madamehearthwitch:

answersfromvanaheim:

soulsapling:

I’ve seen some conflicting information and I wanted to get some more insight on it so: Are Chakras part of a closed practice?

It’s a bit more complicated than that.

Chakras are a part of Hindu and Buddhist traditions (although most Westerners know them from exposure to Hinduism). The issue is not that these traditions are “closed” (personally I think tumblr should be using “living” traditions instead of “closed” traditions for the majority of traditions they refer to as closed but that’s a separate issue) but that the way they are understood in their native traditions is very different from how Westerners understand them, and the way people in the West understand them is incredibly watered down and divorced from that religious context.

I would recommend reading The real story on the chakras, (the author is a white convert to Hinduism) which not only talks about how chakras are viewed in Indian traditions, but where the West gets its ideas about the chakras.

This article is actually about yoga but it touches on the racism and colonialism with regards to the West’s relationship with Hinduism. (which includes stuff like chakras, yoga, karma).

This is something I’ve tried researching in the past without much luck. This post is very informative, and I’ll be picking up that book soon!