The Seven Sacred Truths
~All is One~
The First Chakra
External Power
Level One
Tribal Power
Sacred Truth of the First Chakra
The Sacred Truth inherent in the first chakra is that ~All is One~. We learn this truth and explore its creative power through experiences connected to tribal or group dynamics. It carries the message that we are connected to all of life and that every choice we make and every belief we hold exerts influence upon the whole of life, and that we are all part of one spiritual community. As part of our spiritual development and our biological health, this Sacred Truth has physical expressions in honour, loyalty, justice, family and group bonds, groundedness, our need for spiritual foundation, and the ability to manage physical power for survival.
We begin to discover that all is One as we start life within our tribe or family. To be part of a tribe is a primal need, since we are completely dependent upon our tribe for basic survival needs; food, shelter and clothing. As tribal beings, we are energetically designed to live together, to create together, to learn together, to be together, to need one another. Each of our tribal environments - from our biological tribe, to the tribes we form with co-workers, to our tribal bonds with friends - provides the essential physical settings within which we can explore the creative power of this truth.
The power created by the first chakra transits into our energy and biological systems the sacred Truth ~All is One~. We are inter-connected with all of life and to each other. Each of us must learn to honour this truth. This is the tribal chakra resonating to our need to honour familial bonds and to have a code of honour with in ourselves. One first encounters the Truth ~All is One~ within one`s biological family, learning to respect the ~blood bond~. Your family may also teach you ~we are all part of one Divine family - All is One~ in your church or whatever place of religious worship.
Your bond to your biological family is symbolic of your connection to everyone and all that is life. violating this energy bond by, for instance, considering those who are different to us to be less than us, creates conflict within our spirit and therefore within our physical. Body. Acting and accepting according to the basic truth, ~All is One~ is a Universal spiritual challenge.
The energy content of the first of Tribal Charka is ~tribal power~. The word tribe is not only a synonym for family but an archetype, and as such has its connotations beyond its more conventional definition. It also connotes group identity, group force, group will power and group belief patterns. The first chakra grounds us. It is our connection to traditional familial beliefs that support the formation of identity and a sense of belonging to a group of people in a geographic location.
Location
Base of the spine
Energy connection to the emotional mental body
The first chakra is the foundation of emotional and mental health. Emotional and psychological stability originate in the family unit and early social environment. Various mental illnesses are generated out of family dysfunction, including multiple personalities, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and destructive patterns like alcoholism.
Symbolic/perceptual connection
First chakra energy manifests in our need for logic, order and structure. This energy orients us in time and space and to our five senses. As children, we perceive and learn about the physical world through our five senses. First chakra energy has trouble interpreting our lives symbolically, for our five senses give us literal perceptions and cause us to take this at face value. Not until we are older are we able to seek out the symbolic meaning of events and relationships.
Primary Strengths
Tribal/family identity, bonding, and the tribal honour code, the support and loyalty that gives one a sense of safety and connection to the physical world.
Primary Fears
Fears of physical survival, abandonment by the group, and loss of physical order.
Tribal Culture
No-one begins life as a conscious individual with conscious will power. That identity comes much later and develops in stages from child hood through adulthood. Beginning life as part of a tribe, we become connected to our tribal consciousness and collective willpower by absorbing its strengths and weaknesses, beliefs, superstitions and fears.
Through our interactions with family and other groups, we learn the power of sharing a belief with other people. We also learn how painful it can be to be excluded from a group and its energy. We learn the power of sharing a moral and ethical code handed down from generation to generation. This code of behaviour guides children of the tribe during their developmental years, providing a sense of dignity and belonging.
If tribal experiences interconnect us, so do tribal attitudes, whether sophisticated perception such as ~We are all brothers and sisters~ or superstitions such as ~the number 13 is bad luck~
Our respective tribes introduce us to life ~in the world~. They teach us that the world is either safe or dangerous, abundant or poverty ridden, educated or ignorant, a place to take from or to give to. And they transmit their perceptions about the nature of reality itself - for instance, that this life is only one of many or that this life is all there is. We inherit from our tribes their attitudes towards another religious, ethnic and racial groups. Our tribes ~activate~ our thinking process.
The tribal beliefs we inherit are a combination of truth and fiction. Many of them such as ~Murder is forbidden~ hold eternal value. Others lack that quality of eternal truth and are more parochial, designed to keep the tribes separate from one another, in violation of the Sacred Truth ~All is One~. The process of spiritual development challenges us to retain the tribal influences that are positive and to discard those that are not.
Our spiritual power grows when we are able to see beyond the contradictions inherent in tribal teachings and pursue a deeper level of truth. Each time we make a shift towards symbolic awareness, we positive influence our energy and biological systems. We also contribute positive energy to the collective body of life - the global tribe.
The Energy consequences of Belief Patterns
Regardless of the ~truth~ of familial beliefs, every one of them directs a measure of our energy into an act of creation. Each belief, each action has a direct consequence. When we share belief patterns with groups of people, we participate in energy and physical events created by those groups. This is the creative symbolic expression of the Sacred Truth ~All is One~.
For example, when we share support for a candidate running for office, and that candidate wins, we feel our energy and physical support helped; further, we have some sense that he or she represents our concerns which is a way of physically experiencing the power of unity in the truth ~All is One~.
The shadow side of this (lower side) is that individuals involved in ~negative~ group action rarely, if ever, accept responsibility for their personal role and action. This reality is the shadow side as in fact, unwritten tribal laws hold that the leaders accept responsibility, not the followers. For example, the Nuremberg trials following World War II are classic examples of the limitations of tribal responsibility. Most of the defendants on trial stated that they were ~only following orders~. No doubt at the time, they were proud of their ability to fulfil their tribal responsibilities, but they were completely unable to accept any personal consequences at the trials.
Given the power of unified beliefs, right or wrong, it is difficult to be at variance with one’s tribe. We are taught to make choices that meet with tribal approval, to adopt its social graces, manner of dress, and attitudes. Symbolically this adaptation reflects the union of individual will power with group willpower. It is a powerful feeling to be in a group of people or a family with whom you feel spiritually, emotionally, and physically comfortable. Such a union empowers us and energetically enhances our personal power and our creative strength - and it continues as long as we make choices consonant with the group’s. We unite to create.
At the same time we have within us a relentless congenital desire to explore our own creative abilities, to develop our individual power and authority. This desire is the impetus behind our striving to become ~conscious~. The universal human journey is one of becoming conscious of our power and how to use that power. Becoming conscious of the responsibility inherent in the power of choice represents the core of this journey.
From an energy perspective, becoming conscious requires stamina. It is extremely challenging, and often very painful, to evaluate our own personal belief systems and separate ourselves from those that no longer support our growth. Change is the nature of life, and external and internal change is constant. When we change inwardly, we outgrow certain belief patterns and strengthen others. The first belief patterns that we challenge are tribal because our spiritual development follows the structure of our energy system; we clear our ideas from the bottom up, starting with the earliest and most basic.
Evaluating our beliefs is a spiritual and biological necessity. Our physical bodies, minds and spirits all require new ideas in order to thrive. Seen symbolically our life crises tell us that we need to break free of beliefs that no longer serve our personal development. These points at which we must choose to change or to stagnate are our greatest challenges. Every new crossroad means we enter into a new cycle of change and change inevitably means letting go of familiar people and places and moving onto another stage of life.
Many people are stuck between the two worlds; the old world that they need to release and the new world that they are afraid to enter. We are attracted to becoming more "conscious" but at the same time we find it frightening because it means we must take some personal responsibility for ourselves - and for our health, career, attitudes and thoughts. Once we accept personal responsibility for even one area of our lives, we can never use ~tribal reasoning~ to excuse our behaviour.
In tribal consciousness personal responsibility does not exist in well defined terms, so it is much easier to avoid the consequences of personal choices in the tribal milieu. Tribal responsibility extends mainly to the physical areas of our lives, meaning individuals are accountable for their finances, social concerns, relationships and occupations. The tribe does not require members to take personal responsibility for the attitudes they inherit. According to tribal reasoning is it acceptable to excuse one’s prejudices by saying ~everyone in my family things this way~ yet the spiritually conscious adult, however can no longer utilise tribal reasoning.
Challenging Tribal Power
From our tribe we learn about loyalty, honour and justice - moral attitudes that are essential to our well being and sense of personal and group responsibility. Each of them expresses the sacred truth ~All is One~…
Loyalty
Loyalty is an instinct, an unwritten law that tribal members can rely on particularly in times of crisis. It is thus part of the tribal power system and if often more influential than love. You can feel loyalty toward a family member you do not love, and you can feel loyalty toward people who share your ethnic background, even though you do not know them personally. An expectation of loyalty from a group holds enormous power over an individual, especially when one feels conflicted over allegiance to someone or some cause that holds great personal values.
Loyalty is a beautiful tribal quality, most especially when it is conscious loyalty, a commitment that serves the individual as well as the group. Extremes of loyalty that harms one ability to protect oneself however, qualify as a belief pattern from which one needs to free oneself.
Honour
A tribe is bonded not only by loyalty but by honour. Every tribe’s code of honour is a combination of religious and ethnic traditions and rituals. Rituals such as Baptism or other tribal blessings energetically bond new members to the group’s spiritual power. A sense of honour radiates strength within us, aligns us with our blood and ethnic relations, and teaches us the significance of keeping our word and acting with integrity.
A sense of honour contributes a very forceful and positive energy into our spiritual and biological systems. Without honour, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to stand up for himself with pride and dignity, because he lacks a frame of reference for his behaviour and choices and thus cannot trust himself or others.
A sense of honour is part of what a tribe teaches its members about the fundamental tribal ritual of marriage. The way in which married partners behave teaches ethical standards to the next generation. People are taught to treat others with respect; yet parents who do not show respect themselves produce children who become disrespectful adults. Without the total stability of a code of honorable behaviour, children grow into adults who cannot create stable lives for themselves.
You have to be able to give your word and keep it - whether it is to another person or yourself. You have to be able to trust yourself to complete something and to honour your commitments. When you don’t trust yourself, everyone and everything around you feels temporary and fragile because that is how you feel within yourself. The absence of individual honour extends beyond the boundaries of personal tribes into society in general.
Justice
Our tribes introduce us to the concept of justice; usually the law of ~an eye for an eye~ or ~do unto others as you would have them do unto you~, or the law of karma ~what goes around comes around~
Tribal justice maintains social order and can be summarised this way: It is just to seek revenge for harmful actions that are without cause; it is just to do all that is necessary to protect oneself and ones family; it is just to assist other family members in actions of protection of vengeance. It is unjust to put any family members at risk for personal gain; it is unjust not to follow through on a tribal command; it is unjust to assist anyone whom the tribe recognises as a threat. The injunction against bringing shame upon the family exerts an extremely controlling force over each member.
When a tribal member accomplishes something of value to others, the other members automatically share an ~energy reward~. It is not unusual for a tribal member to ~live off the power~ of another tribal member who has earned a public reputation. "What’s in a name?" we sometimes ask scornfully. But a great deal is in a name - the energy of pride or shame that is transmitted from a person’s first chakra. Violating tribal justice, on the other hand, can cause a loss of power to an individuals energy system - so much so that one may feel permanently ~ungrounded~ and have difficulty forming connections to other people.
The tribe usually believes that there is a ~humanly logical~ reason for why things happen as they do. such beliefs cause terrible grief. Some people futilely spend years trying to discover ~the reason~ they had to endure certain painful events; when they cannot find a satisfactory reason, they end up living in a fog - unable to move forward yet unable to release the past. Although tribal law is necessary to main social order it does not reflect the reasoning of heaven. By thinking symbolically, one can find a spiritual passageway way out of the trap of human justice and into the nature of Divine Reasoning. If we can view our tribal circumstances as ~arranged~ to promote spiritual advancement, not physical comfort, we can consider painful events as being essential our our personal development rather than as punishment for our actions.
When tribal justice obstructs our spiritual advancement, we need to free ourselves from its authority over our individual power of choice. This challenge is one of the most difficult associated with the first chakra because it often requires a physical separation from our family or from a group of people to which we have become bonded.
The ultimate first chakra lessons is that the only real justice is divinely ordered. An example of this is the ~Judas archetype~ the challenge of healing from a profound betrayal. This is the understanding that human reasoning and justice always fail us at some point and that we do not have the power to reorder events in our lives and remake all things according to how we would want them. The lesson of a ~Judas~ experience is that putting faith in human justice is an error and that we must shift our faith from human to Divine authority. It is to trust that our life is governed ~with Divine justice~ even though we cannot see it. We must strive not to become bitter or cling to victim-hood when we are betrayed or cannot attain what we want. We need to trust that we have not been victimised at all and that this painful experience is challenging us to evaluate where we have placed our faith.
The spiritual power contained within the First Tribal Chakra gives us intuition to help us live honorably with each other and to evolve beyond misperceptions that contradict the Truth ~All is One~.
The next stage of our development is to explore second chakra themes
and the Sacred Truth ~Honour One Another~
The Second Chakra
click the image
The writings on the chakra pages have been taken from ~Anatomy of the Spirit – The Seven Stages of Power and Healing~ by Caroline Myss, PH.D. ( published by Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80014-0 ) and are reproduced with kind permission. There are far more details in that book and I would urge readers (if you find these pages helpful) to purchase the book by visiting Caroline’s web site ( click the link on her name) where there is also much more information to be gained {smile}