be utilized to bring us the physical experience of our spiritual identity. This is done by working with energy (what is called chi or ki in some Eastern traditions).

Here is how energy can work:

Deep and sad yearning is an energy. It is a thought, created in the Mind. It is a physical energy formulation. It is your personal information— or, more accurately, YOU, in formation.

You are a three-part being: Body, Mind, and Spirit. What you know in your Spirit you will yearn for in your Mind, and you will experience that yearning in your Body. For instance, you know in your Spirit that you are One with everything. When you become self-aware, you become aware of what your Spirit Knows. You will then yearn for this in your Mind, and you will experience this yearning in your Body.

It is the function of your energy centers to translate the Soul’s Knowing into the Body’s Experience. A fully awakened Mind does so purely, without distortion. A Mind that is not fully awake may, by virtue of its sleepfulness, by virtue of its forgetfulness, distort the Pure Energy of your True Knowing, producing a physical experience that is less than Pure.

It is along the chakra system of the body that the Life Energy flows, physicalizing spirituality along the way. The chakra system does this by translating one form of energy into another. This process of translation is what some of you call transformation.

Thus, the non-physical energy of a deep and sad yearning can produce the very physical energy of an aching heart. I don’t mean this as a metaphor. I am referring to an actual physical aching.

Positive or happy yearning can, by contrast, produce an upliftment and an enlivening of the physical senses, resulting in an actual improvement in physical health. It is not uncommon for a person to feel better all over when experiencing a positive yearning. Yearning to meet one’s God, or deep devotion to the Divine Being and the Divine Principle, is a very good example. Masters (such as Paramahansa Yogananda) have told us that living within such a yearning produces inner peacefulness and physical well-being.

Ultimately, yearning for Divinity leads to the Holy Experience, for yearning always produces the experience for which it yearns.

Hugs and love,