Heart Chakra - razena.net · Heart Chakra A poem by Daisy Lu It began with one her idea was so small all she wanted was to have a place to go one day a week. Her voice was heard through

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Heart Chakra A poem by Daisy Lu

It began with one her idea was so small all she wanted was to have a place to go one day a week.

Her voice was heard through the Universe, those who saw her star shine beckoned to her call.

They all had felt out-of-step with some facet of their lives never finding a place they could call home.

And then one Magickal day their worlds collided with her own.

Something that had lay dormant had finally been awakened

Their common purpose clear -- to find a place to belong.

Now she has found her tribe to be called back to her so everyone could be reunited with each other.

She still feels that there are more out there who may not know how or where to find her

but she has faith that when more have been awakened they will find their way home again.

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Checklist for the Week

Read through the entire chapter about this chakra.

Determine your deficiencies and excesses in this chakra. What needs healing?

Wear the color or keep it prominent.

Work with your Chakra guardian.

Meditate on your original Mandala.

Make a new Mandala after working with the Chakra for a while.

Work with the affirmation.

Work with the stones, foods, herbs, spices, incense,

Go through the correspondences and work with the items that resonate with you.

Work with your Tarot cards or Runes.

Record Ronald’s meditation in your own voice to listen to at least daily.

Chant the Mantra using the Mudras,

Tone.

Journal your thoughts and emotions.

Keep a dream journal.

Perform the exercises and practices given in each Chakra section.

Check the website. www.razena.net

Check in on the Facebook page.

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Other Suggestions and Thoughts on Working with the Chakras This Week

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CHAKRA FOUR SYMBOLS AND CORRESPONDENCES Sanskrit Name: Anahata Meaning: Unstruck Location: Heart Element: Air Outer State: Gaseous Function: Love Inner State: Compassion, love Psychological Function: Relationships, Love, Acceptance, Self-Control, Compassion, Guilt, Forgiveness, Harmony, Peace, Renewal, Growth Emotions: Balance, Love Rights: To Love Identity: Social identity Orientation to Self: Self-Acceptance Demon: Grief Developmental Stage: 3.5 – 7 years Mantra: OM SHUKRAYA NAMAHA Vedic Astrological Association: Pisces (Two fish lying close together with their heads in opposite directions and Libra) and Libra (Man in a bazar with a balance scale in hand). Vedic God Association: Brahma and Hanuman Affirmation: “I am filled with unconditional love.” Basic Movement/Exercises: pushups, swim (breast stroke), hug yourself Archangel: Raphael: Healer, Regeneration Essential Oils: rose, benzoin, meilssa, neroli, frankincense, bergamot, jasmine, carrot, inula, lavandin, lavender, spikenard, oregano, marjoram, melissa, black pepper, sage, sandalwood, blue tansy, hyssop, cinnamon bark, laurel, palmarosa,camphor and amni visnaga. Herbs/Spices: Basil, Oregano, Sage, Thyme, Cilantro, Parsley Flowers: Rosa Webbiana Stones: Jade, Rose Quartz, Malachite, Unikite, Aventurine or Rhodonite Foods: Vegetables (especially cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, cabbage, and leafy greens), sprouts, raw foods, foods rich in chlorophyll, plant compounds like phytoestrogens and phytosterols, any green-colored foods. Tarot Major Arcana: Lovers, Justice (also Strength & Temperance) Tarot Suit: Swords Rune: Ehwaz

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CHAKRA FOUR SYMBOLS AND CORRESPONDENCES Glands: Thymus Associated Body Parts: Lungs, Heart, Pericardium, Bronchia,Thymus Gland, Arms, Hands, Respiratory, Hypertension, Muscles Physical Dysfunction: High Blood Pressure, Heart disease, Lung disease, Passiveness, Lethargy, Asthma, Immune System, Breathing Difficulties, Pneumonia, Emphysema, Cell Growth, Muscle Tension, Heart Problems, Chest Pain Color: Green Seed Sound: Lam Vowel Sound: Ay as in “play” Petals: Twelve Sephira: Tiphareth Celestial Bodies: Venus Metal: Copper Corresponding Verb: I love Sense: Touch Yoga Path: Bhakti yoga Herbs for Incense: Lavender, jasmine, orris root, yarrow, marjoram, meadowsweet Animals: Antelope, birds, dove Lotus Symbols: Twelve petals, within which is a six-pointed star. In the center is shiva lingam within a downward triangle (trikuna) within the seed symbol, yam. Depicted are lsvara, God of Unity, and Shakti Kakini. At the base of the star runs an antelope, symbol of freedom. Hindu Deities: Vishnu, Lakshmi (as Preservers), Krishna, Isvara, Kama, Vayu, Aditi, Urvasi Other Pantheons: Aphrodite, Freyja, Pan, Eros, Dian Cecht, Maat, Asclepius, Isis, Aeolus, Shu (also, Christ, though not technically a deity, would be the energy of the heart chakra) Chief Operating Quality: Equilibrium

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BALANCING THE FOURTH CHAKRA

An excess of the heart is not an excess of love, but an excessive focus on attention and approval from others in order to receive love. Remember, excess results from a compensating behavior for a deeper wound. A deficient heart chakra is closed down to others.

Excessive Characteristics:

Codependency (focusing too much on

others)

Poor boundaries

Jealousy

Being a martyr

Being a pleaser

Deficient Characteristics:

Antisocial, withdrawn

Critical, intolerant

Lonely, isolated

Lack of empathy

Fear of intimacy

Balanced Characteristics:

Caring

Compassionate

Empathetic

Accepting

Self-loving

Peaceful

Centered

Content

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Open the Heart Chakra

Sit cross-legged. Let the tips of your index finger and thumb touch. Put your left hand on your left knee and your right hand in front of the lower part of your breast bone (so a bit above the solar plexus).

The heart chakra has governance over compassion and love. It helps to heal those attributes focusing on our ability to be generous and to share happiness. This helps us to be mindful and aware, of ourselves and of others. This mudra also bestows the ability within all who practice it to give off compassionate energy to others they come in contact with.

Concentrate on the Heart chakra at the spine, level with the heart.

Chant the sound YAM.

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Mantra Chanting

Mantra: OM SHUKRAYA NAMAHA

Fourth Chakra Venus – Times to do chants for week of Feb 5 – Feb 12, 2013

Chant the Mantra 108 times each day, preferably at one of the times listed below for the most powerful Chakra activation. These are the times of the day when Venus, ruler of the fourth chakra is also ruler of

that hour. THURSDAY Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 9:58 a.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 4:58 p.m. FRIDAY Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 6:58 a.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 1:58 p.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 8:58 p.m. SATURDAY Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 10:58 a.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 5:58 p.m. SUNDAY Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 7:58 a.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 2:58 p.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 9:58 p.m. MONDAY Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 11:58 a.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 6:58 p.m. TUESDAY Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 8:58 a.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 3:58 p.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 10:58 p.m. WEDNESDAY Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 12:58 p.m. Sukra (Venus) horai (hour) starts at 7:58 p.m.

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Heart Chakra Self Recorded Meditation By Ronald Williams

This meditation should be recorded in your own voice and listened to on a daily basis for the week we are working on this Chakra. In the future, whenever you feel a need to work with the fourth Chakra, spend time listening to it to help balance this

Chakra

Get comfortable. Breathe in and out slowly and deeply, letting go of all the tensions from the outside world.

Think about the chakra that is being worked on today. Summon the guardian for that chakra. Know that they will keep this journey totally safe for you and guide you, helping you learn what lessons the chakra has for you.

Begin by closing your eyes and focusing on your heart.

Visualize a beautiful green light that nurtures and bathes your heart in pure love.

Take a deep breath, and on the exhalation, say "yuummmmm" aloud in one long syllable.

Feel the sound vibration in your body.

Notice the energy flowing effortlessly from the base of your spine through your heart chakra.

Continue breathing deeply and repeat the sound yum on each exhalation.

Dare to look into love.

Do you love your mother the same as you just love to drive?

Do I love myself the same as I would a grandchild?

They are all love and all wonderful.

Let the heart chakra decide what love is for and how much.

Grasp the letting go of that.

Realize the love in this wisdom.

See and know the green of growth.

Your guide is waiting for you with open arms and an open heart.

The heart chakra is a twelve-petal lotus blossom.

So rich and intricate it can almost not be seen.

Like love itself.

I open myself to love.

To giving love freely not as currency

To accepting love from others for what it is.

I appreciate the joyful wave that a small child gives me for what it is.

I do not blame the small child for my being alone last Saturday night.

Any more than I would blame someone else for not loving what they do not know.

I know that I love.

And like a breath it goes two ways.

My heart chakra is my love filter.

It allows me to give without suffocating others.

To accept without need of others.

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To understand true compassion.

True acceptance.

My heart chakra’s green helps love grow where without it nothing would.

I tend to it now, and feel the lotus petals blooming even more open.

And now I let it be.

And return to the outer world to seed it with

Love

Love

Until you feel infused with a feeling of peace and safety.

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Practices to Open the Heart Chakra

Gratitude

Gratitude invites the heart to open. To truly realize how much we are given in this life is to be flooded with divine love. To express gratitude to another—for his or her patience, loyalty, sense of humor, generosity, or any other quality of value—is to deepen our appreciation of that quality.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is an important, even essential, practice of the heart chakra. It frees the heart from the past so it can move forward into the present and future. When we let go of old hurts, we make room for more love to be shared. This letting-go softens our heart and relaxes the patterns that keep us from receiving what is available to us in the present moment.

Forgiveness, however, does not always come naturally, easily, or quickly. There are indeed actions that can seem difficult if not impossible to forgive, especially if we are still suffering from the negative effects of these actions.

Forgiveness does not mean that what someone did was okay. It doesn’t mean that an action didn’t matter, or that you have to allow it to happen again, or to necessarily invite that person back into your life. It simply means that you can realize the valuable lessons these kinds of experiences have taught you. When we reclaim our lives and stop seeing ourselves as victims of others, then it no longer matters how these particular lessons were delivered. Forgiveness is ultimately not about others at all, but about accepting what has happened to us and moving on.

Generosity

Have you ever noticed how much energy and creativity arise when you are making a present for someone? Have you ever noticed how small your own problems can seem when you are sitting with another’s suffering? When was the last time you gave selflessly to another?

Do an illogical favor for someone. Give a panhandler a large bill. Take a neglected person to lunch. Pay attention to someone who usually gets ignored. Do something special for your children or your parents. Surprise someone with an unexpected act of generosity.

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Physical Exercises

Physical exercises for the heart chakra focus on opening the chest, stimulating the meridians in the arms, and expanding and deepening the breath.

Cobra Pose

Lie face down on a rug or mat. Extend your legs out behind you and press your inner ankles toward each other. Place your hands on the floor, next to your ears, with the fingers pointing forward, elbows pointing backward.

On your inhalation, raise your upper body, at first using only the muscles of your back. Keep your legs firm and press your hips into the floor. Hold this position for a few moments. When you’re ready to move on, push your hands into the floor, arching your back and keeping your elbows slightly bent and close to your body. Now lift your chest against gravity, shoulders down, the top of your head parallel to the ceiling.

Hold this position as long as it is comfortable while breathing deeply, expanding the area around your heart. As you exhale, bend your arms and lower your chest to the floor. Take time to feel the movement of prana. Repeat according to your inclination and ability.

Camel

Kneel on the floor with your knees hip-width apart and thighs perpendicular to the floor. Rotate your thighs inward slightly. Press the tailbone down toward the floor. Keep your outer hips soft and open. Your knees now become your roots, pressing into the ground.

Rest your hands on the back of your pelvis, the bases of your palms on the tops of the buttocks, fingers pointing downward. Use your hands to widen the back of the sacrum. Drawing up through your core, inhale and lift your heart as high as you can before pressing the shoulders back.

Beginners will wish to stay right here, while more advanced students may wish to bring their hands down to their heels, either with their toes tucked under to bring the heels a little higher and make it easier, or staying with their feet flat on the ground.

Once here, expand the heart. The greater the lift, the easier it is to bend, so you don’t collapse into your lower back. Continue to breathe into your heart and release whatever does not belong there.

To release from this pose, draw back upward on an inhale and sit back on your heels. It is nice to counter this pose with a child’s pose by bringing your torso down over your legs and extending your arms overhead.

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Heart-Chakra Pose: Anahatasana

For this exercise, get on all fours so that your hips are over your knees. Walk your hands out in front of you until your arms are straight, and then lower your heart and forehead to the ground. Pull your lower belly in toward your spine while drawing your hips away from your hands, creating gentle traction in your spine. Meditate on the dedication “I am bowing to ______,” and allow the quality of humility to permeate your being.

Standing Yoga Mudra

Place your feet parallel, pressing them into the ground. For those new to yoga, hip-width apart is fine.

For those more experienced, bring your feet closer together, toes touching, heels one to two inches apart. Ground your weight into your legs.

Reach behind your lower back, clasping your fingers together. Straighten your elbows, opening the shoulders. Take a deep breath in and, on the exhalation, bend forward at the waist, lifting your arms behind you. Keep your knees just slightly bent, and experiment with the position of your arms until you find the stretch that feels best to your body.

Working with the Breath

The element air is experienced most prominently in the breath. Expanding your breathing capacity expands the spaciousness in your heart chakra and clarifies your mind. Some breathing exercises are invigorating, while others are more relaxing.

In yoga practices, the breath is developed through the practice of pranayama, one of the eight limbs of yoga. Pranayama distributes the energy of prana, or life force, throughout the body, cleansing the internal channels, called nadis, and promoting vibrant health. Pranayama increases the prana by techniques that retain and control the breath.

Breath of Fire

This is a rapid, diaphragmatic type of breathing, designed to raise energy up the spine, generate heat, and stimulate consciousness. It is good for both third-chakra invigoration and heart-chakra cleansing.

Sit comfortably with your spine straight. Place your palms lightly over your solar plexus. Take a deep breath and feel your belly expand as you inhale. Then snap your belly inward, pushing the air out through your nose. Then relax your belly and feel the air enter your lungs on its own. Then snap it inward again, relax again, and repeat. You can begin slowly, but gradually work up to a faster rhythmic breath.

Begin with three to four rounds of thirty snaps with a rest in between for a natural deep breath, working up to more snaps per round, as you feel able.

Alternate-Nostril Breathing

This is a slow, methodical breath that works on the central nervous system and leads to increased relaxation and deeper sleep. Close off your right nostril with your right hand and breathe deeply through your left nostril. When your lungs are full, close off your left nostril and exhale through your right nostril.

When your lungs are empty, inhale through your right nostril. Alternate back and forth as you continue breathing for the duration of this exercise through ten to twenty complete cycles. This exercise can bring profound changes in your consciousness.

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Final Assessment and Plan for Balancing Your Fourth Chakra

Bringing about healing, balance, and transformation in your chakras takes time. Doing an exercise once may bring about an experience, but doing it repeatedly over time can bring about a permanent shift.

Before leaving this section, take some time to make a plan for how you want to work on your fourth chakra.

My strengths in this chakra are:

My weaknesses are:

My goals are:

The best tools or exercises for this are:

I make a commitment to:

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Mandala Artwork

At some point during the week, preferably in the first day or two, either after doing your guided meditation or doing chanting work or dancing, you will need to draw a mandala representing your emotions you experienced.

A circle has been pre-drawn on the next page of this workbook to get you started. You will also need some colored crayons. The mandala art exercise is a way of anchoring our experiences back into our conscious world.

Mandala is a Sanskrit word that means, “magic circle.” It is a symbol of life and wholeness. Mandalas have appeared throughout history in many cultures and religions and Jung often painted mandalas as an expression of his psyche. As an art form, they work as symbolic expressions of our inner being, and hold a psychic energy and healing power.

This is not about creating a beautiful artwork. Many people immediately say “but I can’t draw!”.

It really isn’t about what it looks like, it’s what your mandala represents that is important. Just as your dance or meditation unfolds organically and without force, so too, your mandala art is a spontaneous expression of your symbolic representation of the energy of your chakras. The images may be literal or you may find a color or a shape to represent the feelings you while working with each Chakra. This is playful ritual. Just let it unfold.

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Mandala Artwork for Chakra Four.

Title:_______________________________

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Reflections on Your Mandala Artwork

After you have finished doing the mandala, please review the following questions:

Title – Give your mandala a title. Let this title come through spontaneously. It is best to go with the first

name that comes to you.

Feelings – What are the dominant feelings or emotional energy surfacing from your mandala?

Question – What question is your mandala asking of you? Of what is it trying to help you become more

conscious.

Throughout this week, take time to meditate on your mandala, reviewing your question and responses.

Evaluate how it might help to give meaning and direction to your life.