Chakra 7: Sahasrara

Introduction

So if you know you need to be near a wall, if headstand is newer for you, maybe make sure that you set yourself up towards the wall before we get started.

Practice

So we're not denying one over the other, that we experience both, and that this infinite thousand-petaled lotus, it's called sahasra, this infinite self existing within everything in our lives. So sahasra, or our infinite selves, or bliss, or cosmic consciousness, another word can be called liberation, or freedom. This is liberation and freedom from all that constricts our spirit. And so the aim of yoga, the aim of our practice, is that freedom is internal, it's eternal, it exists within the here and now. The more we begin yoked into our spiritual realities, that it doesn't have to be if this changed, if that changed, if I had this, it's independent of anything external, and it exists within us at all times.

So take a couple moments here with the chin in towards your throat, taking a few breaths, leading down into your hips, into your life as it is. We learn to live life on life's terms, not on our own, so it goes by letting go and letting God. That word may be, sometimes it's really charged, but it can be a wonderful word to reclaim, or just by the universe, as we surrender into this omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent presence that exists all around us, within us. So take a few breaths, even like smelling the most fragrant flower, it's happiness and freedom. It's your birthright, everyone's birthright, and the sound is om, so let's take a big breath in together, and even in this om, there's a focus on the final syllable in om, which is silence, and that's when we hear the echo, or the reverberation back of the sound, to hear back from the universe.

So we'll breathe in together again, om, take a little pause, the next one, reach your lotus above your head, om, and then open up, the crown of your head, opening up into this thousand petaled lotus, om, inhaling here, and then exhale your arms down, and so from here, you can slide your padding out to the side, and come on to your hands and your knees, we're going to move around a little bit, just prepare our bodies and our minds to go upside down as we root the crown of our head into the earth, and allow our roots to be grounded into the sky, into the heavens. So a few cats and cows, just begin to get some spinal flexion there, you'll begin to breathe in, lift the head up, and then exhale and round in towards yourself, dropping the chin in towards the throat, and again, inhale, lift up the crown of the head. As you exhale, round in, so the more we begin to move with our breath, the more we're trusting our infinite self, this vastness, more big breath, and free from this limitations of our minds, more big breath in, and then tuck your toes under, begin to reach down through the legs, and empty yourselves into downward dog, pedal out through your feet a little bit, the point of our yoga practice is to stretch, to feel this vastness, allowing the breath to pour into the body, move a little bit from side to side, we're not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience, learning these valuable lessons, on your next breath in, roll forward into a plank pose, press the ground away here so that you feel the sense of strength through the arms, lift up through the body, and then begin to slowly lower yourselves down so it's heaven and earth becoming married, and then untuck your toes, lift up your chest for a baby cobra, hug the elbows in, pick up the chest, and then come onto your hands and your knees for a child's pose for a moment, take a breath in and again breathing out, feeling your head release towards the ground, and then reach your arms up to the sky, you're going to take a twist over to the right side, so sit up nice and tall as you breathe in, and then breathe out, looking back behind you, and then from here you're going to circle the left hand back to join it so that you can lift the chest, lift the gaze, interlace your hands behind you so that the chest begins to open, and then you're going to place your chest back onto your thighs, from here you're going to roll onto the crown of your head but lift your hips up in line with your knees, and allow the arm bones to get a little heavy up and over your head, so that you're just rocking onto the crown of the head, stimulating the crown of the head and all of its energy, and release your hips back down, take your arms up to the sky, and just twist over to the other side, take your left hand behind you, breathe in, twisting, looking back, and then circle the right hand behind you, pick up the chest, breathe in, interlace your hands, bow right back and down, and then again lift your hips up, massaging the crown of the head onto the earth, rise on up one more time, and then we're going to do a few more opening here to prepare the arm bones for and the chest and the trapezius and all these different parts of the body, maybe we're not used to standing on to prepare us for our headstands, so we don't want all of the weight to be on the crown of the head, so that's why preparing the arms and the chest and the shoulders is really important, so you can take a block and you can sit on it for virasana between your heels or a blanket, so that you're really comfortable, we're going to spend a couple moments here, and take your hands to your heart center in a prayer, interlace your hands, and you're going to start by pressing the palms away so that you can draw the ribs in, and draw the chin in towards the chest lengthening the back of the neck, and then begin to take the arms up to the sky, keeping the low back long by bending the elbows at the shoulders move away from the ears and then press the palms up, but draw the front of the ribs into the back of the body so that you're really rooted again in both realities, your material reality and your spiritual connection up to the sky, and from here you're going to begin to take a bend with your right hand towards the back of the heart, you can use your left hand to encourage your hand a little further back behind you, and then take your left hand to meet the right, you can grab a hold of your t-shirt if the hands don't meet just yet, or reach for your fingertips that you can roll the shoulders back, you may have to arch the spine a little bit first to find the hands, but then again draw the front of the ribs in, and then lean the head backwards, the shoulder moves away from the ears, take a big breath in, and a big breath out, one more big inhale, and then let go of the hands, and we'll begin to open up the arms the other way, so eagle arms, inhaling and you can breathe wide across the back of the heart, arch up and back, and then exhale, release the hands, take the arms back up to the sky, take your palms to your heart, interlace the fingers the other way, and then exhale to press the palms away, and breathe into the backs of the shoulders and area that you need to get into the back body, the unconscious, and then take the arms up one more time, bend the elbows so the shoulders move away from the ears, and then press them back up so that you're really stretching out through the hands, the arms, put a bend in the left elbow, use the right hand to encourage it down the back, and then with your right hand, find your fingertips or your t-shirt, that little pull, but see if the shoulders can still move away from the ears, and the ribs can move in towards the back body. Take your head back a little bit towards the inside of your left arm, and then let go, taking your left arm under, so again, you can dome through the spine with the elbows moving in, and then lift them back up. Take one more inhale, and then release your hands down, and then you're going to come forward onto your forearms, so this is going to prepare again to create some strength in your arms to withstand the weight of your body all the way upside down.

Your elbow can come right underneath your shoulders, and then root down through the thumbs and the index fingers, but at the same time, see if your shoulders can roll away from the ears, and you're going to stretch the right leg back, draw the ribs in the belly and then the left leg back, this is a forearm plank, and it's quite intense, you're going to feel the arms awake, and you're going to feel the navel awake, which again is very, very helpful for when we're upside down, to begin to have this inner strength and connection to our breath. Take one more big inhale, exhale to stay, and then take one shin down, take the other shin down, extend your hips back towards the child's pose, and then you're going to come back onto your forearms, and this time interlace the hands, so this is where we're going to prepare for our headstand, so your hands actually create a crown that you're going to wrap around the back of your head, so you want the back of the skull to be nice and long, and then the elbows to hug in like we were opening up through the backs of the arm bones, so the important thing is that the back of the neck is long, the chin is in towards the throat and you're really on the crown of the head, not on the forehead or towards the back, where you might fall, so let's do this sitting up so that you really feel the shape before you plant the crown of the head on the earth, allowing the chin to move in towards the throat, and then from here, take your forearms to the ground, so we're going to first start in a dolphin pose with the head not on the ground, and then for those of you that want to make your way over to the wall, you'll begin to take your way over to the wall or stay in the dolphin preparation, especially if you feel like your head or your neck isn't quite ready to withstand the weight, there's no rush on this path, alright, we want to take our time, so from here as you root down again, shoulders move away and then begin to lift your knees and lengthen your legs, so you can bend your knees, allow the chest to move a little bit towards the tops of the thighs, breathing into the heart, you can lift your sitting bones up so you're really stretching out through the back of the heart and then find some length, rejoin the tailbone and find the lift up through the low belly, sinking down into the earth again, into the roots, into your material reality, where you come from but it's not who you are, as we begin to break free of everything in our past, take one breath in and then exhale the knees down, point your toes and lengthen the legs, and then we're going to come on up this time towards sheer sasana and you can take the first step in the middle of the mat by simply placing the crown of your head down, lengthening your legs or again those options to move towards the wall, I'm not a fan of a blanket underneath your head because you can begin to move to one side or the other, falling can happen if it's imbalanced between the forearms but if the crown of the head is sensitive you can fold over your sticky mat to create a little bit of extra padding for your head stand, so let's go ahead and get started again, elbows underneath your shoulders, interlace your fingers, make your crown, your pinkies can kind of fold in towards each other to make it nice and stable, wrap your thumbs around the base of the skull and then tuck your toes under, the feeling is to press down and lift up at the same time as you begin to walk your feet forward, keep the shoulders moving away from the ears, press down into the forearms and then you can play with lifting one heel towards your sitting bone and then the other, so this is like a little egg or a little seed before you rise up and then begin to lengthen both legs up together by pressing down, down, down, you can begin to rise up and see if you can begin to draw the energy again inward so there's this internal stability and reaching up with your feet as you root down, bringing conscious, conscious cosmic consciousness, it's hard to talk upside down, into your everyday life, whenever you're ready to come down, see if you can come down slowly by bending one knee and then the other, coming back in towards yourself like a little ball and then take your feet, tops of the feet towards the ground and your arms out and in front of you and again another little walk from side to side, slowly walk your hands up, so we're going to end this portion of our practice with a twist from side to side and then a restorative pose, Supta Baddha Kanasana, restorative practices and Shavasana are the other side, first with the headstand and then the complete surrender and release of the body, so this complete, complete letting go, the yogi's practice of letting go of everything including the physical body to be able to tap in to our spiritual reality that's always there, so do make sure that you have a blanket ready and a couple blocks that can begin to support your knees as we come into Supta Baddha Kanasana or Reclined Baddha Kanasana, but first lie down on your back, we'll feel nice to low, back of the body to sink down and then twist about all the vertebrae and the body can release the nerve endings, so both knees go over to the left and then your right arm can open up nice and wide, you can tuck your foot underneath your knee or keep the knees nice and soft and it's an act of surrender, somebody said to me, you know, let go or be dragged and it's not that the letting go is so hard, it's the holding on, by letting go we become free, take a few moments in your breath, tuning into your infinite and free self and then begin to transition over to the other side, allow the transition to be as smooth from one thing to the next or guide it, bend both knees and then look past your left hand, you can close your eyes, surrender into the force of gravity and the breath, as you come on through center, reach for your blocks, you may have to sit up for a moment, take one on either side of your mat and then a blanket is also nice to roll up, it's a place right underneath your spine, the heart center can open as you allow your body to completely be held, blocks underneath your knees to be supported and then allow your arms to open up, like when you used to make snow angels, like heaven on earth, I'm going to stay here for about another minute, allow yourself to open up, infinite and vast, infinite and vast. And so we're going to begin to make our way out of this pose and into Shavasana, so you can lift your feet, you can move your blocks over to the side and then even lean onto your forearms so that you can draw your blanket from underneath your spine and take it underneath your knees which will allow the weight of your body to sink into the earth a little bit more, for Shavasana is corpse pose, every day we begin to prepare for a rebirth, so take any adjustments, move your head from side to side, get nice and comfortable, letting go of all physical material attachment, tap into your true undying nature, every exhale you can even say let, every exhale go, a big mantra. And then do stay here for a little while longer and I'm going to get up to sit and take you through a bit of a guided Shavasana, and so as you lie here in this warm and safe and comfortable space, you can imagine the crown of your head, kind of a cap of a thousand petaled lotus, and in the center where all the petals meet there's an opening, through this opening you can envision a white, violet or even gold colored light beginning to enter into your body, nourishing every cell of your being with divine consciousness, it is your connection to cosmic consciousness, what was is and ever will be, you need to feel your body nourished and bathed, this infinite energy, freeing you from anything that bonds you, binds you to the material world, it's a state of enlightenment, we're unchained by the limitations of our mind, of our past, allow yourself to soar above in the earthly shackles and to yoke and connect yourself to your divine self and trust that everything in your life is as it should be, for your highest good, take a few more moments here, as you begin to open yourself up to new possibilities, infinite possibilities, new beginnings, possible rebirth, now begin to come into a little bit more aware Shavasana, keeping your body completely still, even looking down at yourself through this liberated identity, seeing yourself as a free being, sacred being, and begin to deepen the rhythm of your breath, experiencing this presence within you, a freedom that's internal, eternal, slowly begin to move your fingers and toes and come into your finite form without losing touch with your infinite self, no matter what life gives us, become rooted in yoked to our spiritual identity and live a life that's aligned with our spiritual nature, begin to stretch your arms above your head move a little bit from side to side, you've just been born, give a big hug of your knees in towards your chest roll over onto the right side into a fetal position and then you're going to begin to rise on up to sit again in this rebirth, infinite possibilities as you begin to join your hands back at your heart in your lotus mudra, rooted in both realities, material reality, spiritual reality, human and divine, and let's take an inhale together for the sound of umm, breathing it umm, bowing down and honoring one another namaste.

Talk

The colors associated are white so a lot of the time you see in spiritual traditions everybody wearing white as a again symbolic of our untouched purest selves, untouched by the past, so it's not puritanical it means you know a lotus is symbolized where it's this gorgeous white lily in the mud but it doesn't have you know like the mud just rolls off of it or a swan kind of shakes off its little swan tail even though it's in this muddy mucky water so we're in the world but not of it, it doesn't stick to us once we have this experience of yoga meaning yoking into our spiritual nature, so all the practices are meant to do this for us, yoga means to yoke and to begin to draw us in towards our spiritual reality so that we can begin to view the world as it is without being engrossed. So white and then also gold also violet so there's all these really wonderful you see even lotuses these colors beautiful within these lilies within the pond. The sound is om and again om has it's also for the sixth chakra like we explore the sixth chakra is more of its audible nature and then like I said it's created out of four syllables or four sound ah ooh and mmm the fourth one is silent so it's meant to be that pause again in which we can receive it back right this great guidance of the omniscient omniscient omnipotent, I love how all these words have the word om in them and if you know what omniscient it means it's always guiding us it's always present it's omnipotent all powerful once we begin to surrender and honor and trust the relationship to the divine spirit within and also the forest around us our life and our universe. So one of the main ways it can go out of balance that we notice in our own thinking process and this can be daily is obsessional thinking when we can't stop thinking we have this mental tick of something that keeps going again and again and again any sort of obsession with something with a thought something in our past or something that happens now we begin to see our mind we become powerless over things in our minds we become so attached to certain thoughts so that's one way we can begin to notice that we're not free if our mind is yoked to just one particular thought or obsessed with one thing one person something external alienation is another way that we can see that we don't feel connected to the world around us we don't feel connected to the spiritual world for sure we just feel alone and isolated that's another way that we can recognize that there's an imbalance there or it's dysfunctional and then just basic anything having to do with the mind depression and confusion when we begin to experience these mental states that can be debilitating there really is meant to be associated with our seventh chakra being out of balance so a couple of ways in which it can really physically be debilitating is through headaches and it's another way and also migraines Alzheimer's is meant to be associated with it as we do begin to get older in our minds if we don't do new things it's meant to be so as we get older we're meant to again have these new experiences so that our minds don't begin to shut down and to begin to seize I've had this experience firsthand with mine with my father and it's gonna be so painful to see this but we can lose our minds even without having Alzheimer's where our views become so rigid and we can't see things that are new and right in front of us so it's meant to be keep your mind fresh do new things see yourselves in these new ways to keep the mind alive and that we're reprogramming these dysfunctional patterns through awakening our seventh chakra sensitivity to pollution is meant to be another one to where you know I think I'm very sensitive to pollution and probably everyone is because our environment is so polluted but it's supposed to be when it's very very debilitating it's meant to be that our channels aren't so we're not as protected so that's meant to be one of the ways to in which it can go out of balance now if it's truly depression deficient depression can be assigned to so again like I'm saying mental states of depression again that sense of that comes from I think alienation a lot of the time feeling not connected self-worth being very much dependent on what's on the outside and as we begin to lose external connections especially as we get older if we don't have this sense of self the spiritual sense of self is meant to be one of the ways in which it's just closed off to any reality that we have a spiritual existence that's not dependent on what we have on the outside apathy is another way and then also this this inability to learn to experience new things all of these ways keeps our minds trapped rather than being able to open our minds more fully so if it's excessive the ways that it can go out of balance is that we're overly intellectual overly controlling overly attached this ego centricity so the ego is so related with our minds too and that's one of the ways in which it gets blocked first we develop a healthy ego and identity and then as we do also have to begin to let go of that identity and open up to new experiences and new possibilities so this begins to trap us over intellectualizing and and not being able to let go over identifying with our physical nature so that's the way that it can be excessive so when our seventh chakra is balanced we're more spiritually inclined we're more open-minded we're able to do to do new things we're able to let go we're able to be more trusting and in this way experience happier lives more free lives so it's not dependent again on external realities we know that there's a bigger picture we're able to surrender to the divine a little bit easier so those are the ways in which we can begin to look at this week ways in which our seventh chakra is out of balance and again sometimes we think it's the most esoteric but I find it to be you know what really really what I find is alive for me most right because it's our thinking it's what it's what's inside of our mind so to work on this one becomes almost as tangible sometimes and to work on things that are material because we notice what our minds can do and the more we can begin to work with it I don't know for me it feels like everything else becomes a little bit freer so in creating your altar to begin to honor your Sahasra chakra white flowers there's nothing so beautiful as white flowers I have these little also these floaty candles so I have this gorgeous white vase it reminds me of a brain you know just crystal clear and then there are these floating candles there's something about it that reminds me of just this nature that's free and liberated a picture of a lotus the Buddha kind of an enlightened person maybe you know somebody in your life or a sage or a saint sometimes you see the saints with halos around their heads and that's also meant to be this connection towards the Sahasra and our connection with divinity our spiritual reality another thing if you don't have your floating candles is just a simple white candles so things that are white that represent purity for you that represent freedom that represent bliss and a lot of the times you'll see the Dalai Lama you'll see some of the more enlightened beings just like completely free laughing and it's just such a joyful state and something to really look up to and work towards how can we be more like them how can we emulate them as mirrors so maybe even a mirror you know a mirror is a wonderful thing to have as a true reflection on your altar so as you

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