Chakras are vortexes of light and music, gateways to other dimensions, and psychological mirrors. There are countless chakras. Here we focus on the seven main chakras that correspond to the spine and mirror our evolutionary state.

The kundalini, or life force, sleeps at the base of the spine (the root of the tree of life). The kundalini is like a hooded cobra that, once awakened, rises up the spine through the chakras, causing tingling sensations and bursts of energy and insight.

Energy remains at the root chakra when you worry about survival (food, shelter, and money). Worry pulls your personality to the lowest level: fear, anger, and greed. Perhaps this explains, "For the love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Tim. 6:10)

The antidote of this is: "Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." (Matt. 6:34) This awakens you to possibilities hidden in the mystery of the moment. Solutions for survival come easily. You have shifted polarity (Week 7), so energy ascends upwards.

When you are jealous or think about sex-without-love, then your attention flows to your sexual center, the second chakra. As your attention goes, so your kundalini flows.

When you think in terms of good versus bad, you versus them, then your attention flows to the seat of judgement and power struggles: the third chakra in the navel area.

Together, these three chakras create a cycle of struggle: a zombie-like state seeking security, sex-without-love, and power struggles. We move from one limited action to the next and wonder why we create so many hellish situations. When we can't stand it anymore, we begin a spiritual search. Perhaps we pray.

Our praying hands (Week 14) can act as a concentration aid and as an energy accumulator to draw us up and out of struggle. Our pure intent lifts the kundalini up to the heart chakra. We are rising in love. At this level, however, love is still enmeshed in human emotion. There still exists us and the object of our love. In other words: duality, time and space, traces of illusion and confusion.

We open our hearts to someone, then wonder why they do not return our love. We open our hearts to the world, then wonder why there is so much suffering and cruelty. Thus the heart chakra is the seat of compassion, but not the final destination.

So astronauts of the soul ascend upwards by nurturing themselves as much as they would love a helpless babe. The body feels increasingly light and the mind increasingly clear. They rocket beyond faith into the science of conscious evolution.

Next is the throat chakra, the seat of expression and alchemy. To have the kundalini move to this point, we must freely express our hearts, our insights, our shame and guilt until the past no longer holds us back. Then we become endlessly creative.

To ascend higher, we must learn to transmute this energy into something more subtle. We see that emotions, intellect, and the arts can inspire us up to the crown chakra--but not into the next octave. Inner light and music must become our inner art.

As ice turns to water, then to vapor, so does
breath turn to prana (the kundalini), then to light.
Light is a higher octave of the same life-force principle.

 It requires all our courage and focus to reach the third eye. We see love and light equally in everything. We learn to consciously enter light without a near-death experience. This is the art of dying to live (Week 48). "Those afraid to die never learn to live."

Inwardly, we enter a bright white light while our physical bodies bathe in a healing bliss. The enchanting call of celestial music guides us further into pure light. Meditation stops being difficult and becomes a delightful adventure inwards.

 "The kingdom of God is within." —Luke 17:21

The crown opens as the ego stops resisting; we allow powerful energy to flow up through our heads. We have moved well beyond the cycle of struggle. Heaven is where we are. Our bodies move closer to the frequency of light (ascension).

The kundalini reflects your energetic and evolutionary state (see Week 6). Some methods of meditation--especially deep or rapid breathing techniques--force up kundalini energy without considering its evolutionary aspect. This may bring ecstasy in the short run, but in the long run the kundalini will return to the lowest chakra that has been mastered.

Thus, energy flows toward the lower chakras until you can effortlessly shift polarities (Week 7) upward. Then you feel uplifted, inspired, and free--with extra energy to create, heal, and love.

Light meditation draws up the kundalini via the shushumna, the middle path (the staff between the ida and pingala--as represented in the caduceus, the symbol of western medicine). This prevents the overcooling or overheating of the physical body that occurs to people who put personal power or psychic abilities ahead of spiritual growth.

Light meditation challenges you to face your fears one at a time as your awareness ascends the chakras. Every time you return your awareness back to the third eye, you heal the past by returning to the present. In Sanskrit, the third eye is called the governing chakra because it regulates all the chakras below it (as the corresponding pituitary gland regulates the glands below it). The third eye opens the door to light (the crown chakra/pineal gland).

As in biological "death," you become a point of awareness. Light meditation is safe, however, because your body remains breathing normally. Sometimes you will experience the death rattle in the throat and your eyes will roll up, pulled by the magnetic vortex of the music of the spheres. If you bring your attention back to the center of the brightest light, the light grows brighter.

You reach the threshold of the light planes and pass through the eye of the needle as love. This is a universal experience taught in countless cultures and secret societies. It is the basis for the rebirth experience. Its essence has been lost to "civilized" culture.

 To live freely, understand death fully.
Those afraid to die never learn to live.