Q: I have seen many chakra medtations and read of many more. My question is, how often can someone meditate on the chakras daily? What is too much?
A: How much meditation is too much?
There was once a young woman who was searching the world over for a true master to give her the secrets of life. She felt that she could not see things clearly and was worried about making wrong decisions and mistakes based on her own uncertainty. She wanted to find out how to live in society without all this uncertainty and fear. Finally she came to a Master who was said to live in a cave in the Himalayas that was perfectly at peace.
“How can I live with other people and maintain my own clarity and make decisions from a place of Love? How can I live peacefully with others in my heart?” she asked the Master.
“How should I know,” the Master replied. “I came here to get away from other people.”
Disillusioned, she came back down into the city and saw a man dancing and smiling as he worked his way through the marketplace, a look of serenity on his face, contentment radiating from his very being. On an impulse she felt to ask this man her question:
“How can I live with other people and maintain my own clarity and make decisions from a place of Love? How can I live peacefully with others in my heart?”
“Why by being perfect!” the man replied, looking at her with great compassion.
The woman’s spirits fell even further. “How can I ever become perfect?” the woman asked.
The man laughed gently. “By making many, many mistakes.”
Our instinct or intuition is something that is very valuable. It comes form our experience, our victories and “mistakes”, and our connection to our vibrational or soul-self. Once we fully separate our intuition from our habits, it is an invaluable guide for matters both sacred and earthly, ultimately showingthe bridge between the two.
Meditation is one such bridge. (Some others are love, true knowledge and conscious action.)
“Prayer is talking to God, meditation is listening. After you pray, sit still and listen.”
–Paramahansa Yogananda
Listening is a beautiful and rare commodity in modern life and your interest in meditation is to be commended. Shorter periods of more intense meditation or increased time in daily meditation can be okay, like doing a dietary fast. However, the more basic intention of any meditation is to know your true Self and bring a harmonious integration into your life. If you find yourself meditating to escape daily life or responsibilities or meditating so much that it impedes your ability to function and contribute to your daily obligations, then integration will be an elusive experience. So the answer to this question would depend upon how well you know yourself, what your true intention is with meditation, and if you are keeping a balance in your life with your relationships, job, responsibilities and health.
Generally it is fine to meditate on whatever topic you choose that inspires joy or love or insight starting with as little as 7 minutes a day and increasing this over time to 1/2 hour or an hour or even more, as long as there is balance.
The most imprtant thing is regularity and consistency, but do not beat yourself up if you stumble in your discipline. Meditaion needs to have a voluntary element to it, otherwise it becomes an activity like all other ordinary activities in life meant to get us ‘somewhere else’. And true meditation invokes a spontaneous presence in the ‘now’ and is not in conflict with or demonizing any aspect of existence. Start with a meditation that feels ‘right’ and inspires felings of love or gratitude or wonder and learn to trust your intuition more and more. The Chakras are a wonderful way to experience directly the different vibrations of energy while living your dharma as an integrated being. All meditations end, however, and when they do you are left with what always is. The awareness that is You.
Jeff is a teacher, writer and co-owner of Inner Vision Yoga. All suggestions are voluntary. Consult a qualified teacher or your physician before you embark on any practice in which you are unfamiliar.