Chakra Issues: Third Chakra

Personal Power

Manipura, the third chakra, is a potent reservoir of qi (chi) in the body. Earthly qi can enter the body through the feet, can be activated or “pumped up” at the Muladhara chakra, and when combined with atmospheric qi, creates life force which can be stored in Manipura. This vital force can be quite dynamic and, like a battery, can be in motion or exist in either a potential or quiescent state. Besides the absorption of earthly qi through the feet (or perineum / coccyx if sitting), we can acquire earthly qi through the digestion and assimilation of food. Once assimilated and combined with the heavenly qi we absorb through the breath, this energy becomes our personal qi or life force. 

Tantric Qigong: A Course in Self Mastery

Vitality is required to keep the body, mind, and emotions healthy and in good working order. Once these basic needs are satisfied, any surfeit of vitality becomes personal power. In many with Western mindsets, active vitality has a strong tendency to be applied externally, and if one’s personal power is thwarted in some way, this energy can internalized, often in an unhealthy way.  If the first chakra mediates the flight part of the fight or flight response, the third chakra is in charge of the fight part. The primitive part of ourselves feels that the best defense is a strong offense.

 There is no guarantee that one will use one’s life force appropriately in a karma-free sense. Here are some examples of karma inducing uses of personal power:

– Externally: one can use one’s personal power to manipulate or dominate other people or the environment. Anger is a subset of this: it appears as the “cure” for our power being thwarted.      Hatred, violence, are other examples.

– Internally;  the energy of attack (anger) can be turned against one’s mind and physiology -self hatred, allergies, auto immune conditions, visceral organ malfunction and degradation.

Examples of the appropriate use of personal power:

– External: manifesting your desires without karmically infringing upon another, selfless service.

– Internal: Self mastery, commitment to a course of personal development, development of spiritual willpower, surrendering to your higher self.

When we have attained the highest level of personal power, and have manifested all our worldly desires, we may begin to yearn for something beyond power and the material. This is spiritual yearning (see: The 3rd Chakra and the Spiritual Purpose of Power ). © 2012 Keith E. Hall and www.Inner-Tranquility.com. All rights reserved.

Tantric Qigong Karma Burning: Chakra Issues,  Part 2,  Chakras 1 & 2,  Third Chakra

Karma Burning  Karma Burning in the Lower Chakras  1 2 3  4 5

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Chakra Issues: First and Second Chakras

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Karma Burning: Survival

All fears can be reduced to some flavor of fear of death or concern for one’s welfare and survival. Even social anxiety i.e., fear of being judged or cast out of the tribe to fend for oneself, would have its origin in a concern for personal survival in Paleolithic times. One of the reasons homo sapiens, and primates in general, have adapted and flourished in a hostile world has been the ability to use the group for defense, territorial dominance, food gathering / growing, etc. In modern times, these now irrational fears have led to economic, cultural, and military “dominance displays” which could, in extremis, threaten all human life on this planet.

Karma Burning: Gratification

Gratification is a pleasurable reaction that results from the fulfillment of a desire. The personality trait of uninhibited pleasure-seeking results in a tendency towards hedonism. The inability to experience normal pleasure, desire, or motivation in life is sometimes termed anhedonia.  William James described anhedonia as a “passive joylessness and dreariness, discouragement, dejection, lack of taste and zest and spring.”*

The second chakra has a powerful role in sadness and depression, and one sure sign of depression is a reduced ability to take gratification in simple things as food, friends humor, conversation, sex, etc.

Depending on the degree, delaying gratification could be seen as a valuable life skill related to long term success, happiness, even spiritual awakening.  An example of the latter would be the transmutation of sexual energy, e.g. delaying orgasm and sending your Kundalini upward through the central channel, or the spinal nadis, awakening the chakras and knowledge of the higher Self.

A more permanent pattern of denying gratification without any excitation or transmutation of life force can be a clinical state of avoidance related to a moralistic denial of expression. © 2013 Keith E. Hall and www.inner-tranquility.com All rights reserved.

*Varieties of Religious Experience Lecture VI, The Sick Soul, William James 1902

Tantric Qigong Karma Burning: Chakra Issues,  Part 2,  Chakras 1 & 2 , 3rd Chakra

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Tantric Qigong Karma Burning: Chakra Issues,  Breath, Emotional Intelligence and Evolution

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Referring to the tendency of modern technology to be shaped by Paleolithic emotional patterns, Einstein was alleged to have said “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity…All our lauded technological progress–our very civilization–is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal…The human spirit must prevail over technology.”  How can we achieve this process of accelerated evolution implied by Einstein?  Try this breathing technique when you feel emotionally challenged: Keep your back straight, inhale slowly and deeply to a count of 5, exhale slowly to a count of 5. Repeat 1-3 times or until calm. If you know the Third Eye Balancing technique, you can also use it to balance your mental / emotional state.

Do this interpersonal experiment: the next time you are confronted by someone who is experiencing great anxiety, anger, or pain, ask them to take a deep breath. The person controlled by the atavistic urges of the amygdala will blast you for suggesting this. The more evolved will endeavor to comply.  

The intention to mediate our bestial aspects is associated with the higher cortical centers which can override the amygdala / brain-stem reactions. I have yet to see a convincing medical explanation for how this intention is generated; this may remain one of the ancient mysteries of spiritual masters. Certainly once put in motion, Intention from our higher centers can subsume and mediate automatic neuro-muscular and endocrine reactions. By asserting control through our higher cortical centers we unite the yin and yang portals of the psychic bridge (third eye) and neutralize the more barbaric urges of the brain stem.

In short, the amygdala represents our primitive aspects and the anterior cingulate cortex and the lateral orbitofrontal cortex develop our higher civilized and spiritual aspects. You can see by the diagram that the anterior cingulate cortex / lateral orbitofrontal cortex is in a direct line between the amygdala / brainstem and the neocortical centers controlled by the third eye (Ajna). It is one of the functions of Cobra Breath to unite and balance these centers, bringing vital, primal energy to the higher centers while soothing and calming the atavistic beast within us. © 2012 Keith E. Hall, www.inner-tranquility.com  All rights reserved.

Tantric Qigong Karma Burning: Chakra Issues,  Part 2,  Chakras 1 & 2,  Third Chakra

Karma Burning  Karma Burning in the Lower Chakras  1 2 3  4 5

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Tantric Qigong Karma Burning: Chakra Issues Recurrent emotional and behavioral patterns / habits that are energized and repeatedly re-grooved in our consciousness become Issues.

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Repeated emotional / behavioral patterns that have consistent negative consequences seem to be driven by brain stem and amygdala reactions that are inconsistent with emotional intelligence, or are inappropriate for the stimuli present at the time. We can seem stuck in these patterns like an old vinyl record skipping and repeating the same music over and over. These recurrent emotional / behavioral patterns inform the issues of the lower chakras.

The human brain is exactly the same as humans living 200,000 years ago. Think about it, we are meeting new, challenging stimuli of the modern world with the same neural circuitry as nomadic cavemen during the Paleolithic Stone Age. We still treat every new stimulus as a potential danger to be defended against. We are using the same old knee jerk fight-or-flight responses of our ancient ancestors 194,000 years before recorded history began. This explains the reactions of patriarchal cultures of terrorism that are both entrenched in Neolithic tribalism and have access to nuclear and electronic technology – kill it or be killed by it, eat it or be eaten, dominate or die.

The Amygdala, Limbic Resonance and Patterns

The limbic system and the brain stem (reptilian brain) are at the center of these quasi-automatic attitudes and responses. In addition to internal automatic brain stem reactions to a threatening stimulus, we tend to come into attunement with other nearby mammals possessing limbic resonance. If you are in close proximity to a person who is angry, you pick up on this. If you have an adoring cat or dog on your lap, you tend to resonate with their emotion.

The amygdala activates fight or flight responses by receiving neural signals that indicate possible threats slightly before other brain centers. Higher cortical areas receive these signals milliseconds later, making it a challenge to override one’s reactions if we judge that immediate action is required. The difficulty is that the older parts of the brain always react as if the stimulus is a true life and death situation requiring immediate action, although the vast majority of the time it is not.

The amygdala processes information unconsciously and has no sense of chronological time. This means that stimuli perceived as a threat in childhood will tend to be perceived the same way in adulthood. So, a memory of a barking dog that frightened you at an early age is recorded by the amygdala and will set off the same fear reactions with similar intensity if you are presented with the same stimulus in the present. This lack of personal historical chronology at the center of the limbic system may be a basis for the perpetuation of negative emotional / behavioral patterns.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex

The anterior cingulate cortex has a mediating role in rational cognitive functions, decision-making, empathy, and modulation of emotional responses through the abundance of specialized neurons called spindle cells. These cells are a relatively recent occurrence in evolutionary terms, so far found only in humans and apes. Whether we use these cell structures fully or not makes all the difference.

The relationship between the anterior cingulate cortex and more primitive brain structures can even explain one’s choice of politics. A now famous study conducted by the University College London (UCL) demonstrated a correlation between larger development of the anterior cingulate cortex and progressive political identification compared to a larger development of the amygdala in retrogressive political identification. “We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala…political attitudes reflect differences in self-regulatory conflict monitoring and recognition of emotional faces by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure.“*  © 2012 Keith E. Hall, www.inner-tranquility.com  All rights reserved.

*Kanai, R., Feilden, T., Firth, C., Rees, G. (7 April 2011). Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults. Current Biology

Tantric Qigong Karma Burning: Chakra Issues,  Part 2,  Chakras 1 & 2,  Third Chakra

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Karma Burning: Transcendence & Sahasrara, the Crown Chakra

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 He who loses himself will find himself.  Matthew 10:39

The crown chakra is the connection between the physical body and its energetic emanations, energy bodies, etc. There is not really an emotion per se associated with this chakra, the closest we come is a sense of liberation or spiritual ecstasy resulting from a release from the confines of ego.  Transcendence can be defined as that which goes beyond any possible intellectual knowledge, a full spiritual awakening or liberation from egocentricity, a condition of going or being beyond ego. The mantra which describes this is:  “Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Swaha!”, i.e. go, go, go beyond, go beyond beyond, all hail the goer! (Enlightened one).

In religious experience, transcendence is a state of being that has overcome the limitations of physical existence and perhaps become independent of it. This state of being in connection with the universal self can sometimes be experienced through processes which expand the boundaries of our definition and our consciousness, and can include prayer, meditation, entheogen induced extasis, tantric practices, and spontaneously experienced out of body states. All the great religious traditions of the world to some extent share the belief of the possibility of transcending the ego, even such a staid authority as the Catholic Church:

          Freeing itself from the sensuous world by purification (katharsis), the human soul

          ascends by successive steps through the various degrees of the metaphysical

          order, until it unites itself in…contemplation to the One, and sinks into it: it is

          the state of ecstasis.

-The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 10, Herbermann, Charles George 1907-1913

Just as the t’ai chi symbol (yin yang) contains the seed of its opposites, so transcendence can contain an aspect of immanence.  We can be alive, but have consciousness outside the body; we can be in the world, but at the same time not of it. © 2012 Keith E. Hall and www.Inner-Tranquility.com. All rights reserved.

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Karma Burning: Chakra Issues

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Karma Burning: Ajna, the 3rd Eye:  Serenity / Equanimity

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As we delve into the emotions related to the head chakras, we may be surprised to find that little to none are resident there. Emotions are deeply connected to the body and the somatic chakras, whereas the chakras of the head are more connected to mental and spiritual realms. If one were to affix an appellation to the emotion of Ajna, it would be inner peace, tranquility, equanimity, or serenity.

Equanimity…is the ground for wisdom and freedom and the protector of compassion

 and love. The Buddha described a mind filled with equanimity as “abundant, exalted,

       immeasurable, without hostility and without ill-will. -Gil Fronsdal, Insight Meditation Center

Equanimity can be seen as evolving from a state of stability or composure arising from a deep witnessing and acceptance of this present moment.  Far from analytical aloofness, spiritual equanimity results in a clarity and a kind of calm, warm, state of being.

Serenity is defined by some dictionaries as “a disposition free from stress or emotion”, and “steadiness of mind under stress.” Stress, as we know, is a combination of anxiety, discomfort, and irritability brought on by the inability to fully control a given situation. In other words; fear, pain, and anger: the emotional denizens of the first three chakras. The ability to maintain a serene affect when challenged by the negative emotions of the lower three chakras is a prima facie case for a certain degree of self mastery.

While the emotions present in the fourth and fifth chakras do not have any negativity in their resident aspects (Love and Joy), these emotions can have a dynamic quality to them that affects the body quite strongly. At times the emotions of Love and Joy can be overwhelming, and in their most profound expressions can fill the body with an energized exuberance.  While a delightful state, this is quite different than the calm landscape of serenity. Using the model of Kundalini ascension, one could see how the exuberance of chakras 4 and 5 could “boil up” and gradually evanesce or distill into a refined sense of presence and inner peace at the sixth chakra.

            God grant me the serenity

            to accept the things I cannot change;

            courage to change the things I can;

            and wisdom to know the difference. –Reinhold Niebuhr

This famous quote from the Serenity Prayer is interesting in terms of the dynamics of the chakras. We have serenity, a function of the third eye, acceptance, an energy of the 4th chakra, courage, which can be a power of the third chakra, and wisdom and discernment bring us back to the third eye. In other words, intention, steadfastness, and surrender when enjoined can help create presence and wisdom.

Limbic resonance, aka empathic resonance, is a psychiatric theory delineating how humans and mammals in general express the capacity for sharing deep emotional states which arise within the limbic system through non-verbal interconnectedness or a kind of psychic quantum entanglement.  These states include the feelings of empathic harmony (dopamine circuit), and the emotional states of fear, anxiety and anger (norepinephrine circuit). This theory is the first well defined medical hypothesis to address the mechanics of non-verbal emotional communication in both humans and some animals.  What psychiatry is attempting to describe in neurologic terms, Tantric and Taoist practitioners attain through the practice of meditation, conscious movement and techniques such as mantra, Transmuting Breath, and Cobra Breath. Inner tranquility and attentiveness would be prerequisites for conscious mastery of the lower emotions, non-verbal attunement, and the attainment of harmony, syntony, and empathy.

If we think about this in quasi-Taoist terms, serenity and equanimity could be seen as the fulcrum of balance between negative and positive emotions, between the soma and the subtle energy bodies, between our embodied sense of the heavenly (cosmic consciousness) and earthly realms (vitality, emotionality, and sensuality). © 2012 Keith E. Hall and www.Inner-Tranquility.com. All rights reserved.

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Karma Burning: Joy & the Throat Chakra

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Joy is the expression of the power of great delight, elation, or “happiness on steroids.” As a spiritual state of Being, joy can energetically manifest from either the 4th chakra or the 6th chakra.

Real joy means immediate expansion. If we experience pure joy, immediately our heart expands. – Sri Chinmoy

If the power of love, happiness, gratitude, or ecstasy is energized enough, this Shakti Kundalini (earthly Qi) will express itself by travelling through the sub-chakras connecting heart (Anahata) to the throat (Vishuddi). This earthly, Shakti based energy of Joy wants to ascend through the chakras and rejoice in its dynamic and free expression at the throat. Another characteristic of Joy that begins in the heart can be the desire to serve others, which can create a deep satisfaction and gratitude for this opportunity to be in service to humanity.

Peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet. – Anne Lamott

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy. – Krishnamurti

Focusing on the 3rd eye creates attentiveness and Presence, which is a prerequisite and an intimately entwined component of joy. Witnessing the beauty and power of the Now can fill one with compassion, gratitude, and joy as well as a sort of esthetic awakening to and a deep appreciation of the reality we behold. This energetically (through one’s heavenly Qi) connects Ajna with the throat whereby these realizations can be expressed. Joy manifested from the 3rd eye to the throat can often have a serene, blissful quality to it. © 2012 Keith E. Hall and www.Inner-Tranquility.com. All rights reserved.

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Karma Burning: Unconditional Love

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Unconditional love, as distinct from romantic, barter, or transactional love, can be defined as love without limitations. Some closely analogous synonyms are: altruism, divine love, or maternal love. It is that type of love which is unbounded and unchanging. As every English Lit major knows:

            Love is not love

            Which alters when it alteration finds,

            Or bends with the remover to remove:

            O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

            That looks on tempests and is never shaken…  Sonnet 116

Unconditional love has no prerequisites, and seeks no rewards. As Kahlil Gibran opines,

            Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

            Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

            For love is sufficient unto love.

The person broadcasting unconditional love could be seen as having the “goal” of increasing the welfare of the other without any expectation of benefit; love is given freely to the loved one without condition or bartering.

            Love seeketh not itself to please,

            Nor for itself hath any care,

            But for another gives its ease,

            And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair. William Blake

Mario Beauregard, et al studied MRI brain imaging of participants who were shown different images either referring to unconditional love or “romantic love”. Four of seven distinct areas of the brain* became uniquely active during the unconditional love portions of the experiment. These areas are associated with “rewarding” and non-sexual pleasure sensations, and human maternal behaviors. These cerebral regions were not active during the romantic love part of the protocol, thus demonstrating neurologically that the feeling of love for someone without the need of being rewarded is distinctly different from the feeling of romantic love. © 2012 Keith E. Hall and www.Inner-Tranquility.com. All rights reserved.

*The middle insula, superior parietal lobule, right periaqueductal gray, right globus pallidus (medial), right caudate nucleus (dorsal head), left ventral tegmental area and left rostro-dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Beauregard, Mario; Jerome Courtemanche, Vincent Paquette, Evelyne Landry St. Pierre (2009). “The neural basis of unconditional love”. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 172: 6

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Karma Burning in the Lower Chakras

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In looking at the concept of Karma Burning for emotional freedom, as well as mental and spiritual Enlightenment, it is helpful to know where chakric energies are processed. Since emotions are in the mid-plane between the physical and mental / spiritual bodies, let’s take a look at which chakras they live in.

Karma Burning: Muladhara and Fear

The emotion resident at the first (root) chakra is fear or anxiety. Fear is a natural reaction to a potentially threatening event – real or imagined. Hardwired into the brain stem, fear reactions usually occur with little processing from higher brain centers and the reactions can be purely automatic. Karmic patterns of responses to fear can affect your physical body, emotional responses, mental habits, and your personality in its entirety. Self Mastery requires that you mediate your physical, emotional, and mental reactions using attention and intention.

Karma Burning: Swadhistana, Pain and Sadness

The second chakra mediates sadness of varying depths and emotional trauma in general, especially that of the repressed variety. Repression is a ploy by the mind to prevent a negative experience from being present in our consciousness. However, by forcing this energy into our depths, it becomes frozen, locked in place, and unchangeable until such time as we work to bring it back to consciousness. Just because we are not conscious of these karmic events that we have hidden from ourselves does not mean that they are not shaping our perceptions, reactions, and behaviors. Quite the opposite, they can be the master force behind our personality and our experience of reality.  Bringing to consciousness and processing our pain and sadness results in greater emotional freedom, empowering us to live more pleasurable and joyful lives.

Karma Burning: Manipura – Anger / judgment / hatred / violence

The vitality of the 3rd chakra can express itself in many ways internally and externally and anger is often one of these. Expressed outwardly, anger is an attempt to control your physical and psychic space, to defend yourself. Inwardly it tends to take the initial form of self-criticism / guilt, and can rapidly be suppressed, driving this energy down into the cellular level and altering one’s immune response (cellular defenses) and other somatic processes. Whether directed inwardly or outwardly, anger leads to hatred, which leads to physical or emotional violence. As part of the “anthropomorphizing” of the animalistic fight or flight response, anger can be seen as the “cover-up” reaction to the threat of pain or fear. © 2012 Keith E. Hall and Inner-Tranquility.com All rights reserved.  See also The 3rd Chakra and the Spiritual Purpose of Power 

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Karma Burning

Level 2 Cobra Breath deepens our energetic and psychic balance by activating the neural and subtle energy roots of the chakras. In essence, each chakra manages a realm of emotion, somatic structure, mental process, perception, and personal experience. Thus, how we define and experience ourselves to be is mediated by the physical energies and software imprints of each chakra. To attain a liberated state of being, we must therefore explore the many “subroutines” that have been downloaded to our chakra system, and re-write the ones that create negative emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and self-limitation.

Karma burning can be thought of as a collection of techniques, rituals, meditations, and other processes to attain liberation from the unconscious patterning that controls our lives autonomically, i.e., from your subconscious. Like a crucible, this process can create a certain subtle heat and light which penetrates the psyche thus purifying our mettle; our mind, emotions, and the somatic record of our past.

Sometimes traditional yogic and Buddhist techniques for karma burning visualize this process externally and anthropomorphically. For example, there are the images of Kali (the destroyer of Time), which may seem violent and gruesome. This is a representation of our fear of change being overcome by calling on an ally: the power of the deity. We fear the little death of the egoistic patterns we have lived with, no matter how dysfunctional, harmful, or self limiting they are. We are loathe to give them up even though we suspect that we would be better off if we could grow out of them and re-define ourselves anew.

Joseph Campbell has said the Buddha has two aspects, one peaceful, and the other wrathful. Just like the Hindu paradigm of Kali, if one remains attached to one’s self-definition and world-view, the Divine force of conscious evolution will become increasingly insistent. If our resistance remains high, then this force can be perceived as a threat, and can be visualized externally as if it were a wrathful deity who lops off the head of our egoistic perceptions, and devours our negative emotions, thoughts, and actions. This Kali-esque aspect is sometimes symbolized in Tibetan Thankas (also spelled Tangka, Thangka, or Tanka) where the deity is depicted as manifesting in a fierce form to free us from samsara – our limited perceptions, unsettled mind, ignorance, suffering, emotional bondage, and self-centered behaviors.

The hero whose attachment to ego is already annihilated passes back and forth across the horizons of the world, in and out of the dragon, as readily as a king through all the rooms of his house. And therein lies his power…  – The Hero with a Thousand Faces

For some of us, this is a very real psychic battle between our core patterns that were imprinted at an early age and our innate desire for freedom. Perseverance and courage, the same qualities displayed by any deity or hero, are required to attain a state of relative liberation.  We can concoct many, many reasons for not doing this work: not enough time, competing interests, stress, a general feeling that we are just fine the way we are, and an infinite number of other reasons. There is only one real reason for pursuing this process: to attain true and utter freedom from our past and be Present in the clear light of self-knowledge. This will result in Moksha (moksa, mukti) or Nirvana – the attainment of emotional, mental, and spiritual liberation.

The best techniques of karma burning usually involve a process of remembering past events; historical, imaginary, and perceptual. Once this history is brought to our conscious mind and soma, and processed through Witness Consciousness, the karmic patterns are transmuted, thus freeing enormous psychic energy and transforming our limitations into wisdom and liberation. © 2012 Keith E. Hall and Inner-Tranquility.com. All rights reserved. Karma Burning  Karma Burning in the Lower Chakras  1 2 3  4 5

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