Thoughts can come from anywhere in the body, from our heads, from our hearts, from the gut feelings, from our sexual areas. During meditation much of our time is spent listening to all manner of thoughts. All the after-action reviews, all the desires and emotions. These often correlate with sensations from areas of the body. These areas have names in Sanskrit. One naming system is referred to as the chakras. From cakra चक्र. “Wheel. Circle. A potter’s wheel. An astronomical circle.
In the safety and serenity of meditation, as we are listening to the quiet inner hum and pulsation of our mantra, there is a quality as if we are receiving a massage, an extremely subtle massage that is gently suggesting to the body that it can let go of tension. Our sore spots come to the surface to be felt and healed.
It’s often painful to listen to and feel these areas because this is where we hold tension. People who do not understand the purpose of meditation think of this as distraction. It’s not. The body-mind system is tuning the tension so that we have an appropriate level of “bounce” or responsiveness. We are relaxed and ready.
Over time as we listen to the tension and “suffer” through the process of releasing excess tension, we learn to inhabit these areas of our body, more and more. We are inhabiting ourselves. We feel through the blocks we have put up to protect ourselves from our own experience.
Most of the time in meditation, if we have a busy life, we will be listening to the tension the body is holding, often in the areas called chakras. And sometimes sweet moments emerge in which we are listening to the song of the chakra, its note.
There are many different systems for assigning notes to chakras, don’t believe them. Go in and explore and make your own map. Discover, don’t impose. There will be times when you are listening to skin sensations, so to speak, or everywhere in your body at once.
Image by Sharon Pattaway
