Welcome to Day 34 of our 40-Day Retreat.
Yesterday we dealt with the sacral centre, and today we are going to deal with the base centre.
Base chakra – grounding
In Sanskrit it’s called, “muladhara” chakra, and it means the root, the base. We have been dealing in the last couple of days with the lower centres: the navel, or “manipura”, the sacral or “swadisthana”, and these lower centres ground us in the physical body. The navel increases our vitality when we know how to tap into it. The sacral allows us to manage the sexual power and transmute it, and the base chakra helps us to ground in the physical body. Grounding is extremely important. Though we live in a physical body I think some of us are absentee owners. We have a lot of time in the mind and the emotional being and we are not grounded in the physical body.
Importance of being in touch with our body
When I shake peoples’ hands and feel their energy I can tell the degree to which they are grounded in the body. I can feel as though the light or the spirit in the body is far away. It is somewhere else, and just the organic body is there. This is a human experience for the soul and the physical plane is a necessary plane. This body is the body that we need for our existence in the world. So its survival, its comfort, its well-being, and to be in touch with it, to know what’s happening in it are all extremely important. If you have an organization and you are a leader, you can be in touch with everything in the organization. You know every person, you know every function in the organization and so you can become the best leader. You know their stories, their weaknesses, their strengths, so you are able to manage them, motivate them, and be with them.
Network of cells sending messages
In the same way that you are the leader of your organization, which is a complex organization and not just a simple one, you have many systems working within you. You have, of course, trillions of tiny units of operation that we call cells. I’m going to show that you are in touch with these little beings. They send messages to you.
You have a complex network of information channels and they send messages to you. I don’t know how much of it you receive because you could be otherwise taken up and be unaware that these messages are coming to you. Sometimes you are not even aware if there is pain in the body. So it is extremely important to be in touch with the body. When you focus on the base centre it allows you to be in touch with your body in a beautiful way.
A different relationship with my body
As I said to you before, at the end of the 40 days of 1978, I had a different kind of relationship with my body. I remember washing the body and feeling, “Wow, there’s something different about how I feel. I’m more conscious of it as being something I live in and I am more conscious of its existence as a living being.” So washing it for me was taking care of something precious. I lost the sense of an absentee owner. I was now very involved in observing what was happening within me and being more aware of how I can support the process. When you ground in the base centre, as I am doing now, you enjoy periods of being in the body, living in the body, acting through the body. All your senses become alive.
Are you connected to your body?
Now think about it. Is this the situation with you? Are you connected to your body? Do you feel that your body is a part of you in such a way that you feel what is happening in your body? That you enjoy working with the functions of the body? That you are aware how to motivate the body? Of course, because the body has a life of its own, it will require motivation at times. When it’s tired, when it’s hungry, when its vitality has been lowered, like a spoiled child it would want to contract and want attention.
When you begin to give it attention, you will actually find that your body responds. Giving attention to your body means observing the way you treat the body. How do you feed it? How do you exercise it? How do you relax it? How do you energize it? How do you prevent it from disease? How do you support it as it begins to act in the world? How do you know where the weak points are? How do you strengthen them? Do you understand the things you can do to energize the body powerfully: the breathing, the love you hold the body in? So the more that you are in your base centre, the more conscious you are of this.
The pitfall to this is when you become attached to it! We are studying these centres because the ego is expressed through them. We express the ego through the body, “My body is stronger. My body is beautiful. My body is a powerful body.” So we are expressing the ego through the body. As we become closer and more intimate with the body, we can become attached to it. So we do not want it to grow old. We cannot accept when disease comes in. When it has lower vitality we are not happy; we become miserable. We need to be careful about attachment to the body.
How to energize your physical body
The joy is when you can tap into the other centres and bring their power into the physical body. You can use the mind, for example, to energize the body through affirmations or positive thinking. You can use emotions to comfort the body. You can use the vital centre to energize the body, uplift it and give it more confidence. You can manage the sexual power in the sacral area so you can protect it from too much loss of vitality. And of course using the power of the base itself you can ground in the physical body, so much so that you enjoy the act of eating, exercising, cleansing, revitalizing. You enjoy being grounded in the body.
When you do, you begin to enjoy your relationship with the physical existence: the earth, and your relationship with it: walking on the earth, enjoying the wind, enjoying the sun, enjoying the play and the movement. You enjoy the relationship with other people, you’re enjoying holding a hand, enjoying exercising together, working together, playing together. You enjoy your physical existence.
Spirituality is not just about being inside the soul
For me, spirituality is not just about being inside in the soul, searching and enjoying the inner being. It is also grounding outside and bringing the light into the physical level and into the physical existence. Bringing your energy into the space around you – the ground that you walk upon, the place that you sit in, the place that you socialize in, that space must also carry your powerful energies. Every cell of your body must feel this energy. When you touch another human being you must be able to share energies with the person at every level.
The base chakra, therefore, must be involved in the whole process of relationship with the world, communication with the world. You must be grounded. This is an extremely important thing. This is what I strive to do every day. I must be in contact with my physical existence and I must bring the fullness of my being into the physical as well. The physical is an important world for me. I’m not attached to it. I can appreciate its changes, and I can live with them happily because I am not the body. I live in the body but I want to keep a good house. I want to keep the best house that I may enjoy my journey in the physical existence.
Discipline of yoga – grounding in the base
When you focus on the base of the spine and you hold your breath there and feel the energy into your entire body, it gives you a sense of grounding. When you learn how to hold the lower three centres powerfully, in yoga you learn a root lock called mulbandha where energy is stored. You learn how to lock the energy in the lower area. You can actually feel your physical existence is more powerful. Yoga is a very powerful discipline in terms of the chakras, in terms of living in the body, and using every level powerfully.
I’ll leave you with that. It is exploring the joys of living at the base level, free and powerfully without losing centeredness in your spiritual being. That allows for the fullness of the human experience.
Post-meditation note:
I hope that you will claim your right to ownership and be a good owner and not an absentee one. Enjoy the human experience 
