Third Energy Center

LOCATION:  at the navel

COLOR:  purple and gold with ruby flecks

SANSKRIT NAME:  Manipura (“city of jewels” or “filled with jewels”)

PETALS;  10

POSITIVE EXPRESSION:  peace, brotherhood, selfless service, right desire, balance, harmlessness

UNBALANCED EXPRESSION:  anger, agitation, fanaticism, aggression, egoism, overindulgence, fear, anxiety, passivity

PART OF THE BODY:  digestive system, liver, pancreas

MUSICAL INSTRUMENT: organ

GEMSTONE:  topaz, alexandrite, diamond with pearl

By mastering emotion and desire, we cultivate

inner peace, brotherhood and selfless service

Life Lesson:  Walk the Middle Way of Balance

The impulse “I want” and the impulse “I’ll have”–lose them!

That is where most people get stuck

–The Sutta-Nipata

The next step in our voyage of self-discovery is to rise from the seat-of-the-soul chakra to the level of the solar-plexus.  Here the soul learns to cultivate inner peace and brotherhood.  She does this by mastering her emotions and desires while dealing with the tests and trials of her karma.  The solar-plexus , from which this chakra takes its name, is the large network of nerves located behind the stomach.  Most of us have felt butterflies in our belly or a wallop of energy from someone who was upset with us, as if we were being punched in the stomach.  We were processing those emotions through the energy center at the solar-plexus.

Feeling like anger, agitation or fear as well as spiritual feelings of peace or devotion are filtered through this center.  Our solar-plexus and throat centers are closely linked, for we often express our feelings through our speech.  So powerful are our emotions that the solar-plexus chakra can multiply–for blessings or bane—what is taking place through our other chakras.

I Engage The Power Of My Emotions As An Instrument Of Peace

When Jesus said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,” he was talking about those who would become instruments of peace as they mastered the powerful currents flowing through the solar-plexus chakra.

Mastering the emotions does not mean that we have no emotion.  Emotion (e-motion) is simply energy in motion.  We can use our energy in motion to reflect and amplify the feelings of our soul or we can use it to subject the soul. We can use our energy in motion to emanate peace or to amplify agitation–to inspire or to provoke.

By staying calm when everything around us is in chaos, by tapping into the powerful reservoir of peace than can be garnered in the solar-plexus, we can summon a tremendous sea of energy to stabilize a situation, whether it is in our home or in a crowd.

The hero is the man

who is immovably centered

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

The test of the emotions comes in big and little ways, tempting us to indulge the emotions or lose control of them.  God wants us to master our lessons in energy flow, and he needs to make sure we’ve got it right.  For God will not give us more energy than we can hold in the chalice of our chakras and put to good use.  Why do we want a reserve of energy?  So that when the necessity arises we can send out to others, through our chakra and our aura, the healing light of joy, freedom, peace, love, power, vision and wisdom.

So when you are confronted with the trials of life that seem to be trying to unseat you, it’s because you’re doing something right, not something wrong.  When we’re committed to a course of spiritual growth, we can expect that we’ll be tested.  That’s what that quizzical verse we learned in Sunday school was all about:  “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire.”

Self-conquest is indeed, far greater

then the conquest of all other folk.

–The Dhammapada

Tibetan Buddhism teaches that anger is one of the “poisons” that are deadly to our spiritual growth.  Through anger we can very quickly lose any ground we have gained.   Like a baby who cries until he is literally exhausted, tirades of anger or other forms of emotional abuse can exhaust our energy supply–and cause turmoil within the energy centers of others.  Anger, is a symptom of a deeper malaise, telling us to dig below the surface.  Often what is hovering underneath is fear or insecurity or grief, and anger is the way, however unhealthy, that we chose to cope.  Anger does not change a situation; it usually makes it worse.  If we are serious about overcoming our unbalanced emotions, we first have to find out what is at the root of them.

I Strive To Walk The Middle Way

Gautama Buddha articulated the initiation of the solar-plexus chakra when he taught that we can make the best spiritual progress by walking “the Middle Way.”  In his first sermon after his enlightenment, given at Sarnath, India, Gautama explained that we can only attain enlightenment by avoiding the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification–by walking the Middle Way.  One hallmark of the Middle Way is tolerance.  Its nemesis is fanaticism or extremism, either to the right or to the left. Tolerance means that we accept others as they are because we haven’t walked in their moccasins and we don’t know the burden they may be carrying.  On the other hand, avoiding extremes doesn’t mean we are wishy-washy. Our point of balance, our fulcrum, is strong because it is centered in a solid sense of identity and purpose.

I Seek To Align My Desires With My Goals In Life

We can’t have inner peace if we don’t master our desires.  This doesn’t mean we have no desire.  Mastering desire means we tether our desires to the true desire of our soul and God’s desire for us.  When we are able to do that, the momentum of energy in our solar-plexus will propel us towards the fulfillment of our soul’s divine potential.  Our desires, like our emotions, aren’t automatically “bad.”  Gautama taught that the reason we suffer is that we crave.  We suffer when our desires are self-centered or selfish, when they reinforce the human ego and don’t take into account the needs of others.  There is a Buddhist saying about this grasping, possessive part of human nature:  “all the harm with which this world is rife, all the fear and suffering that there is:  clinging to the ‘I’ has caused it!  What am I to do with this great demon?”

The motive behind our desire is what counts.  For instance, if we desire to be educated or to become a doctor or lawyer so we share the talents God has given us and improve life for others, this is right desire.  If this pursuit is based solely on the desire to amass wealth or to control or impress others, that would be self-centered, inordinate desire.  In other words, there is always the option to fulfill our desires on a higher plane, the plane of service to life.  The spiritual meaning of the word desire is Deity siring–God and the presence of God within you giving birth to the highest and noblest aspirations of your soul.  Whenever you desire, you are creating (or giving birth to) something.  If the energies of your solar-plexus are balanced and at peace, the creations born of your desire can be beautiful, powerful and effective.

When you don’t get confused, our nature is naturally stable;

when your nature is stable, energy naturally returns.

-Lu Yen

Just because we feel the urge to have or to do something doesn’t mean it’s right for us.  We have to distinguish at the soul level whether what we are responding to is God’s desire for us or a desire that stems from an unhealthy pattern of the past.  Another key to evaluating desire is perspective.  Sometimes pulling away from a situation will give you a reality check.

I Set Aside My Own Desire When Necessary To Support And Serve Others

In a moment of self-reflection, Chief Luther Standing Bear once said, “As A child I understood how to give.  I have forgotten this grace since I have become civilized.”  The greatest gift you can give is the gift of yourself.  God endows us with talents and special qualities so that we can share them with others.  We’re like God’s messenger.  We’re God’s hands and feet on earth, delivering love or comfort, joy or illumination to those he cannot touch physically.  “Freely ye have received, freely give,” taught Jesus.  And the more we give, the more we open up the energy flow.  The more we prime the pump, the more that energy flows back to us.  That’s a principal of abundance, and it works.

We can choose to say, “Here I am God. You have created me.  Use me.  Use every aspect of my mind and heart and soul and all of my chakras to manifest your light and your love to everyone I meet!  Or we can become possessive.  We can claim the energy that comes to us from our universal Source as our own and stop the flow.  When we stop the flow that energy gets backed up. This creates a downward energy spiral that draws us down into the lesser self rather than a positive energy spiral that sweeps us up into higher vibrations of spiritual awareness.

Affirmations for Balance and Inner Peace

Peace, be still! Peace, be still! Peace, be still!

I AM the hand of god in action,

Gaining victory every day;

My pure soul’s great satisfaction

Is to walk the Middle Way (3x)

                              The Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord,

          Make me an instrument of they peace.

          Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

           Where there is injury, pardon;

           Where there is doubt, faith;

           Where there is despair, hope;

            Where there is darkness, light; and

            Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

              Grant that I may not so much

              Seek to be consoled as to console,

              To be understood as to understand,

               To be loved as to love.

               For it is in giving that we receive,

                It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and

               It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.