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