00:47                                     This is Stephanie Cunningham and Changing the Face of Yoga. And I have a great guest today. This is Kistine Kaoverri Weber. Christine has agreed to be part of the subtle aspects theme to talk about more of the subtle aspects of yoga. And Christine will be talking about Chakras and what chakras are, what system she uses and how you might use it when you're teaching. Welcome Christine and Cristine is  committed to the widespread adoption of yoga as a population health strategy. She has been studying yoga and holistic healing for nearly 30 years advocating, speaking and teaching about yoga since 1995 and training educators since 2003. Her organization Subtle Yoga provides holistic mind and body trainings, education and clinical services with the mission of enhancing community health infrastructure. She is the director of the Subtle Yoga teacher training for behavioral health professionals program at Mahec at Asheville North Carolina, presents workshops and trains internationally and is frequently invited to talk about yoga at health conferences. And is there anything else you'd like to add to that introduction?

02:27                                     Oh, thank you. It's so nice to be here, Stephanie and no, I mean I've got a lot of stuff going on. One of the things that I'm doing right now is called, I call it the subtle yoga revolution. And I'm really trying to help empower teachers who love teaching slow mindful practices to feel really not like second class citizens because we don't necessarily want to do the sweaty fitness stuff, and are more kind of committed to the internal practices. And what I see is that there's a lot of science behind the validity of these practices that has begun to emerge in the past 10 years or so. And that's something that I'm really passionate about right now. So I have some online programs about the subtle yoga revolution. I'm happy to share some of that information if your listeners are interested later.

03:26                                     We'll be sure to get into the contact details so that people can explore that. So let's start really basic and to explain the Chakras, and I believe in an earlier conversation we talked about that there's the traditional look at Chakras. And there may be another version of it. So first of all, define and contrast those two things.

03:55                                     So first of all, I would request, my Sanskrit teacher would be very happy, if we would use the word Chuck Gra Not Chalk Gra. And that's a really common pronunciation issue. Just remember it's like chocolate chip cookies that'll help you remember. And also it's not French, it's Sanskrit. It's not like charkra^] it's a Sanskrit word. So the Sanskrit, the c sound is always the hard cha and if you spell it properly with the International Sanskrit spelling, it would be c, a, k, r a , believe it or not C h, but it has really become a western word really like over the past hundred, 100 years or so.  Because it is the hundredth anniversary when Chakras, became known in the West which was 1919. So let's pronounce it Chuck Gra. And because we know we have sh sounds in Sanskrit? We have Shiva, Shakti, and Shavasana. And so we have a lot of sh sounds, but it's the ch sound is Chakra.

                                                And then the second part of the question was like, define Chakras. Oh my gosh, that's going to take me a couple of days. So I'm going to give you a really simple; that Chakras are basically these energy centers that in the subtle body that have a physical ontological correlates. I would suggest, I know that there are certain people in this tradition who say they don't have ontological correlates. There are Buddhists who say that they do. What that means is like they really exist. That's all that means. Like they really are there. I believe they're really there. I think the tools of science are not quite subtle enough to measure them a yet, although there have been some attempts at measuring these centers by different people, I don't want to get into that too much, but there have been some sciencey , quasi-sciencey attempts at measuring these energy centers in the body. Even if you don't believe that, one of the things that I think almost every human being can agree upon is that on the midline of the body from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. And typically in the center of the chest, typically in the center of the belly, most of us experience some kind of emotional experiences there. Whether it's we say I have butterflies in my stomach, or I loved him with all of my heart, or I was so upset I was choked up or that really gives me a headache trying to think about it. So we have emotional reactions that often happen along the mid-line. And so if we can't agree on the models, and by the way, the Yogis tended to not agree on them either. They had many different systems. So if we can't agree on them, that's okay. But one thing we can agree on is that there are these emotional expressions and science hasn't necessarily explained them adequately yet. But the subtle body does give us a frame of reference that maybe is a little more subtle and more explicit. And the Yogis left us these beautiful maps of the system that I think are worth looking into more deeply.

07:54                                     So what are Chakras? There are energetic centers in the body where we tend to process some kind of mental, emotional tendencies. You know, we tend to have mental, emotional tendency processes happening in those centers. And the other piece is that many of the Hatha yoga practices that emerged within the past six to 800 years, many of them were actually originally intended to help create a better control over these centers. And that was the original purpose of Asana. So why not work with them? You know, why not continue with that tradition and see what we can do with Asana? You know, the other thing I always like to say is people come to yoga class a lot of times because we live in the 21st crazy century. People come to yoga class and they're like, I don't feel good and I'm going to go to yoga. And then at the end of Yoga class, pretty much, most of the time, people tend to feel more balanced. And often that's mental, emotional or mood shifts that happens. Why is that happening? You know, it's, yes, it's happening because of parasympathetic activation for sure. It's happening because of shifts that are made via the vagus nerve, of changes in Acetylcholine and all that stuff is happening. I would suggest that tha happens because of breathing and movement practices and these things I don't think are just random. I think that Asana is as they've been delivered to us and yes, some of them were developed very recently and others are much older. Asana is a way that we create more balance in the mental, emotional parts of ourselves or the mental, emotional body if you like, or the subtle body. Therefore we can be more intentional about how we use the practices to create better psychological balance.

10:05                                     Chakras, how many are you working with? There's seems to be different numbers of them.

10:20                                     Yes, there are different systems., I would call it the traditional seven chakras system, which comes from the Bengali tantrics. A lot of my teachers were from Bengali, so I work with that Bengali system. There are systems that predate that system. And of course there are systems that postdate that system because everything basically that happened after 1977 is a whole different ball of wax. I mean there was a whole movement, a new age Chakra movement that happened in the '70s. Largely from writers in California and other places that defined a whole new system. I don't want to say a whole new system, I would say a revamping of the system. So let me back up. I hope this is okay to go into the history because without it it's very difficult for me to talk about the system and what I do.

                                                So a brief history of the Chakras. We have to look at texts in a scholarly way. What do the texts say? What were the texts showing us? And, and you do have mention of this system as far back as the Bhagavad Gita so it goes, it goes pretty far, 2,500 years or so. You have some mentions of these points in the body and the Charak Samhita, which is the original book of Ayurveda. You have some mentions of the system that go into antiquity but then you really don't have the definition of the system as we know it today, until a book that was written in 1544 called the such Ṣaṭ-chakra-nirūpaṇa . And that was a Bengali text. It's from the Shiva worshippers in that part of India, that northeast part of India. That text gets translated in 1919 into English. And really that's the introduction of the Chakra system to the west.

                                                I always tell people that you have to go back a hundred years and think about what was happening socio-politically in India, what was happening in the world at that time. We're still in the middle of the occupation of India by the British, of the 300 plus year occupation. You still have a tremendous amount of both superiority complex of the west over the Indians, and then inferiority complex of the Indians towards the West because they'd been dominated, politically dominated, and there's all the racism and all that stuff that goes with it.

                                                So what you have at this time in 1919 is sort of the revelation by Sir John Woodruff, who was very well regarded by both the Indians as well as by Westerners. He was a judge in Kolkata. And he started studying Tantra. And, and by the way, the Chakras come from the Tantric system of yoga. He's studying about the chakra system. He translates this text with the help of some Indian Sanskrit scholars, and then he presents the subtle body to the west. What happens from there is you have people like Alister Crawley and people like Charles Leadbeater from the theosophy society and many others who pick up on this notion of the Chakras and without immersing themselves in Indian culture and Indian history and Indian philosophy, which is as you know extremely complex and, and varied. It's an incredibly sophisticated system. So without immersing themselves in that they pluck the subtle body out of it and they plop it into their own worldview. This is going to necessarily render that system different than what the Indians understood and so Leadbeater comes out in 1927 with a book called the Chakras. And it remains to this day, one of the most widely read and the most widely sold book of the Theosophical Society by far. So that book, the Chakras, is the first place where someone suggests Oh, you can see somebody else's Chakras. You can manipulate somebody else's Chakras. There's colors in the Chakras. Leadbeater says anybody with a modicum of intuitive capacity can see somebody else's Chakras, so you get all this sort of new-agey, proto new-age stuff. That's not what the Indians were talking to.

                                                John Woodruff writes his book, his second edition of his book, which was that first translation of the system. He says, as much in that book, and he says, look, there are people that are talking about Chakras but that's not really what the Indians were talking about. You have the west with its biases against the east and it's orientalism and it's racism plucking this very sublime system out and saying, I can interpret it better than the Indians can.

                                                And from that, then we have to fast forward to the 70s and the Esalen Institute in California where they start putting together all these charts about Chakras and stuff. Again, very little reference to the Indian system. It's still kind of carrying forth this orientalism or this bias against the east. And then you get that in the 70s. And then the 80s is when all of the books come out. Like Anodea Judith, the Wheels of Life. And um, Hiroshima Motoyama's book comes out. If you go to Amazon, you will see hundreds of books about the Chakras based on an amalgamated system that's primarily from new age thinkers. That really doesn't go deep. It doesn't have any scholarly, deep or, experiential deep look into the yoga system. Anodea Judith, bless her heart, she did a service by bringing Chakras to the world, but she's not a yoga practitioner and wasn't writing as a yoga practitioner. She was writing as sort of an intuitive person or you know, a new age person. And that's the Chakra system that we get taught frequently in yoga teacher trainings. You get these laminated charts and that stuff comes from the Esalen Institute in California. It's not coming from the traditional system.

17:38                                     I didn't know that. And that's a bit scary, isn't it? Because we're learning something different. It's certainly not the Indian tradition. I think that bothers me.

17:52                                     Yes, definitely. I totally relate. And in my humble opinion, Carl Jung said it best. He said, we, we've done such a tremendous of violence against the East. He was talking about the world wars. You can also talk about colonialism. Tremendous violence has been done against the east and he said, we owe it to those cultures to look deeply into them and try to understand them. And I'm paraphrasing, but you know what I mean? l I'm so grateful for this tradition that has helped me so much personally and that I've dedicated my life to, and that I teach about. It's my life and, and I feel like it's a tremendous affront to not go deep into these topics. It's an affront to the system and it's a manifestation of that colonialist mentality and a basically a racist mentality to not look into it and to really see the deeper value beyond the color coded charts. I remember walking into Barnes and noble a bookstore here about, it was like 20 years ago. I walked in, I was like really getting into Chakras and I walked into Barnes and Nobel and I saw this little kit on the table and it said, Chakra Balancing Kit, $12.99 on sale. I've been studying the Chakras and I was like, really? So I could just get like a color card thing to meditate on and a little essential oil in a gemstone and I'm going to balance my chakras. That's a really good deal for $12.99 considering that from what I understood, it's really hard to balance your chakras. It's pretty much a life's journey to do this?

                                                I think we have taken it too lightly and I think there's a lot more to it. And the other piece is that a lot of people won't listen to this podcast and the reason they won't is because they're going to see the word Chakra and go, oh yeah, that's that fluffy garbage. They're going to be like, yeah, whatever. There's no science behind it. It's not real. It's just a laugh, essential oils and some kind of a gemstone thing or, I swear a rainbow, that whole thing. The rainbow, by the way is not traditional. That just comes from the human tendency to want to see things in seven and put them all together. There's no reality in the rainbow according to the Indian system. Maybe some new age intuitive people have seen rainbows with the Chakras I don't know, but I'm a yoga teacher and I wanted to know what the yoga tradition said about the Chakras and that's where I operate from and that's what I teach from.

20:57                                     It's been trivialized.

21:01                                     I think so. I think it's been trivialised. It doesn't mean that we can't be creative . I'm not a rigid person and not a rigid yoga teacher. I'm all about innovation and creativity and I mean, that's what Tantra has always been about The Tantrics were really innovative. I think it's okay to be creative and innovative, but I also think it's really important to not just make stuff up, but to really situate it in the tradition and what the Indians were talking about and why it's important and how it's different. if I can do one thing that may be helpful here because I don't want to belittle the new age system, a lot of people benefit from it. That's not my point.

                                                I've always thought this is so useful, is to look at western versus eastern worldviews. You know, so if you look at the West, the eastern Worldview, it tends to at least traditionally that worldview tends to be like inner technology. Like what is inside of me. Some of my history teachers have talked about how the ancient name for India is Mahabharata - the land that feeds everyone. Mahabharata. In India you have the development of civilization and lots of food and people had time to sort of contemplate the meaning of life and the mysteries of the universe. And that's why you have this development of such a sublime philosophy, Such sublime philosophies emerging from the subcontinent. In the west, what we have really dominated and focused on is like mastering the external so in India there's this focus on mastering the internal, the internal technology, and the word technology in, in Sanskrit is Tantra, by the way. And then you have the west with the external technology you just go to yoga class and you're like, okay, so we're going to do some meditation. And most of you who are yoga teachers have heard this comment before. Like, I've got an APP for that.

23:21                                     There's an APP for that because that's our western worldview. We're focused on the external. So when the Chakras came west, what happened was they became the technology of personal development and self-actualization, like the transpersonal psychology stuff. They were about individual achievement in the external world. Then you get that whole thing of the first Chakra is about survival. The second Chakra is creativity and the third Chakra is about power. I'm not suggesting that that's completely erroneous. I think there's a lot of power in that map but the eastern map doesn't do that. The eastern map is, these are the powers of the elements. These are the powers of the universe, and you're going to internalize them and then you're going to become one with the universe? "Sanskrit saying" which means everything that exists outside of you exists within you. And you're going to discover that through this process of working with your Chakras, you're going to become the universe - a totally different goal than like self. It's a totally different goal. I think those worldviews are related and so my approach has been like I'm a westerner. I liked that self actualization stuff and I'm going to really give lots of value and lots of time to the study of the Indian system so that I can use the best of both of those paradigms in my personal work and also in my teaching. I do combine some things.

                                                I think Carl Jung's teachings on the Chakras have been super helpful. Some people diminish them, but he was the one who helped me to understand what do the gods and goddesses and the traditional Chakras mean and how are they relevant to a western person. Carl Young said, don't practice yoga as a Westerner because you're going to fail. He's an interesting dude for sure. By the time he gets to the throat Chakra, he's just not interested anymore cause it's not psychology, It's not as psychological as the lower chakras.

                                                That's something interesting that we can break down and is practical. I'm been talking about all this theory stuff, so maybe practical for your listeners. We kind of have to fight through some of our animal tendencies like tendencies to get distracted and our tendencies to be jealous and our tendencies to just kind of be lazy. All sorts of stuff that we move through on the way to the heart Chakra, where we start to become really a lot more human, we start to kind of have a sense of ourselves, our individualization and how we're different and what is important to us and what's not important to us. We start to get boundaries in the heart Chakra. The lower chakras are really useful for us in understanding where we've come from in terms of our evolutionary tendencies.

                                                And then as we start moving into the upper Chakras, the heart, the throat, and then the third eye and the Crown Chakra, we really start to become more of our potential. Like the potential for being a spiritually connected and expanded human being; that's what those Chakras were used for. You meditate on your third eye or you meditate on the crown. Those are typical meditations or you meditate on the heart center. Those are typical meditation places. What that means is fixing your awareness interoceptively at those points. You're typically repeating some kind of mantra. Those are traditional practices that can be very valuable to modern people.

                                                 I had some clients going through really difficult surgery, heart surgery a few weeks ago and asked me for a meditation and they were Christian. I said meditate on Jesus with his hands, how he does that Mudra where he holds two fingers up and then he opens his heart, the sacred heart. So meditate on that image of Jesus, say your prayer in the heart Chakra and let that be a way to help you feel more centered before going in for the surgery. And they loved that. That kind of creativity with the practices I think is I think is super useful for people, particularly if you're basing them on the traditional tantra practices. I'm basing it on what I've learned from, from my teachers that can be really useful and that's a way to create balance in the heart. That's a way to really harness the power of the heart Chakra.

28:54                                     Let's talk a bit about, now you've got me very nervous, chakras and the individual ones that you're using. Like you said, the lower ones are kind of understanding where we came from. The upper ones are our potential, which is really nice way to think about it I think. How have you developed what you either train other teachers in or that you teach in your classes?

29:30                                     How have you developed it; which is a very eastern tradition that is not fitting well on top of the western tradition in our minds because we don't quite think that way. How do you use it so that it becomes very, you obviously like the example that you just gave about the heart Chakra. You've obviously worked it around so that it can fit into both systems.

30:01                                     I think it's fair to say that these tantric practices have always been adapted to the belief system. You have tantra that's showing up in Buddhism a couple thousand years ago and Tantra that comes in the form of Shivaism. It started really with Shivaism I would suggest. But history scholars may have some different opinions about that and then Tantra, by the way, gets adapted through the trade routes into alchemy. I mean, what do you think Harry Potter is? That's Tantra. That's external esoteric Tantra. So making things happen in the external world. Esoteric Tantra - alchemy came through the trade routes. So that's why you see so much similarities. You know, Hermione Granger with her wand saying Wingardium Leviosa you know, the mantra in Latin, but it's a mantra. The stick is the Donata, Gurus often had a stick and they would do stuff with it.

31:29                                     The stuff is deep and it was coming through the trade routes probably before the Middle Ages. It goes out into Persia and becomes Persian alchemy. It goes into China and becomes Chinese alchemy, you see roots of it in African shamanism, perhaps African shamanism is proto-tantra, becomes the Tantra in the south, south India. This is not exclusive to India. In fact, I would suggest that it's simply the Indians who really got into it and refined it. But we find it in all cultures. I do think these practices are largely universal.

                                                When I'm working with a client one on one, which is a lot easier to help develop the Chakra practices, I will be using mantras and the mantras often are not just Indian or Sanskrit mantras. They may be something that's more appropriate for somebodys belief system. I'm going to use Asana because Asana we have four places that we get into with Asanas? So we get into the lower abdomen with forward bends, we get into the abdomen. And so the second Chakra with forward bends and then the third Chakra, which by the way the position is traditionally at the navel, not the solar plexus. A lot of people peg it at the solar plexus , which is the new age thing. And I don't think it's not the solar plexus, it's just that the root of it is typically the navel. So we get forward bends, we get twists that get into those Chakras and get the back bend. And that also will work those Chakras, but also really get into the heart center. And then we get inversions, like Shoulder Stand, but where we get some activation in the throat center.

                                                 And I do think that there is something happening regionally, like when you do an Asana and there's something like this, just say Cobra, there's something happening at the location of the Chakra, but there's also things that are happening globally in the autonomic nervous system that have to do with parasympathetic activation, That have to do with a vagal tone, that have to do with the release of neurochemicals. All sorts of things are going on that I think we're just beginning to understand. There are things that are not happening at the location. And there's also things that happen in the whole body that create a greater neuroendocrine, Neuro - immune response to the practice. And there's a body of research that's emerging that's validating that.

                                                Now I'm not saying there's a body of research emerging, validating existence of the subtle body that is still really nascent. There's a couple of studies, but we still don't really have subtle enough tools, I don't think, to measure the subtle body. But I think when we do have those tools, I think we'll start to see a seven brain model emerge that there are seven sub brains. They're talking about the gut brain now and they're talking about the heart brain. But I think there probably will come up with something like five, six, seven areas that are remarkably similar to the subtle body. so I use Asana as focus on the area.

                                                 I also want to say one thing for your listeners because I think it's great to be creative and, and spend time on this, but don't get hung up on feelings of like, I have a second Chakra imbalance so I'm just going to focus all my time and energy on my second Chakra and do poses for the second Chakra. The yogis didn't prescribe that necessarily. I think it's great to spend time there, particularly if you've had sexual trauma or c-section or something where you're feeling cut off from that area. I think great to spend interoceptive time there and build the maps in your brain by spending time there. However, what the yogis would say is don't doubt the healing potential, the healing possibilities of the heart Chakra, that bringing your awareness to that center after whatever other work you're doing is a really simple and powerful way to bring a sense of peace to the nervous system and a sense of completion to whatever work you're doing. So I like to bring attention back to the heart. Not everybody practices like that. That was one of the things that I find tends to be really helpful. And you know, most of my students are women. I don't want to make any kind of generalizations, but there sometimes is this stereotype of the ascetic Yogi male focusing on the third eye. And third eye is . powerful stuff for sure. But it's not the whole of who we are as human beings. And I think coming back to the heart really can provide a very powerful healing center focus for many people, not just women, but for many people.

36:55                                     You would do probably asanas for all seven Chakras and then bring it back to the heart? Is that what you're saying?

37:09                                     Well, it kinda depends on what you're working on. Plenty of times I do classes that we're just going to get into the third Chakra today., Because so many Asanas are really great for your third Chakra. And the third Chakra is the place where so many of us have problems - digestive problems, but also the problems that the yogis outline. You know, the yogis actually gave a a whole map of the system. The word that the Yogis, the tantrics used is vritti. The Yogis gave a map of the subtle body and in that map what they did was they showed where different mental-emotional tendencies reside in the body. I think it's a fascinating thing to look at that somehow through these deep interoceptive practices where they were spending hours and hours and weeks and months focusing on these centers of the body for meditation They came up with a map essentially that said there are different emotions that are located in different parts of the system. You find this map in some of the Upanishads. It's sort of a later addition to the system.

                                                Some of the tendencies in the Third Chakra are challenging. For example shame is in the third Chakra and jealousy and some depression. There's actually two different depressions one's in the heart Chakra, one's in the third Chakra. Irritability infatuation, fear, hatred. Those are all third Chakra Vritti according to the tradition. I think it's very useful to do Asana with the intent, holding that intention. I'm working through this jealousy vritti or whatever it is, and I'm working through this fear vritti and then to do a practice that's really third Chakra focused. And then as you said, maybe at the end of the practice, bring your awareness back to the heart with the idea of the heart is the center and I'm practicing for the highest good, and I let go of my whatever vritti, my jealousy vritti or whatever it is. Then spend some time doing that practice over some weeks and months and notice if there's a shift that happens for you. That can be really powerful. I've worked with many people like that in that way over the years. I think there's some beauty in looking at what the tradition offered and then working with the mental, emotional tendencies in a way that can create a better sense of self regulation and mental balance.

                                                But just to finish up what I was talking about with the Chakras and the practice and stuff, I would suggest that if you're working with the Chakras, if you want to work with the Chakras, would want to know more about the Chakra. It's totally lovely to experiment because yoga is an experiential practice. Doing postures and noticing how that feels in your body and noticing, is there an effect on my mood? Is there a shift in certain tendencies when I do certain practices, like my original Indian teachers would say, you should be the scientist and be the experiment. Go for it in yourself. I think it's great. And I also think it's great to read and learn more about the traditional system. And as Carl Jung said: it's respect for the culture that's quite different than western culture. That the culture that this information comes from and, and making the attempt to understand a little more deeply.

41:30                                     So thank you so much for having me. It's been really nice to be here.

42:24                                     Thank you, Christine. That was a really interesting and cohesive description of what chakras are and how you use them. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate your expertise and time, so it was great to hear from you.

                                                Resources:

                                                The Rainbow Body by Kurt Leland and it's a history of the western Chakra system. That's a really interesting read to kind of see the difference between the western and the eastern system. So I recommend that.

                                                Chakra and Subtle Yoga Courses: I do have some online chakra courses where I talk more about the I talk more about the um, system from the Indian perspective and then some of the work of Carl Young and other psychologists I think have been helpful. And um, and I also have practices that go with them. So those are on yoga. U Subtle Yoga also has other courses about teaching Subtle yoga and other topics from Kristine.

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