Perhaps one of the simplest but most powerful methods of opening, activating and cleansing blockages in the chakras is through the techniques of meditation. Although meditation is sought by many as a source of relaxation, it is much more than that.

In addition to providing relaxation to the body, meditation opens the mind to the energies of the Higher Self. It helps to clear the mind of day-to-day concerns of the earthly personality, and allows higher information to be processed through the individual's consciousness. Most forms of meditation do this to some degree or another. However, certain meditative techniques are more powerful than others in accelerating this process of inner communication.

One of the input channels for higher information is through the right cerebral hemisphere. Ordinarily, human beings tend to be fairly left-brain dominant throughout their waking life. That is, they tend to be logical, analytical and verbal. The public school system emphasizes left-brain skills in their curriculum's of reading, writing, and arithmetic. When we view reality through left-brain consciousness, objects in the real world are seen in terms of their literal meanings. When we sleep, we usually function in right-brain mode and work at a more symbolic level of meaning. During right-hemisphere processing, objects are take less at a literal level and seen more for their symbolic significance.

During sleep, when the conscious mind is turned off, the right brain predominates. Dreams are largely symbolic in nature and can be best interpreted from their multiple levels of meaning. During sleep state, the Higher Self tries to communicate with the physical personality in order to relay helpful information about emotional and spiritual difficulties that are manifesting at the conscious level. When communication from the Higher Self is unsuccessful in reaching the personality directly, information is encoded in the symbolic language of dreams.

If people attempt to decipher the symbolic meaning of their dreams, they will discover important messages to themselves that describe their true thoughts and feelings about work, relationships, and in general, life on the physical plane. If people can realise the meaning in their dreams, they may be able to understand how they are functioning at a subconscious level. They can try to change the programming of negative message tapes that may have been running through their cognitive computer for many years.

Another more power form of inner communication with the Higher Self is meditation. Meditation clears the mind of conscious thought programs to allow higher vibrational sources of information to enter into the biocomputer for processing and analysis. In addition to allowing access to the Higher Self, the process of meditation causes gradual changes in the subtle-energy anatomy of the human being over a long period of time. Specifically, the chakras are slowly activated and cleared, and the kundalini energies within the root chakra eventually make their climb up the subtle pathways within the spinal cord to reach the crown chakra.

During the natural course of human development, an individual will gradually open up most of the chakras within the body. The degree to which the chakras are opened will depend on the extent to which each person develops his or her abilities to communicate with others, to express ideas creatively and artistically, to love both self and others, and to strive toward the higher meanings of life.

When traumatic emotional events occur which hold back one's growth in a particular needed direction, there is an associated blockage acquired in one of the chakras of the body. This blockage is an impediment to the natural flow of the creative kundalini energies up the spinal cord to higher chakras. To varying degrees, certain stresses which are acquired through the course of one's life become locked into an area of the subtle body and its associated area in the physical musculoskeletal system.

The daily practice of meditation, done over a period of many years, results in the gradual upliftment of the kundalini energies, which in turn opens each of the chakras from the root center on up to the crown chakra. As the chakras are opened, subtle stresses that have been incurred throughout the individual's life are slowly dissipated. Releasing of the blockage to energy flow through a chakra is partly due to the cleansing and opening effect of the kundalini forces, but is also related to the gradual realization of the emotional and spiritual lessons necessary to the proper functioning of that chakra.

The meditation process assists in the learning of such important life lessons over time as the conscious personality begins to understand the reasons for existing blockages. This information comes slowly to the individual through meditation as he or she learns to listen to the inner wisdom of their own Higher Self.

This is an extract from Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber, M.D. and is published by Bear & Company, Rochester, Vermont. ISBN 187918158-4 Visit www.InnerTraditions.com