Once, at a festival, I saw a tent offering chakra balancing so I went in. The healer asked me to lie down on his massage table. Then he put magnets the size of hockey pucks on my lower belly, my solar plexus, and my chest. He started humming and moving about a bit. Picking up different objects, looking at them, smelling aromatherapy oils, and chanting something that sounded like it could’ve been mantras.
Eventually he chose a red stone and placed it on top of the magnet on my belly, kept humming, sat down at my head and sprinkled some essential oils on his hands. Then he closed his eyes and began massaging my shoulders and neck.
That was all fine.
But eventually his hands wandered to my chest and he began massaging my breasts at which point I told him I was done and got up. He said that was fine because my chakras were perfectly balanced at that point anyway and I must’ve intuitively known that.
Gag.
I was a grossed out, but the festival was full of scantily clad and/or naked people, dancing and enjoying themselves so I let it go (plus, I was young and much more likely to blow-off predatory behavior at that time in my life).
A few years later, in India, I learned that chakras don’t ever get “perfectly balanced.”
Perfectly balanced chakras and other dogma espoused by people like the way-too-handsy dude at the festival come from relatively recent western chakra theory.
My Indian teachers taught that the chakras are always a little imbalanced because that’s why we’ve come here to this life, to work through our issues. Balanced chakras (and they never used that term by the way) are essentially what happens when you fulfil your life’s work, achieve an immutable state of bliss, and merge back into Oneness.
Yoga practice, particularly in the Hatha Yoga and Tantric yoga traditions, is about strengthening your central channel, the core of the subtle body, so that you can go deeper into meditation and connect to the flow of oneness, a supernal bliss that underlies all reality.
The information about yoga and the chakras I encountered in America was really different. In the west, chakras were much more about achieving individual psychological balance, fulfilment, and/or success on different levels. And there was a dogma about them – the rainbow, the oils, the foods, the “themes” were information that my Indian teachers dismissed, sometimes with a bit of disgust.
As for the rainbow – there is no rainbow in the traditional chakra systems, this info came from the west.
I did a little research because I really wanted to know how the rainbow got overlaid on the chakra system.
As hard as it is to conceptualize today, there was a time in the 20th century before color TV was widely available. When colorization happened, people were mesmerized and started to become fascinated by the idea that colors could be healing. In the 1950s, color therapy came into vogue. You can actually trace this interest back to The Wizard of Oz and the colorization of films.
At that time, rainbows started to be understood as healing tools (Dorothy sang about it after all 🎶).
In the 1970s, a psychologist named Ken Dychwald (who is now an expert in psychotherapy for seniors) was working at the Esalen Institute in California. He was one of a few early, western, New Age chakra writers who overlaid the rainbow onto the chakra system. Another was Dr. Christopher Hills in his big, big book, “Nuclear Evolution.” (Later he became more well-known as the guy who said we could save starving humanity by growing spirulina on ponds).
Seven is a fun, lucky number. So, seven chakras and seven colors fit together quite well. And while this may be a tendency that hails back to the eighteenth century and Emanuel Swedenborg’s Law of Correspondences, or perhaps even earlier to Johann Gichtel’s seventeenth century teachings about elements and planetary correlations, it does not have roots in traditional, Indian systems.
In the contemporary western chakra system, the rainbow colors were added by Dychwald, Hills and perhaps a few others writing, talking or chatting about the chakras in the 70s. Most of these authors were influenced by proto-New Agers, particularly Madame Blavatsky, Annie Bessant, and Charles Leadbeater of the Theosophical Society.
Besides the gropy guy at the festival, I’ve had other chakra healing session in the U.S. and many were relaxing, pleasant and in no way inappropriate. I’m not dismissing the western chakra interpretation.
But, the thing is, I’m a yoga teacher.
I want to teach about chakras from a yogic perspective, not from the perspective of folks who haven’t studied yoga, or those who prefer to use chakras as a way to pick up chicks.
(more next week)
If you’d like to learn more, please check out my free ebook, Chakras: Is Everything You’ve Been Taught Wrong? 4 Differences between Traditional and New Interpretations
CHAIR YOGA FOR YOUR BRAIN & NERVOUS SYSTEM
SUBTLE® YOGA FOR ENHANCING TRAUMA RECOVERY
Five Ways Yogic Meditation Benefits Your Brain – eBook
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Great article, I have always intuitively been somewhat skeptical of the chakras and relation of the colors, etc. that you mention. This is a great article, looking forward to your ebook and course about the Chakras! Thank you Kristine, you are Amazing!
Thank Aurora!
But this isn’t true. The chakra colors are described in the Bhagavad Gita. This isn’t true at all.
you will have to give me a citation for that. There is no mention of the chakras in the Giita. Yogananda does a very interesting interpretation of the Giita where he equates each of the 5 pandava brothers with the five lower chakras, but even in that interpretation, Yogananda does not mention the rainbow. You will have to provide a source. thank you
Maxwell, I have not been able to find colors/chakra directly referenced in the Bhagavad Gita. However, I would encourage you to read the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The references to light in my mind also refer to color which we know contains the colors of the rainbow when viewed through a prism. Please let me know what you think. Thank you. https://holybooks-lichtenbergpress.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika.pdf
I would be interested to hear more. thank you for the reference Paula
Interesting post, interesting perspectives on development of theories re chakras form the west , as compared to traditional theories.
Thanks Rita!
I’m REALLY looking forward to this book and course. I’m fairly knowledgeable about Chakras and yet I learned so much in this post.
Thanks Francine!
Thank you for the perspective in the Eastern tradition.
Thank you! I’ve always shied away from including Chakra language in my teaching because I just don’t know enough about it or it’s origins and don’t want to offer some wishy washy westernized version of a deep spiritual tradition I know nothing about. I’m so happy to learn it’s much more than a self improvement practice (as is yoga, so no surprise there) I look forward to the e book and course.
Thanks April. I felt the same way so I hope that my work can help!
I’m with you, April. I’ve heard so many interpretations of the Chakras from different traditions–even that the colors of the Chakras change as one ‘evolves’– that I never use Chakra language in my teaching. Instead I refer to the ‘Heart Center’, the ‘Naval Center’ preferring to refer to a physical area. I simply do not know.
Thank you, Kristine for addressing this subject and I too am looking forward to the e book and course.
It gets really confusing. I agree. I hope I can shed a little light, at least help folks to not be afraid to talk about them.
Patricia, I really like your Heart Center, Naval Center, etc language. And thank you Kristin for your expertise!
Thanks Laura, glad you enjoyed it!
Kristine, in your recent SYRS class on Resilience and the Subtle Body, I was astonished to feel the powerful vibrations around a chakra center by chanting and focusing on an energy center with prana, compassion and awareness. I felt this practice, meant to cleanse the chakra or clear karmic residue, definitely helped me “lighten my load”.
Ah, that’s beautiful Annelise. Glad to hear you had that experience. xo
Namaste’ and thank you I appreciate you insights and research. I will look forward to your book.
Thanks Tulya!
Thank you for verifying why I don’t include language or teach a branch of yoga I know nothing about. This blog validated what I felt in my gut to be true. I look forward to the ebook and class
Thank you as always – I have also been wondering how the colors got related to the chakras. I listened to a very interesting talk about the 7-circuit labyrinth and how it relates to the chakras – and he used colors for the paths and so forth – and perhaps then I started wondering about the colors … hence – I really look forward to your version of the chakras – the colors are beautiful anyway you look at them – whether in a rainbow or chakra system or the other rainbow group.
Thanks Nancy!
Your experience seems all too familiar to me. The New-Agey stuff I was exposed to in the late sixties and early seventies was enough to put me off for what, fifty years? One reason I selected your program is that you do not require me to check my brain at the door. I agree that many of the explanations of chakras and other popular treatments of complex, ancient wisdom can be a pleasant, non threatening introduction but being wedded to them is sort of like concentrating on unicorns and glitter, when horsemanship is the goal.
Eager to see what your book brings.
Yes, please don’t check your brain at the door, but you can leave your unicorns there LOL! I don’t think I have all the answers, but I hope that I can help bring a broader perspective to the conversation. xo
Very interesting article, fascinated by the history and how the colors came into play. I look forward to your Ebook.
Thanks Debbie!
Looking forward to your book and lessons on this subject after reading this. Fascinating and funny. .
Thanks Donna!
I never took the chakras seriously until I studied with you a number of years ago, then they started making sense.Even in other yoga teacher trainings the teaching was superficial. Then I leaned more from Dr. Joe Dispenza about the Energy Centers as he refers to the chakras. Now I understand so much more about this valuable part of the yogic tradition.
Thank you Sue!
Did the different crystals associated with each chakra come from the colors of the rainbow assigned each chakra, or was it the other way around? I have always been interested in learning more about our chakras so I look forward to your new book.
There is definitely a precedent in the correlation in exoteric tantric and exoteric alchemy of gemstones with healing properties – they are also used in jyotish or Vedic astrology. So that would precede the rainbow as far as I understand it.
There is also a lot of information around about certain music notes relating to the Chakras..usually the scale of C Major.C at the base to B at the crown.. 7 notes for 7 chakras. Do you also think this is a convenient Western interpretation?Could you recommend any books about such matters..is there any research around sound and Chakras?
Good point Stella – yes it is a Western interpretation. Did you know that Indian scales are different from Western scales? so there’s no way that the original systems used western scales. If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, check this out. http://dhrupadmusic.com/indian-western-music.html
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge. I have always internally cringed about the westernised view of the chakras. I feel like it ‘dumbs’ the teaching down, particularly when you have people who have been taught and believe they have colours inside them.!!!!!
Thank Kay. I also think that when people like Anodea Judith were writing their books in the 80s, they didn’t have access to the information about chakras that we have now, so they, in some ways, were exploring blind.
I am looking forward to the Chakra Course and ebook to learn more. Being a “western” yogi I did not think about going deeper to find the truth about the correlation of the colors and the chakras. Your article is very “enlightening”. You have talked about visualizing asanas so the body will recognize the posture when it is practiced. Could visualizing the colors be a way to give form to the causal body which some may have a hard time grasping? I only recently have gotten to grasp some of the deeper meanings of many of the yogic teachings. Thank you so much for your research.
it’s a great question and colors have certainly played an important role in tantric visualizations for centuries.
Thank you for your subject. Its interesting to note different research siting brings different people to the forefront re: identifying colors for chakras. NUCKEAR EVOLUTION by Christopher Hill is noted as associating chakras to colors in 1977.
Ken Dychtwald wrote BODYMIND a classic in integrative understanding of psyche and effecting soma, while adding inthe chakra psychology also.
Again thanks for this subject.
Thanks Tzivia, as far as I understand it Christopher Hills was not necessarily the first to put the rainbow on the chakras. And Dychtwald certainly contributed by providing the information for all the laminated charts that proliferate in New Age bookstores.
This is gat article and can’t read to get your book.
thanks Pam!
Curious if you have read the Complete Book of Chakras by Cyndi Dale? Among many other points of interest she discusses the Hindu perspective, the history of Chakra Knowledge through the lens of Ancient India, the Chakra systems of Asia (India, Tibet, , Korean etc.), Africa, Middle East, along with Modern Western systems. I believe the concept of chakras has developed across the world, influenced by each particular culture while still maintaining some essential truths.
I understand you want to present from a yogic perspective , but I believe there are other perspectives that are valid, and we need not negate them.
Another thought I had–have you ever talked with/ worked with anyone who sees subtle energies? Typically they will tell you that the Chakras are not one distinct color, but many layers of constantly changing hues of color based on the ‘health’ of the spinning vortex of energy.
Wishing you peace and health,
Sheryl
Yes I’ve read her book and some of it is interesting and some is inaccurate. I don’t want to throw the New Age chakras under the bus as I said in the post, but, I do want to teach from a yogic perspective, I’m not a psychic, I’m a yoga teacher.
Looking forward to what you share on this! I took several chakra mini-courses during bodywork therapy school and then also during various meditation pieces of training. Some of it was helpful, some became very confusing. One cultural idea of the coloration of the chakras changed from another. I had to just let go, so the color of chakras mainly became less important to me, so I would not be unkind myself about what color was where. Thank you again for being a voice of hope!
thanks Virginia
Thank you for this timely article, as I was assisting in a chakra weekend intensive for a YTT 300 hour program just today. Fortunately, the lead teacher, one of my primary teachers, is a vastly experienced and knowledgeable yoga teacher and practitioner who trained with Swami Kripalu and studied the Tantric tradition with Pandit Rajmani Tigunait. She took us through some traditional yogic iconography and interpretations, in addition to the more modern Western psychological overlay (and rainbows), which is what most students are most familiar with. I took your course on the chakras that was offered through YogaU some years ago, loved it, and have been waiting for your book ever since. I look forward to checking out this new course, too.
Thank you Sara! So glad to hear you are helping to teach a more traditional perspective! I am still working on the book. Some day! xo
I so enjoy this discussion. It all feels mystical and magical to me. I do like the sense of the chakras being energy centers. Chakra theory is a big vast subject like an ocean to me and as usual I need a lot of new vocabulary when I seek to understand something. I just heard of another yoga teacher who is writing a book about the Chakra’s and Yoga Nidra. I am also seeking to understand Yoga Nidra. I look forward to your book about the chakras and his. I will send the info privately so as not to be advertising on this site. Thanks for your enlightened and informed discussion and references.
Very interested to hear more about the chakras from you. I have the Eastern Body Western Mind book and have studied it closely for years but I feel I need more. I’m a bit weary of the airy fairy side of it – which seems to be a way to get people to part with their money in many cases. I’d like something more serious – if that makes sense!?
Hello Kristine,
This is SO interesting and I look forward to reading more from you on this topic.
I really enjoy including awareness of the main chakras in my classes but have hesitated to use the “rainbow” colours.
My readings (if reliable) state that each chakra has an associated lotus flower symbol (as well as animal, gem, etc)
and each lotus has a number of petals and a colour.
I have always wondered why these colours didn’t match the “rainbow” colours!
Thank you! Please enlighten me further.
Namaste, Cynthia
ps I reference Swami Satyananda Saraswati “Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha” 1973 and “Yoga Nidra”, 1998
Hey Cynthia,
Yes, sounds like you have had a very similar experience to me! I had both new age and traditional chakra training and I was so confused and frustrated. Anyway, please keep an eye out for my new ebook and course, I’ll be detailing what I discovered. thanks!
Ack! I’m so glad you knew to walk out! What a bummer!
I read somewhere that the tonal (sound healing) vibrations matched to / associated with chakras (chanting and bija mantras) were weakened versions of the vibrations in light wavelength. That simply if the root chakra is set / said to be at 396Hz that if it were multiplied incrementally by 10,000, that the Hz would become light and that light would be a spectral color, “red.”
Does this resonate? (No pun intended…) 😉
I’m looking forward to your book!
Hey Molly,
There’s a lot of info out there about color, sound, vibration etc. But most of that is newer info and not from the traditional system. Interestingly, the traditional Indian musical scale is 12 notes and quite different from the western scale, so that’s another issue to wrestle with. I’m not disputing anything that the psychics or sound healers say, but I do think it’s important to reclaim some of the information that has been overlooked from the tradition.
I love that people loved “The Wizard of Oz” so much they thought its colors MUST be good for them. 🙂
well, color film was certainly a magical thing at the time.
Thank you Christine for your enlightening blog article. I just paged through the book that I have from my first teacher training (YTT 200 hr), ‘Wheels of Life’ by Anodea Judith. The bibliography does not list the Bhagavad Gita or the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or really any texts from East Asian authors at all. As I unpack the ways in which my yoga training was essentially full of cultural appropriation and western erasure of the origins of yoga, I am humbled and eager to continue to re-learn and un-learn these traditions and lineages. It feels overwhelming and I am heartened by yourself and others who are also diving deeper and working to accurately present the vastness of the yoga tradition.
Ah thanks Rebeca, your comment really means a lot to me! I think, in the eighties, when so many of these books were being written, there was so little awareness about cultural appropriation. And it was much harder to do any real research. It’s not an excuse of course, but I do think there is some kind of evolutionary process happening that is making western people rethink some of the very real, and very contemporary dogma that was put into place. In a very strange way, it’s an exciting and healing time.
Thank you for your response Kristine. My apologies for spelling your name incorrectly in my previous comment!