Chakras and Emotions – Gateway to Higher Feelings

Lower Chakra Emotions relate to the Personality – Tony Cuckson

My focus on this website is to invite you to explore healing the chakras related to the personality so that you have the courage to enter the heart and allow the healing powers of the Divine to move through you and transform you.

In this article I share with you the emotions related to the lower three chakras. The reason I do not deal with higher chakra emotions is because these involve refined feelings that tend to be in free flow and unproblematic.

The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart says it this way:

When the higher flows into the lower the lower is transformed by the higher – Meister Eckhart – Christian Mystic – 1260-1328

This flow from the higher is blocked by emotions that are held in the lower three chakra’s related to the personality.

First of all please remember that words like ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’ are often intertwined and mixed up by most people. – Burt Harding – Spiritual Teacher

As I stated in my definition “chakra emotions” are feelings with thoughts attached to them. Feelings, on the other hand is your energy in free flow.

To see this experience of feeling in free flow spend time around small children. This is the rather strange invitation from the Master Jesus when he says:-

And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.- Matthew 18:3

Emotions are to do with the personality – lower-level chakras.

The higher-level chakras are where you are being thought through by Divine intention.  The heart chakra is where you open to being thought through by the Divine.

I find articles on the Internet related to the “chakras and emotions” are at best misleading because they write about emotions related to the higher chakras in the same way they write about to emotions connected to the lower chakras of the personality.

There is no distinction between the personal and the transpersonal. In my view this is erroneous. At the transitional level (heart chakra) and higher chakra levels feelings are impersonal.

Impersonal feelings are expansive and not to be associated with being detached in an emotional way This is not to be confused with detachment from a spiritual sense where your focus is on witness consciousness.

The paradox to be known and felt is that the less there is of the “personal” the more there is of the universal.

Feeling associated with higher chakras are refined. They flow because you are living from a state of surrender. The Master Jesus he said says it this way:

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? – Matthew 6:25

For those willing to trust universal intention this is the most magical, exciting, and creative way to live. You become what you always are. You are a unique thought form in the mind of the Divine

It is my view that the lower three chakras are blocked because we repress emotions that we are unwilling to feel.

The foundation of this emotional – energy in motion – blockage happened to every one of us when we were children. The degree to which this emotional blockage is denied varies with each individual.

Be aware that this is where you need to focus your energy as regards chakra opening, balance and alignment.

It interests me in when I researched the topic of chakras and emotions that there are very few people searching for this term.

There are a lot of people searching about the term “Chakra blockage” but most all of the material on the internet does not focus on the relationship of blockage to the need to feel the emotion related to the blockage.

Blockage happens because your energy is not in motion. Emotion happens through being willing to feel what you avoid feeling.

You will find many people who are interested in chakras and emotions focused on awakening the energy of the higher chakras.

This in the view of this writer is the equivalent of trying to open a rose bud instead of allowing it to open.

This is understandable.  There can be the intuitive sense that it is from the higher chakras that the experience of healing and happiness flow.

However, more often than not there is the avoidance of the the integration of the sense of the personal self with all its emotional baggage.

Search the internet for the term “chakra healing” and you will find people engaged in affirmations, chanting, crystal healing, eating chakra foods, asanas, and other practises.

This is 95% of what is out there on the web related to “chakra healing.”

The founder of The Metaphysical University, Dr. Paul Leon Masters likens these practises too adding whipped cream on top of a garbage can.

Jesus spoke about this resistance to feel the blockages to free flow of feeling and emotions in the second verse of the Gospel of Thomas when he said,

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. ― Gospel of Thomas

Most of us avoid the issue of feeling unwanted feelings until the issue comes to bite us in the bum.

Much of the time such avoidance is masked by some form of addiction as happened in my own case when I fell into alcoholism for around ten years.

Rather than beat yourself up about avoiding your unacceptable sense of self it helps to understand the very valid reason why you learned this practice of avoiding your emotional and expressive life.

It helped me tremendously to KNOW how this process began.

If we remain humble and grounded in nature’s wisdom, our mind will guide us safely through the confines of unawareness and the blindness of ignorance. ― Erik Pevernagie

In order to feel the emotions that are the blocks to the free flow of your energy system you create what the psychologist Wilhelm Reich called “character” or “body armour.

You need to understand how and why this practise of blocking your energy system began.

This has happened to everyone but so few of us are educated in regard to the consequences of such blockage and how it adversely impacts the rest of our lives.

This kind of blocking becomes an ongoing intergenerational dynamic that isn’t going to go away because you chant, affirm, or eat the right chakra foods.

At best, these practices might bring some relief and there is nothing wrong with relief.

However, many of these practise’s stem from magical thinking and are considered a form of spiritual bypassing.

This is the idea that if you avoid the real issue regarding your emotional life that it will all go away.

This is what you learned to do at the very beginning. Is how you learned to deal with situations you had no control over?

Love Frozen by Alfons Siber

To understand chakras and emotions in relation to the personality you need to understand HOW your energy system got blocked in the first place. This should be essential knowledge but isn’t.

One of the key insights I was given in relation to chakra healing was from the writings of Dr. Gabe Mate author of, “When the body says No.”

This key insight came from watching his video entitled “Authenticity versus Attachment.”

In order to better understand how and why you blocked your energy system at a very early age I recommend that you now take time to listen to this talk.

This I think gives you a foundational awareness of why your energy system is blocked and the focus that needs to be given to the root chakra healing which in the view of this writer is foundational to all chakra healing, balance, and alignment.

The issue of chakras and emotions and your allowing the free flow of your higher feeling and healing states is the return to feeling authentic.

To give you a more expanded understanding of chakras and feelings I think it is of value to know, at least on an intellectual level the hierarchy of emotions and feelings.

I have taken this hierarchy table from the book Power vs Force by the spiritual teacher David R Hawkins M.D. Ph.D. (not to be confused with the evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins)

Update as from the 1st December, 2022. 

I love and value the contribution of the spiritual teacher David R Hawkins M.D. Ph.D but I have taken down the image due to the treat of legal action by way of the attached email.

Please remove the Map of Consciousness(R) image from your site – https://www.yogajourneyforlife.com/chakras-and-emotions/

The Map of Consciousness title and image are copyrighted and trademarked to the Institute for Spiritual Research DBA Veritas Publishing.  Permission for its use is never granted.

Your immediate compliance with this request is expected or you will be subject to legal action.

Susan Hawkins
President
Veritas Publishing

My reply to this individual was as follows:-

Dear Susan Hawkins,

It amazes me that someone or some organisation claims copyright to spiritual knowledge that is only ever given by way of grace.

The Map of Consciousness cannot belong to anyone as it is spirtual instruction that comes through the individual by way of grace from Divine Consciousness.

This is information that is graced to benefit the advance of human consciousness and the allieviation of suffering in the world.

I am sure that a spiritual teacher of the calabre of Dr David Hawkins would be appalled that his message is being restricted by those lessor enlightened individuals who would restrict genuine spread of much needed spiritual wisdom.

If you still want me to take it done then I will create a graphic with a note below that includes your LEGAL request and this reply. I won’t be buying further reading material from Veritas Publishing.

Tony Cuckson

Make up your own mind what you will of this kind of focus on the treat of legal action. You would think that a publishing company might be appreciative of the publicity.

In relation to the chakras and emotions you might regard the levels as follows: –

Level of the Personality

• Root Chakra               Level 20 – 100
• Sacral Chakra               Level 101- 175
• Solar Plexus Chakra Level 176 – 200

Transitional Level

• Heart Chakra Level 201 – 350

Transpersonal Level

• Higher Chakras Level 351 – 1000

Here is what David R. Hawkins writes in Power vs Force – page 70

At the levels below 200 the primary impetus is survival, although at the very bottom of the scale – the zone of hopelessness and depression – even this motive is lacking.

The higher levels of Fear and Anger are characterised by egocentric impulses arising from this drive to personal survival.

At the level of Pride, the survival motive may extend to comprehend the survival of others as well.

As one crosses the demarcation between negative and positive into Courage the wellbeing of others becomes increasingly important.

By the 500 level the happiness of others emerges as the central motivating force.

The high 500’s are characterised by interest in spiritual awareness for both oneself and others.

From 700-1000 life is dedicated to the salvation of humanity.

The body is the vehicle, consciousness the driver. Yoga is the path, and the chakras are the map -Anodea Judith

So let me share with you the emotional states that manifest from this blocking of your authentic SELF.

This is the authentic self that guides you to true prosperity, purpose and to the experience Presence.

As a consequence of this emotional blockage of the root chakra level – Chakra cycle 0 to 7 years – the feelings that get locked away include:

• Fear.
• Shame.
• Rage.

It is essential reading for anyone interested in levels of chakras and emotions to read Power versus Force by the spiritual teacher Richard Hawkins PhD.

This explains how we move from lower emotional states through progressive steps to higher emotional states

Here is what I consider a beautiful poetic invitation to the integration of root chakra energy.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

From Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

We must teach ourselves, actively remind ourselves, what being wild means. We must make room for it and invite it back.”
― Brian Meier, Awaken the Bear.

I find it relevant that the name of this second chakra is related to the root of the word “sacred.” What is sacred within you is your alignment with Creation that is designed to come through you.

Emotions associated with the sacral chakra are those related to pleasure, play and especially creativity and sexuality.

The degree to which you will be able to fully express these pleasurable emotional states depends on the degree to which you feel trusting of your energy system.

Again we come to the issue of safety related to the root chakra.

If you have had major issues regarding fear of abandonment you will have issues around the ability to express pleasure and creativity.

This is why I regard the root chakra as the foundation to authentic prosperity and purpose.

Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that.

The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing.

That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox.

To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass (root chakra energy) and spill rubies from one’s mouth.

Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.

– Clarissa Pinkola Estés – Women who Run with the Wolves

We have to feel the fear (root chakra energy) and do it anyway (solar pleus energy).

Yoga is the Journey to the Self through the self (solar plexus chakra) – Patanjali

The emotions associated with solar plexus chakra relate to personal power.

The person with a balanced solar plexus chakra is someone who has a quiet self-confidence. They know that they can do.

They own their own power and accept their value. Feelings positive feelings related to solar plexus chakra emotions include:-

• Self-worth.
• Confidence.
• Decision making.

This is the work of personal development and self-help.  This allows you to integrate the personality and there are great benefits from doing so.

This focus on personal development is on the development of the ego or personal sense of separate self.

For the vast majority of people who have lived in the Western world this is the height of the adventure. In the United States of America this is called “The American Dream.”

There is nothing wrong with this invitation provided the dream doesn’t become the nightmare of never enough and its attendant energy of self-absorption.

To enter the higher feeling states requires the awakening from the separate personal self to the abiding in the Presence of the TRUE SELF.

This is the movement from abiding in the solar plexus chakra to the opening of the heart chakra. This is the beginning of the movement from the Will to Power (height of personal achievement) to the Will to Love (personal transcendence).

Yoga is the Journey of the self to the SELF through the self – Patanjali.

The Master Jesus would have said it this way.

Yoga is the journey of the “I am” to the “I AM” through the “I am.” – Jesus of Nazareth.

These quotes refer to the same journey. It is the journey of the surrender of the personal to the transpersonal. This is where you FEEL at ONE with LIFE.

With the alignment of the lower three chakras you have created the personal ego.  You have achieved the will to power.  Now comes the real adventure.

The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it. Carl Jung

For many people, the balance and alignment of these lower three chakras is all they ever know and that they have ever wished for. The focus is on personal development and achievement of goals.

This is the 1^st Stage of Life. Some, if they are lucky, experience a midlife crisis. This is where they have achieved much but come to a point where they feel that there’s something missing.

There is something missing, and this is the FEELING connexion to the Divine source beyond the separate sense of “me myself, I.”

You gain access to the higher dimensions of finer feelings and empowerment from the transpersonal.

This is an experience beyond belief. Most people will cling to the belief in the separate sense of the personal self. This identification with the separate personal self is the primary addiction and cause of suffering for humanity.

If you have developed a well-grounded personality in the first half of life you may be drawn to live the spiritual life. This is where you choose to align your life purpose with Loves purpose.

The first requirement of such expansion is to surrender your personal will to the Will of Divine. In doing so you enter the heart chakra.

Rumi says it this way:

The heart is the bridge to everything. – Rumi

This is the everything that through deep trust you allow to flow through you from the Source. You feel the Force and its power to transform the darkness of the feeling of separateness from Love.

The feelings are associated with an open and aligned heart chakra are the experience of flow, deep trust and what I call Love in action. The feelings associated with the open-heart chakra peace, unity and belonging.

The Heart Chakra is the Gateway to Finer Feelings – Tony Cuckson

The intention of the heart is the awakening to “finer feelings.” More of this will be explored below with the video and script shared from the spiritual teacher Burt Harding. (What is Feeling).

When you live from an open-heart chakra your focus is on, “Thy will be done.” Your focus is now on the felt KNOWING of the Self (I AM) rather than the identification with personal self (I am).

You are available to Love’s purpose. You’ve come a long way. You are the prodigal son or daughter who is journeying back to the revelation of your True SELF.

You may be graced an awakening.

You may not but you have confidence and a quiet assurance that you are following the true way. This is not based on religious teachings but is grounded in direct experience.

This is not a belief that you live but a willingness to be known through. Rumi again.

Follow the heart it knows the way – Rumi

You trust in the flow of your energy system that gets blocked at the foundational level. (Root Chakra). This happens to most everyone. As a result it is difficult to trust what you do not know and do not feel.

To feel your connexion to Divine inspiration, which is forever available to you, you have to be prepared to feel into healing. You have to return to trusting in the intelligence of your embodiment rather than your over thinking rational mind.

Logic cannot love—it can talk about love but it cannot love; love seems to be illogical. – Osho

You take the longest and shortest journey. This is the journey from the head to the heart. This is the journey from knowledge to KNOWING. This is the KNOWING of your own magnificence.

Are you ready to companion your greatness? Are you ready to feel into healing?

I get a lot of emails. 90% of them are about feelings – Burt Harding Spiritual Teacher – How to Understand Feelings

With the experience of emotions there is usually a personal story attached. With finer feelings (higher chakra experience) there is less of the personal sense of self and more of a sense of Divine Presence.

This is why you might declare, “I feel Divine.” This is not something you believe in. It is direct experience. It is the experience of abiding within the universal I AM.

This is not something you have to grasp or try to achieve. It is always available. Your task is summed up by the mystic poet Rumi when he says-

Your task is not to seek for LOVE but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it – Rumi

The barriers against LOVE are located in the lower three chakras related to the story that you are identified with as the personal self or “me, my and mine

This is the self we refer to as “I am.” (lower case). This is personal self with all its emotional attachments both good and not so good.

Feelings as I write about them here are the flow of the energy from the Universal “I AM.” This is the REAL YOU beyond the idea and belief that you are ever separate from the LOVE of Divine Intention.

Finer feelings begin to flow to the extent that you align your will to that of Divine Intention. You story becomes not important which is unflattering to your ego.

You swap out your personal story for the Universal story.  You become as nothing. The magic is then KNOWN that you then become available to EVERYTHING.

The Master Jesus instructs this journey when he says: –

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. – Matthew 16:25

You can read about this invitation but the ability to access its forever availability is the giving up of your blocks to its revelation.

The main block which is the cause of most all your emotional suffering is your belief in the sense of your personal separation.

This sense of the separate personal self is what the modern mystic Eckhart Tolle writing in The Power of NOW refers to as the “normal insanity.”

Bring me a Higher Love. Without it time is wasted time – Steve Winwood – Higher Love

Here is an interesting exploration by the nature of feelings by the non-dual spiritual teacher Burt Harding which is recommended listening.

Most people looking to feel high are looking in the wrong place – Tony Cuckson

I hope this article on chakra and emotions invites you to explore the potential to expand your energy system in relation to the lower (personal) and higher (transpersonal) chakras.

The chakra system is a map of the union of the personal with the universal through the awakening of the heart. Awakening the heart is the only AUTHENTIC way to the experience GETTING HIGH.

Broadly speaking emotions relate to the lower three chakras which equate to the development of the human personality.  Some people never move beyond that point and some never move beyond the 1^st chakra.

When you are purely identified with the personal sense of the separate self then your life is often an emotional roller coaster.  This is especially the case where you feel the lower chakra emotions of fear, doubt, and greed.

When you develop your ego (1^st Stage of Life) to the degree you have some sense of command of yourself you will often experience success in the world of time and space.

However, if you are lucky there will come a time when you long to return to the KNOWING of your TRUE SELF. This is often experienced at mid-life and is termed the midlife crisis.

This is the beginning of spirituality. This is the beginning of heart chakra awakening.

I wrote the book Awakening the Heart – 21 Ways to Follow Loves Message so that I might share the many ways in which you are invited to explore the opening of the heart chakra within your everyday time and space experience.

Readers say that this book conversational in nature. I wrote it in the way in which I speak. It is more like a conversation that I would have with a friend around an open fire.

I hope some of the reviews of this book provide you with insight into how other readers have found this book to benefit them in the experience of heart chakra awakening.

This book allows you to read a chapter at a time and reflect on its invitation. At the end of each chapter there is what I call “The Invitation.”

This would be a great support to anyone who made a choice to go on a 21 Day Challenge of Heart Awakening.

Worldwide Availability

• Book Depository (Free Delivery)

There is no image at this supplier, but the book cover is shown above.

Available from

• Amazon – USA.
• Amazon – UK.
• Amazon – Canada.
• Amazon – Australia and New Zealand

Available as Ebook from Smashwords

Do you like reading eBooks. I have made this book that answers the question “What is the heart chakra?” available at Smashwords.

Smashwords Ebook.

I have the intention to share with you the 21 Ways to Awaken the Heart over the coming months from the beginning of September 2021.

I am presently setting up the facility for recording this book, so I plan to make an audio recording of these 21 chapters.

It’s your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you. ― Rumi

This 21 Day journey of heart chakra awakening began with answering the question, “What is the Heart Chakra?

This, I hope, will inspire you to commit to explore the awakening of your heart for your own highest good and the highest good of all.

1. The Shape.
2. The Colour
3. The Animal
4. The Song
5. The Poem
6. The Picture
7. The Tree
8. The Story
9. The Sense
10. The Affirmation
11. The Archetype
12. The Prayer
13. The Place
14. The Movie
15. The Element
16. The Sign
17. The Question
18. The Value
19. The Challenge
20. The Yoga
21. The Step Beyond

I hope sharing of the reflection related to chakras and emotions has inspired you to take the journey into exploring the deeper language of metaphor and symbol that is the language of the heart.

In this way you become truly whole and holy. You become what you are intended to be. You begin to feel fine.