Welcome back to this sacred journey into the chakras.

The chakra system originated in India between 1500 and 500 BC – more than four thousand years ago in the ancient literature of the Vedas. Evidence of the chakras, is also found in the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and perhaps most thoroughly in the sixteenth century by an Indian yogi in a text called the Sat-Chakra-Nirupana.

The chakra system was taught orally by the Indo-European people (also called the Aryan people). It was traditionally considered an Eastern philosophy until New Age authors, like Anodea Judith and others, resonated with this wisdom and began writing about the chakras.

If you’ve been joining me in this series, I hope that you’ve allowed yourself to explore the wisdom of these ancient energy centers; these spinning sacred wheels of life. They are believed to hold energetic space within us; and which link areas of the body and psyche with associated metaphysical realms. Within each episode in this series, I describe how each chakra affects our psychology, and our emotions and behaviours as human beings.

Here we dive into your Anahata, your heart center. Since the heart chakra is the middle point in a system of seven centers, balance, together with love and relationship) are the essential principles at this level of integration.

This implies both internal balance between various aspects of ourselves (mind and body, persona and shadow, masculine and feminine), as well as between ourselves and the world around us (for example: work and play, giving and receiving, socializing and being alone).

It is important to continue to find and live in equilibrium, for without balance within ourselves it is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve healthy and long-lasting love relationships. The basic right of the heart chakra is to love and to be loved.