Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:10] Welcome to Deep in your yoga practice. I'm Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. And today we are wrapping up our final chakra episode. So this is the crown chakra, or Sahasrara. We'll talk about awareness, unity, and this dissolving of self.
[00:00:29] So we have made it to this final episode in the series. And in many ways, this chakra is less about something we develop and more about something that we remember. The lower chakras ask us to build safety, identity, expression. And the crown chakra invites us to soften our grip on all of it, to zoom out, to witness, to reconnect with something that is larger than the individual self. So let's get into it first. What is the crown chakra? This is located at the top of the head. In Sanskrit, it is known as Sahasrara, which means thousand petaled. It's associated with unity, consciousness, awareness and transcendence. Sometimes we can look at the chakras in what they do. So maybe the root says something like I am and the solar plexus says I do. The heart says I love.
[00:01:26] The crown says I am. Not separate. So this aligns us with these different philosophical concepts in yoga, one being Adayita, Vedanta philosophy or non duality, which I talk about in a past episode. And also this concept of Atman being the same as Brahman. So the individual soul being intrinsically connected to and even the same as Brahman. So the soul is like this drop in the Brahmin of ocean, so embedded different schools of thought. And yoga is that this individual self and the universal consciousness are not separate. So the crown chakra isn't about becoming something new. Instead, it's about remembering what has always been true.
[00:02:13] It's letting go of this illusion of separateness. The chakra system itself comes from Tantric texts from the 8th through 12th centuries. And the crown chakra appears as this culmination of the whole subtle body, body system and pre tantra. When we look at the Upanishads, where this idea of Atman and Brahman developed, so this uniting of self with universal consciousness, we become concerned with moksha or liberation. It becomes part of the goal of the spiritual journey. And this is this realization of this truth. So we could say that this realization lives in the crown chakra, which is just a part of who we are, this connection to spirit. Also in yoga philosophy, we can look at the Bhagavad Gita, which comes a bit later than the Upanishads. But Pre tantra. And it teaches us karma Yoga or acting in the world without attachment. And it also teaches us equal seeing or sama darshana, which is really seeing the divine within every single being, regardless of external differences in species, social status or form. We can see the crown chakra here as this expanded awareness, maybe as vairagya, or this non attachment to the outcomes of actions, and as this deep, deep devotion or bhakti, which is a form of yoga in the Bhagavad Gita. So these ideas we associate with the crown chakra are deeply embedded within different periods of yogic history and within yogic philosophy. And they help us see more clearly within the world. So it's not about escaping, it's not about bypassing either. It's really seeing clearly within our participation with the world. So when our crown chakra is balanced, we might feel a sense of connection to self, to others, no matter what form they take into life. We might feel inner peace that's not dependent on outer circumstances.
[00:04:24] Maybe we embody a sense of humility, a deep curiosity, and of an ability to witness our thoughts without judgment. Sometimes the crown chakra can also be out of balance. So if it is under active, maybe we feel a sense of disconnection, of cynicism, maybe rigid thinking, maybe we feel a lack of purpose or lack of meaning in our own lives, a lack of divine support perhaps. And when it is overactive or dysregulated, maybe we are spiritual bypassing, so we are ignoring life and kind of escaping from it instead. Maybe we are dissociating.
[00:05:03] Maybe we feel like above the dirtiness or humanness of life and we're choosing to ignore things that are important. And that brings us to really avoiding real world responsibility. Because we're far too much in our crown. Know that this true connection with the crown doesn't pull us out of our lives. We're not escaping from it, we're not avoiding responsibility. Instead, it's meant to bring us more fully into our lives, to engage with him with discernment and with faith and with a deep sense of compassion and connection. So how can we work with our crown chakra and bring about more balance in this space? The primary practice would be meditation. So that is being aware of our own thoughts, that's observing our thoughts without attachment, and that is returning to a point of focus. Maybe that's breath, maybe that's presence, maybe that is a mantra, maybe that is connecting with the divine, however you define it. Maybe it's chanting Om Yoga gives us so many different ways to connect with that through meditation. And this is a very direct pathway to the crown. We might also connect with breath work such as simple slow breathing or natural breath awareness through this sense of softening through pranayama. We might connect more to the crown through contemplation and self inquiry. We might ask ourselves questions like who am I beyond roles and identities?
[00:06:30] What is aware of this thought and what remains when everything changes? We might also connect through mantra or sound, which is also a form of meditation. The Yoga Sutra is chanting Om as this direct path to divine connection. And we can also think of vibration or nada yoga as a bridge between the form and the formless. We can also connect to the crown through stillness and nature. Maybe that's quiet time.
[00:07:00] Maybe it's simply just being aware of what is around you in nature, of observing it without labeling. We can also connect to the crown through serving others through seva or selfless service. And that is holding compassion for others and seeing the divine within them while we are serving them. So it's not serving from a place of depletion, obligation. It's doing it because we are all connected. So connecting with the crown chakra is something that we can create space for. Its main element is space or ether, especially as it connects to the cosmos.
[00:07:38] So anything that can give us the sense of spaciousness internally and externally is such a beautiful way to connect with that space. Know that as we work with the crown, it's really important that we're also integrating the other chakras. We can't bypass the lower chakras and go straight to the crown. We need this grounding to precede any big expansion in order to live a healthy and engaged life. So we can think of the root chakra as safety, the sacral as feeling, the solar as finding our sense of agency, the heart as connection, the throat as expression, the third eye as insight, and finally, this crown as a sense of awareness. And when we embody all of these things, we can really feel a sense of wholeness. I have some journaling prompts for you if you'd like to connect more with your crown. The first is, where do I feel most connected in my life right now? Then where do I feel separate or disconnected? Then what am I holding on to that could soften? And finally, who am I beyond my roles, titles and identities? You don't have to become more spiritual to access the crown chakra. You don't have to leave your life or your responsibilities or your relationships.
[00:08:56] This is about learning to sit and notice and soften and to remember that you are already part of something much bigger than the story in your head, than the roles you play in life, than how other people see you, that you are already whole, that you are already holy. And in this way, we can think of the crown chakra as not the top of a ladder, but the dissolving of the ladder entirely into peace, into wholeness, into connection. So thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this chakra series and feel more in tune with this energy system and can, whether or not you feel it as this real thing or as this metaphor, are able to utilize these beautiful tools as a way to find more balance, as a way to self study, as a way to connect deeply with your wholeness. And I do want to remind you, I have a book called Embody youy Inner A Guided Journey to Radical Wholeness that dives into each of these chakras every week. So it's meant to be read over a seven week period. Each day has an affirmation and specific connection to the chakra and we connect to it through story, through embodiment practices, and through reflections. So if that sounds like something that would be nourishing for you, we do have the book at True Love Yoga, but it's also available wherever you buy your books online. So thank you so much for joining me for this series. Let me know where you'd like to journey to next and I'd love to keep exploring with you.
[00:10:37] Thank you so much. Om Shanti Om. Peace.
