What about the third eye and solar plexus as connections to the Tao?
MICHAEL: The third eye is the seat of perception. The solar plexus works with personal power. The sun is the source of light and heat—power—for the earth. Every person is like a miniature sun. Through your solar plexus, you radiate your own personal sunlight. The heart chakra is a window of pure, neutral Tao energy.
Is the heart chakra the only place one can connect directly to the Tao?
MICHAEL: Within the limitations of semantics, we would agree with that statement. However, in another way of looking at it, it is not true. Everything in the universe is contained within the Tao. Everything is part of it, springs from it, and is it.
What about, for instance, yogis who specialize in one of the chakras, not the heart chakra? Would you say that they are not connected to the Tao?
MICHAEL: We do not wish to promote a hierarchy among the chakras. Each is equal in importance and value. One does not obtain enlightenment through one chakra above another. If you feel moved to work with a particular chakra more than the others, that is probably appropriate for you. What is right for one person is not necessarily right for another.
How can you tell if your chakras are functioning properly? If they’re not, what can you do about it?
MICHAEL: There are many practices designed to open and attune the chakras. You can use visualizations, sound, chanting, gemstones, and many other tools. The key is your intent that it occur, and making space for it to happen. Everything seeks health and balance. If you give it the space, it will move in that direction. A good approach is to simply bring your attention to one particular chakra, ask that it be cleared, and observe the process while it occurs. However, any method comfortable for you is fine.
You can assume that if you have not been giving them specific attention, they need some, just as a car needs its oil changed periodically. When you live in a place that is highly polluted, both physically and psychically, you need to clean your chakras more often. Spending five minutes a day working with your chakras can do much toward keeping them healthy and attuned, once they are basically functioning well.
If a person has an illness in an area of the body near a particular chakra, would giving that chakra extra attention be helpful? Is there a relationship between it and the illness?
MICHAEL: Usually there is, and extra attention to the nearest chakra can be useful. You can communicate directly with it. For example, if you have a headache near your brow chakra, you might bring your awareness to it and ask what you are holding there, what emotion or belief might be contributing to the headache.
If the fourth chakra is central, not the second, why are emotions, which relate more to the second chakra, always portrayed as being so compelling?
MICHAEL: People often mistake second chakra infatuation with heart chakra love. They glamorize infatuation partly because there is little evidence of mature love around; not knowing their own hearts, they assume that infatuation is about as good as it gets. Immediate emotion is all they know. Emotions are important and should not be repressed, but they are not the whole self. In the heart, the whole self comes together. To know your heart, you must spend time there.
Would you say that being romantically in love is a combination of fourth and second chakra energy?
MICHAEL: Yes. Being “in love” is a state of bonding both at the personal (second chakra) and impersonal (fourth chakra) levels; in other words, you love someone both emotionally and spiritually, both subjectively and objectively, in both your immediate reaction and your overall response. However, people often mistake experiences such as body-type attraction, emotional triggering, karmic ties, and even essence contact (transcendentally connecting with the soul) for being in love.
Channeled by Shepherd Hoodwin