The mind/body connection: achieving transcendence with the seventh chakra
by Nancy B. Loughlin
Published in News Press on July 23, 2013.  Posted with permission.

Michael Jackson didn’t really write his music. He said that the music was already written in the universe, and it just came through him. So many artists claim a similar creative process.

Divine inspiration or access to the subconscious? It’s the seventh chakra in action.

Over the past seven weeks, you’ve explored this bottom-up chakra journey. You liberate the self by cleansing the lower chakras, redefining your material life, and you come to terms with your feelings and desires. You then move beyond matter to the realm of mind and tap into the infinite abundance, the higher power, the spiritual dimension, the subconscious. You manifest intuition.

People with seventh chakra deficiencies tend to over-intellectualize. They may be know-it-alls with an obsessive need to be right. Or, they may be feeling lost, trapped in us vs. them duality. They may not have a sense of purpose or belonging and therefore overly attach to people, jobs, objects, religion or addictions.

The reason every yoga class closes with meditation is that the asana practice has cleansed and aligned the body’s chakra energy centers. You are now a perfect antenna for receiving. The seventh chakra, the crown, is the portal.

Once that portal is open, when you are in a deep state of meditation, you will sense a unity, a feeling of wholeness. You realize that if you and the universe are one, all that you seek has always been within you.

Get a Rubik’s Cube. When you need a reminder that you are not detached or isolated, twist the cube as a meditation. The genius of this toy is that focusing on one side creates chaos in another; it demands a holistic approach.

Straighten up. Whether you are sitting or standing, roll your shoulders back and down, and stack the chakras. This way, you are a straight antenna for upward liberating currents and downward manifesting currents.

Take the other perspective. When you become rigidly dogmatic in duality, write a letter to yourself from that Democrat or Republican, boss, co-worker, or sister. Convince yourself of their points of view.

Learn. Take an organic gardening workshop. Get a motorcycle license. Sign-up for SCUBA certification. Earn a graduate degree. Talk to others about their interests.

Drive across the country. Road therapy reminds you of how small your world has become.

Re-Read the writings of the Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson. These great American transcendentalists embraced unity, compassion and being tapped into the infinite’s wisdom.

Lighten up. Clean out the closets, garage and your purse. Open the shades, and let in the sun. Write notes of forgiveness (or amends) to your past, and send them (or burn them). Remove clutter, both physical and spiritual.

Finally, remember what “Namaste” means: Literally, “I bow to you,” to your authentic self from my authentic self, the selves that are already one.