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Preparatory Practices for Japa Kriya
Chakra Location and Visualization
In Japa Kriya you need to pay attention to chakras for extended duration than
Bhutashuddhi Kriya. In Bhutashuddhi Kriya you simply "touch" the chakras and
quickly move further along with your breath whereas in Japa Kriya you
concentrate on a particular chakra for a fixed amount of time (108 recitations
if you are using Japa Mala). This requires that you know the exact location of
chakras. Often people confuse between a Chakra and its functional area. Take an
example Manipura chakra. Its functional area is navel but its actual location is
on the spinal column exactly at the back of the navel. The following diagram
will make the chakra locations clear.

The chakra names from 1 to 7 are Muladhara, Swadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata,
Vishuddhi, Ajna and Sahasrara.
In order to find out and feel these locations the following practice can
help:
- Sit in any comfortable meditative posture
- Close your eyes
- Slowly try to move your awareness to Muladhara Chakra
- Try to see the region from within
- Visualize a bright red lotus (or flower) at the Muladhara Chakra.
- After couple of minutes move on to Swadhisthana Chakra at the base of
the sopine.
- Visualize a bright vermillion lotus there.
- Repeat the same process for all the seven Chakra points visualizing
lotuses of yellow (Manipura), blue (Anahata), violet (Vishuddhi), white (Ajna)
color. Sahasrara is colorless.
- Once you reach Sahasrara start descending in the reverse order in the
same manner
Bipin Joshi is an independent software consultant and trainer by profession specializing in Microsoft web development technologies. Having embraced the Yoga way of life he is also a yoga mentor, meditation teacher, and spiritual guide to his students. He is a prolific author and writes regularly about software development and yoga on his websites. He is programming, meditating, writing, and teaching for over 27 years. To read more about him go here. More details about his Kriya and Meditation online course are available here.