Ajna Chakra Opened – Third Eye Exploration
Lying in savasana, finding the beautiful balance between stillness of the body and movement of the breath, you close your two eyes to the external world. In that moment, inner awareness increases and connectivity to your inner being opens. Maybe without realizing it, you've just begun to activate your Third Eye.
This is not a deliberate, conscious action nor something we have to put immense concentration into; it happens to us every time we close our eyes, and our work is to be aware of this activation.
Let's take a deeper look..
The Third Eye is an energy center, the sixth of your seven main centers, known as chakras. The chakras are swirling points of energy where your polarities meet and dance in a spinning expression of energetic color and light. These are polarities of solar & lunar, heating & cooling, activity & passivity, yin & yang, we all have elements of both within us. The chakras are where these two dualities find balance.
The Third Eye, or Ajna in Sanskrit, is an especially strong chakra because of its correlation with our energetic and physical bodies. The Third Eye is connected to our pineal gland, a pea-sized and pine cone-shaped gland located in the center of the brain. This ancient cerebral structure has several functions, most notably connected to our circadian rhythms: our body's natural cycle of sleeping at night and awakening in the daylight. These days, our society's tendencies to work all day under fluorescent lighting, or fall asleep watching TV or using a computer hinder our bodies natural sleep patterns as well as the work of the pineal gland.
The pineal gland is responsible for releasing melatonin, the hormone that creates our dreams, as well as natural DMT, our visual imagination. The gland allows us to 'see' the multi-layered realities of our brains through our creative awareness. As children, we all were opened to this imagination reality; yet over the years we are told to believe that our dreams are not real and imagination is a waste of time, and we learn to close our Third Eye awareness, reducing the power of of our “mind’s eye”.
Evolutionarily, the pineal gland was a much more prominent gland in the ancestors of Homo Sapiens. Human skulls from thousands of years ago actually had a larger compartment to house this part of our brain, showing us that the gland was somewhat larger than pea-sized. To this day, the pineal gland still has photo receptors, literally retinal tissue composed of rods and cones which reacts to light and are connected to the visual cortex of the brain.
This is the same system we have in our two eyes, except that evolution has blocked our full perception of the photo sensory structures. In some ancient reptile species, this is not the case. One of these such reptiles, a Tuatara in New Zealand, still has functioning photo receptors in the pineal gland; it literally has a seeing Third Eye. The Tuatara's skin grows over this third eye, called the parietal eye, at about 6 months of age, just as our bodies have closed off our third eye.
Our exposure to unnatural light and our boxed in imagination are not the only factors that decrease the potency of our pineal gland. The water we drink and the toothpaste we 'clean' our teeth with also contain a commonly known chemical, sodium fluoride. Countless studies show that fluoride actually deposits calcium onto the pineal gland, inhibiting it's ability to release melatonin, DMT, and dumbing down our ability to create, imagine, and dream.
Ninety percent of the public water in the United States, as well as most all common toothpastes and drinks like Coca-Cola have high amounts of fluoride. Fluoride is even in pesticides, soaking into fruits and vegetables, most notably non-organic U.S. Grapes, raisins, dried beans, and walnuts. In addition, tea leaves have high levels of fluoride, mostly in bottled iced teas and low-quality black teas.
With all these factors trying to close our Third Eyes, what can we do to open them?
Here are 11 things you can do to open your Third Eye:
- Meditate: allow time and space to open your Third Eye and connect with your inner essence.
- Keep a Dream Journal: help recall and increase your dreams by simply writing them down just as you wake up.
- Wake up and go to sleep with the sun as much as possible to maintain your circadian rhythm and pineal gland activation.
- Avoid prolonged exposure to artificial light: or at least get a dose of sunlight every hour, and avoid going to sleep with your computer or TV on.
- Eat Organic and Follow this Food Guide: http://fluoridealert.org/content/grocery_guide/
- Buy natural, fluoride free toothpaste.
- Drink spring water: Find a Spring near you! www.findaspring.com. Or at least look for distilled and alkaline water.
- De-calcify your pineal gland by taking blue green algae, chlorella, spirulina, wheat grass, dried seaweed or kelp. Citric acid also breaks down the calcium, so try lemon juice in the morning when you wake up.
- Practice Candle Gazing: Maintain a steady gaze on a candle flame, avoiding blinking, and allow the method to bring you into meditation. The activates Third Eye light reception! You can try sungazing as well, just for a shorter amount of time while the sun is low on the horizon.
- Place Third Eye Stones on the center between your brow, such as amethyst, clear quartz, and sodalite while you send intention of connectivity and opening.
- CREATE ART! Talk to plants, walk in a new silly way, go upside down, make a musical instrument out of things you find in nature, sing at the top of your lungs in no particular language – Do anything that is out of your path of 'normality' to open your portals of dreaming, imagination, and creativity.
Give your Third Eye some LOVE!
Om Shanti
Jessi teaches a Vinyasa based practice to combine elements of dance and natural movement with traditional yogic sequencing. She incorporates attention to rhythm of the breath, and allows for organic movement to flow in each pose. She is grateful for the journey of yogic creativity and loves to share this movement of bliss with others along the way.
Jessi, along with her husband Zach, are also in the process of creating a Holistic Retreat Center, Seven Springs, in her mountain home of East Tennessee. Seven Springs is a place of natural abundance and cultural diversity where people learn how to create holistic sustenance for themselves and their communities. The space seeks to provide an innovative and transformative space for local and global communities to experience high quality holistic education. Retreats offered vary from yoga, massage, natural medicines and foods, creativity, social innovation, team-building, eco-building and permaculture.