The anáhata cakra is, in a sense, the center of our being, the link between the animal and the divine sides of human nature. Its twelve vrttis — from effort and conscience to vanity, hypocrisy and love — and what strengthens this center.
- Main characteristic: air
- Animal symbol: a gazelle (lightness, fickleness, timidity)
- Factor: aerial
- Glands: the thymus gland
The anáhata cakra is, in a sense, the center of our being. Everything below the anáhata A center of psychic energy in the body; seven major ones lie along the spine. belongs to the animal side of human nature; everything above it represents the divine in us. The anáhata cakra is the link between these parts, and accordingly a person's inner and outer activity can be connected more with the one side or more with the other. Once a person is established in life at the level of the anáhata cakra, having truly strengthened this center, very little remains between them and divinity, radiance, greatness.
Translated from Sanskrit, anáhata cakra means "unstruck sound." When the kuńd́alinii energy reaches the anáhata, at this level of Absorption: a state in which the mind merges in the object of meditation. we can hear a special sound — the sound of a flute. It is a manifestation of the sound Om, which arose together with the beginning of the universe. The anáhata cakra controls the element of air — mobile and unstable. The anáhata cakra is also very unstable and restless, and great effort is needed to bring it into harmony.
The anáhata cakra holds 12 properties, or A mental tendency or propensity, such as fear, longing or love; fifty are described in all.
One of the most important properties of the anáhata cakra is effort, ceśt́á in Sanskrit. It is the willed intention a person shows in order to succeed. Effort is made not with the head, not with the mind, not with the intellect, but precisely with the heart. At the moment when a person realizes they cannot do something, that things are not going the way they want, it is important to understand: the reason is that there is no energy in the anáhata cakra; it has all been squandered at the level of the lower cakras on attachments, lust, physical desires, fear and so on. No undertaking can be completed if there is no energy in the anáhata cakra.
The second vrtti is viveka — the capacity to tell right from wrong, the temporary from the eternal, the fitting from the unfitting. It is conscience, that very inner voice we need to listen to and to hear. The anáhata cakra controls the layer of the mind called the vijiṋánamaya A layer of the mind; Ananda Marga philosophy describes five, from the crude to the most subtle. ("kośa" means "layer"). It is neither the conscious nor the subconscious mind; it is one of the unconscious layers of the mind, of which there are three: atimánasa, vijiṋánamaya and hirańmaya.
In the vijiṋánamaya kośa lies perfect wisdom, which can be heard only with the heart; the intellect cannot even guess at it. When an idea comes from the unconscious, a person often dismisses it as impossible. But after a while they realize it was the most correct decision, the most fitting thing that needed to be done. This is viveka, and once a person learns to listen to its counsel, they will succeed in life, because all their thoughts and actions will come from the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Being, pure love. To listen is to receive the highest good; to ignore it is to receive one's own A reaction of a past action waiting in the mind to be lived through; what people often call fate., one's own karma. But even if a person has heard the voice of the unconscious, they must find the courage to act as the heart bids. To hear the voice of one's heart, the instincts must fall silent: when a person has no cravings and no deep fears, a chance appears to feel one's purpose clearly. Usually this happens in moments of meditation, or when the mind is elevated for some other reason.
Along with the understanding of what needs to be done comes inspiration. If we defile our heart, this voice grows weaker and harder to follow. To defile the heart means to do something against the rules, against the laws of the universe, against The inherent nature of a thing; for a human being, the longing for the Infinite and the effort to reach it., against the laws of spiritual harmony. At that moment a feeling of repentance arises.
The next property of the mind is anutápa, repentance. A heaviness appears in the chest; a person feels they have clipped their own wings. Confidence disappears; gone is that strength, that boundlessness which is there when the heart is pure. For the anáhata cakra to remain powerful, one has to be a very honest, righteous person. Every time you do something wrong, you punish yourself. A mistake must be admitted and accepted, and it is good to tell someone you trust about what you did. It may be an A teacher of meditation trained to give personal instruction; monks, nuns and family people can be ácáryas. or a devoted friend. If this person has spiritual wisdom, they will tell you exactly what needs to be done to purify yourself and bring the mind back into a state of strength. If you go against your heart, the mind falls, and for a long time a person cannot recover. This is why many people find it hard to meditate: many sins have piled up, many deeds have been done against the heart. And when in meditation a person approaches the divine, the process of repentance, of purification, begins. So it is important that nothing weighs on us: the past is the past; let it stay behind. Our eyes are not in the back of our heads, and it is natural for us to look forward, not back.
The next vrtti is called cintá — worry. On the one hand it is positive. We begin to reflect, and sometimes these are fantasies from which great things are occasionally born; but more often they are daydreams that bring no result, because they are crude, rest on the lower centers and squander psychic energy. An agitated air element in the anáhata cakra leads to nighttime brooding, when a person cannot fall asleep, and to an inability to concentrate on the here and now, when the mind is busy with distracting thoughts. Worry is closely connected with the feeling of hope.
The vrtti of hope (áshá) is also in the anáhata cakra. Its positive influence is that as long as hope lives, the heart lives too. But this quality can also be negative, because hope easily grows into worry. It is a kind of light fear that sits at the level of the heart. According to the teaching on the cakras, we experience three kinds of fear.
The first and heaviest fear is in the svádhiśt́hána cakra — mad terror, the terror of death; in the mańipura cakra the fear is paralyzing, but also activating: fight or flee; in the anáhata cakra it is worry: the thought keeps spinning in your head — will it work out or not? That is why the feeling of hope needs to be transformed.
One who has forever left the fetters of hope at the beginning, in the middle and at the end is a pure person, ever abiding in bliss, who has realized one component of holiness.
One who lives in the present moment, who listens only to their conscience without peering into the future, knows: this action is right, righteous. They do not hope it will bring pleasant fruit, and they do not worry that it will bring suffering. The person gives up worry and hope at the same time. Then this hope is transformed into faith, which can move mountains and with which everything is attainable.
The next vrtti of the anáhata cakra is vanity (dambha). To some degree we all have it — absorption in oneself, self-love. The positive side of vanity is that a person strives to become better; the negative side is that they are focused on themselves and cannot manage to go beyond their own person. In fact people want infinity, but it is impossible to experience it in a small body and a limited mind. When a person disconnects from their personality, turns their gaze toward the infinite and moves from serving their own person to serving all of humanity, then the mind expands and transpersonal experience comes. But vanity is a stumbling block on this path.
Vanity in itself is not a very terrible quality; there is a more harmful aspect of this vrtti — arrogance. It is a superiority complex, when a person looks down on others, thinking they deserve more. Several other vrttis are born of this feeling.
Greed — lolatá — is one of them. It arises because a person feels that all the best should go to them. Nobody likes such an attitude; arrogant people provoke dislike, because the others understand that their claims are unjust and wrong. But once a person has developed such a complex, they are blinded, and this blindness keeps them from seeing how inappropriate their behavior is. Such a person craves public esteem. When they do not receive the treatment they expect, and worse, see mockery and rejection, they take it very painfully, like a knife in the heart. A self-centered person given to self-glorification strengthens the second of the vrttis born of dambha — egoism.
Egoism (ahaḿkára). Usually a person chooses either to sing their own glory or the glory of the Supreme. And when they do not sing the glory of the Supreme, the energy goes to the other pole — it focuses on themselves. All efforts need to be redirected toward attaining the highest aims, the Supreme; and if one is to be proud of anyone, then only of the Supreme, since all the wonderful qualities that show themselves in people are given by God. As this vrtti develops, a person begins to feel they are in the deepest hell.
Hypocrisy (kapat́atá) is another vrtti of the anáhata cakra. Hypocrisy means that two personalities live inside a person. One personality is for everyone, for show, and the second is inside, for oneself. A person cannot accept themselves as they are; they lack the courage and the boldness, and they deceive themselves, creating a false image and living in self-deception. And it is this false image that is presented to others. That is why it is said that one should not pose as a saint before one's time — it is fraught with various psychic distortions. One can even go mad from the gap between what is inside and what is outside.
In fact hypocrisy, self-admiration and self-glorification are always a need for love. Hypocrisy can also show itself as a certain cunning, which is not bad at all as long as it is not abused — a cunning that comes from the mind and is used for good ends. For example, you can say something in such a way that the words will either inspire a person or crush them. You have been a little cunning about something, but you did it because you sincerely believe in the person, see their potential, and choose words that will inspire them. To understand how this works, one needs a developed mind. But if the mind is ill-disposed, directed only at physical aims, it is an instrument for a rapid fall. So one should be wise, yet deliberately keep simplicity and move away from hypocrisy. On the one hand, you should not behave like a drunk — whatever is on the mind is on the tongue; on the other, you should not have one picture inside and another outside, that is, show the world an entirely different personality.
Spirit is an infinite source of energy. If the mind is straight, all your energy shows itself outwardly; it shines for everyone. Charisma and strength appear; there is energy for making efforts. Hypocrisy tangles all this energy, and the mind can never fill with spiritual energy. That is why one needs to get rid of hypocrisy.
How is that done? The first step is to accept yourself as you are. The second is to keep improving all the time. If you have boasted of something and what you boasted of is not quite true, try to achieve what you exaggerated. By constantly raising your inner standard to the outer one and making the outer standard simpler, you will bring them into one. When the two levels meet, harmony will come, and you will become psychically stable and very happy.
The vrtti vitarka is talkativeness. People are herd beings, and it matters to them that someone understands them; they need to share their thoughts and feelings. The anáhata cakra is strengthened by this exchange, by mutual understanding and trust. Vitarka gives the intention to move forward and to succeed, when many kind and needed words have been said to another person. In that case it is definitely a positive property, but sometimes the anáhata cakra loses its balance, and it turns into garrulousness. As a rule, the subject of such talk is the person themselves: they speak only about themselves and boast of their achievements.
A heavier expression of this vrtti is argumentativeness. The gradation is this: talkativeness — the ability to speak well and rightly, to share; garrulousness — an uncontrolled expression; argumentativeness. Some people love the phrase "Yes, but…" in conversation. The person seems to agree, but cannot allow anyone else to have the last word; they themselves want to be the most important person in the conversation. Everything is closely connected, woven into one tangle: vanity, garrulousness, greed, hypocrisy, arrogance.
In the anáhata cakra there is the property of depression (vikalatá). Depression often arises because of fear in the mańipura cakra: energy leaves the anáhata cakra, and then a person falls into a state of depression, of mental numbness. Our emotions strongly affect our well-being. Lonely people are far more susceptible to various illnesses. And a person may be surrounded by many people — husband, wife, brothers, sisters — and still be deeply lonely if they feel that no one understands them. A human being is made in such a way that it is important for them to be aware of the deeper meaning of life; otherwise it is impossible to live in harmony — there is not enough psychic strength for it. Besides, if the anáhata cakra is weak, the immune system is suppressed because of the faulty work of the thymus gland, which lies in this center's sphere of influence. When energy flows through the anáhata cakra, it stimulates the immune system; a desire to live appears, and the ability to reach one's goals.
The last vrtti is one of the most important: it is love (mamatá). One guru said:
"That which makes mind soft and so strong and strenuous as it may keep itself in a balanced state even in the condition of pain … is called love." — Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrti, Subháśita Saḿgraha Part 19, "Salvation and Devotion"
If you feel monstrous discomfort and are going through serious trials in life, but love lives in you, there is no force that could break you. People are attuned to follow a noble path. An ignoble path, the path of pettiness and self-centeredness, leads to suffering, because our cakras do not accept it. When animals live caring only for themselves, following the instincts of the lower centers, they are very healthy, because that is how it should be. But when a human being acts that way, they begin to suffer and lose harmony and energy.
If you make the anáhata cakra strong and powerful, the whole world will gain a new, radiant, magnificent personality. Absolutely anyone can do this, given the desire and the courage. One needs the courage to step away from old patterns of behavior and thinking, to leave the path of egoism.
The anáhata cakra must shine, and for this one needs to follow the moral principles of Five principles for how we treat the world: not harming, truthfulness, not stealing, keeping the mind on the Supreme, not living beyond need. and Five principles for shaping oneself: cleanliness, contentment, service despite hardship, uplifting study, keeping the Supreme as life’s goal..
- If you have done something against your conscience, repent, and tell someone you trust about it. Take on some austerity that will correct this defect in the mind. Deep repentance and austerity will purify the heart and fill it with energy.
- Good company matters most of all for the anáhata cakra. It lifts you to the heavens, to liberation, while bad company enslaves you more and more. Come together for spiritual practice and plan how to bring well-being to the whole world. Gather and plan the transformation of the earth for the good of all. Always think: as long as my heart beats, I will not stop making efforts to help this world. Think globally, but act locally. Start helping the world by cleaning up your own stairwell, because if the neighbors are happy, that is happiness, and from one small point happiness will spread through the whole building. Satsaḿga — spiritual company — is of two kinds. The first is outer: the people with whom you can share what is innermost, spiritual. The second is inner: one's relationship with God. When there is inner satsaḿga, a person depends on no one. If the need for love, which gives rise to vanity, hypocrisy and the like, is satisfied on the subtle level, a person no longer goes about with an outstretched hand in search of love. They are able truly to love, to give, to share, because they do not expect the same from others. They do not expect praise and envy no one. But to experience constant inner satsaḿga, one has to work toward it for quite a long time, and outer satsaḿga helps greatly in this. When people gather and meditate together, magic happens: a feeling comes that God is among them, and that God too is enjoying this mutual kindness, love, flight of lofty thought and noble striving upward. One day you will discover God within yourself.
- Singing a A sound or set of sounds that, repeated with its meaning in mind, carries the mind toward the Infinite.. The words "Love is all there is" are the best thing for developing the anáhata cakra. Singing a mantra and the Lalita Mármika dance make the mind strong; all complexes are erased; all failures are shattered by sincere love for the Supreme.
- A yoga posture held steadily and comfortably; it balances the glands and quiets body and mind for meditation. for the anáhata cakra:
- bhujangasana (the cobra pose);
- dhanurasana (the bow pose), or naukasana (the boat pose);
- chakrasana (the wheel pose);
- bhavasana (the pose of creating an idea);
- halasana (the plow pose);
- shivasana (the pose of Shiva) — an ásana that cures vanity and develops modesty.
Ásanas, moral principles, elevated conversation, good literature that resonates at the level of the heart, noble aspirations, a sense of mission in life, a sense of meaning in life, spiritual company, collective meditation, singing a mantra and dance — this is all that is needed to develop the anáhata cakra. Everything material comes easily; it is more important to invest your energy in spiritual values.