You’ve probably heard the word chakras before this point. It’s a concept closely associated with New Age practices, and is a Sanskrit word meaning “wheel”. It refers to the seven primary energy centers of the body. Until recently, Western science largely dismissed the relevance of the chakras and relegated it to superstition. However, as we learn more about the glands that are located in the body, it becomes easy to spot the correlation between where the chakras are located and where those glands are located.
Chakras and the Hormone Factories of the Body
Chakras correlate to the 7 hormone centers of the body that regulate everything from sleep and reproduction to brain function and mental awareness. The idea that ancient people might have been able to observe and recognize that something special was happening at these particular places of the body shouldn’t surprise anybody. Our ancestors weren’t stupid even if they didn’t have all the pieces of the information puzzle put together.
The Reason for the Conflicting Information
Out there on the internet, you will find a ton of conflicting information about the chakras and their connection to the glands located in the body. This is to be expected. To be perfectly honest, most of us are still trying to connect the dots. We’re still trying to figure out how what our ancestors observed to be true about Chakras corresponds to what Western Science tells us is true about the way hormones regulate the body. The picture is still coming into focus, so the answers aren’t clear yet. But I think this is largely because we’re looking at things from the wrong perspective.
The Competing Theories
The prevailing theory in Western science is that there is no soul. The body and the mind are all that there is and all that we need to focus our attention on taking care of for optimal health. The emotions are considered to be a byproduct of the body’s attempt to survive. They are useful only in terms of helping the human body to survive.
The prevailing theory in Eastern thought is that there is no body. The body and mind are there simply to help us learn about the soul and once the body and mind have fulfilled their intended purpose, we will discard them and move on to another plane. Desires are considered a byproduct of the body’s existence. They are to be ignored or fought.
A New Approach Is Needed
Western science likes to treat the body as if it were just a collection of parts with no soul to it. Rather than treating the body as an integrated union of parts working together, which is what it was designed to do, it treats each part as if it were separate and distinct from the rest. What Western science does not understand and cannot see it likes to discard and treat as irrelevant.
Eastern thought compartmentalizes things in a different way. It treats the body as if it were a means to an end, useful in gaining insight into the workings of the soul but otherwise to be discarded once what is needed has been gained. The body’s desires are treated with disdain and the ultimate goal of the Eastern practice is to rid oneself of the connection to the body altogether. To become so “enlightened” that the body’s information is no longer needed.
However, human beings are more than just a body. They are more than just a mind. And they are far more than just a soul. They are designed to be an integrated whole.
Understanding Body, Mind, and Soul
When you want to build a computer, you have all of these parts that you must assemble. The parts are not the computer. Without an operating system and power the computer is useless. Once you build that computer, you must install an operating system in order to be able to interact with it. The operating system is not the computer. Without the rest of the parts of the computer, the operating system is useless. Finally, you must direct energy into the computer’s parts in order for those parts and the operating system to function. This is the soul. The soul is the energy that makes everything else work. The soul by itself can do nothing. It has no way to focus that energy.
The Body-Mind-Soul Connection
The soul is not a separate entity from the body. The body is not isolated from the soul. The mind is not a separate entity from the body. When we live in body-mind-soul integration, this is when we find true fulfillment and peace in our lives. Everything about the body tells us something about the soul that is connected to it. The mind is there to act as a bridge between the physical body and the soul. It allows you to interact with, ask questions of, and get answers from the soul by observing the emotions, desires, and responses of the body.
Everything About the Body Has a Soul Component To It
Science talks about the glands, Eastern thought talks about the chakras. The two things are not the same. If you look at the function of the glands, it does not directly correspond to what is being said about the function of the chakra it correlates to. This is the cause of the confusion between the two. It doesn’t exactly match. However, the reason for this is simple: the Chakras refer to the soul component, the science is referring to the body component, and what is needed is the mind’s help to make the translation between the two.
The Soul Speaks In Symbols
The subconscious mind is the part of our mind that has a direct connection to the divine. The subconscious is our soul speaking to us. It is the creative, intuitive side of us and its native language is symbols and emotions. In our dreams, the subconscious mind communicates to us and helps us to make sense of the situations that we’ve encountered. Most of us aren’t trained to understand that language, so we ignore our dreams or dismiss them as crazy because they don’t make sense to us.
For example, when we dream of a house, most of us just look at the house as a house. It’s a physical object. We don’t look at what a house really means. A house is a place where we live, a space where our things are stored, a place that is supposed to be of safety and security. If we look at a house in that light, it’s easy to see that when we dream about a house, it’s a dream about our comfort zone, our personal space, our personal identity.
Dreaming about a house that is isolated often means you are feeling all alone. Dreaming about a house that’s been abandoned – you guessed it – often means you’re feeling abandoned. If the house is falling apart, it can mean we feel our lives are falling apart.
The Physical Body Is a Symbol
Your physical body is one giant symbol. Everything about it is a reflection of what is taking place in the spiritual world. You must learn to look beyond the surface to find the meaning of the symbol. So, if you want to understand the correct correlation between the chakras and the soul, you have to look beyond the surface of what the gland is and does to what that really means.
Next: Chakras: Regulating and Directing the Flow of Energy
