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AutorenbildTonia Seraina Schilling

About the Ajna Chakra and dilemmas of a Yoga Teacher

Aktualisiert: 24. Feb. 2021

Dear Readers. For months I wanted to write a blog again. I was dealing with the Ajna Chakra and had a huge dilemma with it. Tonight I finally have decided to write something after all. Let me share my thoughts with you.


The Ajna Chakra is the chakra of knowledge, cognition, insight, intelligence, wisdom, intuition and – very important – humility. It is, among other things, the knowledge of one's own importance or unimportance. It is about knowing where we come from, what kind of path we have been on, how we got to know those little things we actually think we know, who and what contributed to that exciting knowledge. It is about the realization that 'my' knowledge is not mine, not an achievement, but a gift, a participation in the universe. This realization is accompanied by stillness, by maturity, by lived humility. Such knowledge is not demonstrated or flung into the world without being asked. It lies quietly in the middle of the spinning wheel of our over-communicated world - smiling and silent, it is radiated, recognizable and accessible to those who also seek it in silence and humility.


Therefore, we always direct the Ajna back to the earth and bow to the universe. The Ajna Chakra is connected with the Muladhara Chakra, the origin, our roots, the earth.


The Ajna Chakra is the ability to intuition: it is about the intuitive perception of the big connections, about wisdom through experience. Especially in the Western postmodern society, intuition is not trained nor is it given any real value. Knowledge is far more a commodity on the market, it is bought and sold, measured and guaranteed by diplomas issued by institutions and certifying life long experts.


Intuition is related with the ability to develop to maturity. The imprinting is made in the childhood years: children are naturally connected to the world of intuition. However, this gift must be nurtured and preserved. We can nurture it by encouraging the growing generation and ourselves to listen to the inner voice, to ask what is ones feeling about a situation. We can create something artistic, we can make music, dance and play theater, look for creative solutions, marvel at nature and much more. All this activates our hidden, forgotten but still existing intuitive potential. In this way, we can make our modest contribution to maintaining the connection with the natural sources of universal knowledge.


The Ajna Chakra's quality of cognition and ‘in-sight’ also has to do with our vision: we turn from outer sight to inner sight. Therefore, we also work with the eyes. It is important to give our eyes regular relaxation and cleansing by giving them enough break from stimuli (screens!) and giving them meditative images for inspiration or closing the eyes completely. Humility requires us to take a step back, to lower our profile. The opposite of marketing and business thinking and the rules of the game in social media, where you have to exaggerate, embellish, maximize in order to play along. Lowering our profile has to do with lowering our gaze. Looking inward. Aparigraha. Acting in a non-craving, non-amassing way.


At present, we are going through confused, somehow rough times. People are searching for meaning and support – what they have always done through the history of mankind, sometimes more, sometimes less. Currently, people are very much concerned with self-love, with self-discovery. When we look around on social media, we find that discovering self-love and growing self-esteem turns very often in digital narcissism, where personal self-development and glimpses of enlightening have to be told to the whole world, commercialized with likes for the self-esteem balance or for the financial balance of the business. Sometimes it seems to me that all mankind wants to become a life expert – an influencer, coach, life coach, therapist, consultant or – oh my God! – wants to write something clever in a blog! I guess you are about to understand my embarrassment! That’s the reason I thought I'd better just sit down and shut up.


My mum always told me: „when you don’t know what to do, just do nothing“. I like it so much. Only now, I am beginning to realize the spiritual nature of this advice – thank you Mami! It doesn’t mean at all that am good in practicing it! On the contrary, for me it remains a constantly challenge! Yes, for myself I would love to find the space in my everyday life to just sit down and do nothing. In silence, only myself in connection with the Universe. And stay silent. And breathe. And let come what may come.


A few months later I had the feeling, that I could finish this blog — after all.


I went through my writings, made some changes, added something here and there – but still I didn’t really know how to bring it to a conclusion! So I decided to make it short and painless – or short and sweet. Your choice!


We are only observers of that vast great wisdom, we are all swimming in this great sea of hidden knowledge. What's the point of telling the world about our super exciting knowledge when it's not even ours? Who cares? Something that it is accessible to everyone we go and present it to the world as our great wisdom? And isn't it outrageous to sell what doesn't belong to us? How can we go round and sell drops of water in an ocean in which we are all swimming together?


You probably understand that I regularly question my job. I honestly have no answer to these questions. That’s my short and painless or sweet conclusion. Or neither nor, like a drop of water.


By the way, I decided to post this blog on my website without any promotion. If you happened to land on my Homepage and then even stumbled across this blog, that's amazing! Hope you had fun. And if not or even if you had – just sit, look inside and forget about all.


Have a good swim in the ocean, Tonia.




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