The Lazy Yogi

To begin with, let me say this isn’t literally shutting down your chakras. Shutting them down would mean dying. 

However, each of our chakras run on a kind of affirmation or feeling. For example, people with type A personalities in high-powered jobs tend to have an overactive solar plexus chakra. They are full of energy and purpose but they derive it all from the job. That energy and purpose is dependent on job performance. This is why when people lose their jobs or experience unexpected career shifts, they find themselves in this terrible powerless place. 

Their chakras were running on these shallow affirmations and aspirations. Because of that, their flow of energy was subject to the whim of samsara. 

Booting down the chakras, therefore, means dropping your samsaric affirmations. After that, you boot up using dharmic affirmations. The difference between a samsaric affirmation and a dharmic affirmation is that a samsaric affirmation is subject to impermanence whereas a dharmic affirmation is not. 

An example would be love. Some people depend on having a boyfriend or girlfriend in order to feel loving and loved. This means your heart chakra opens with this person and closes with their absence. This is why breakups can be so hard; love suddenly just vanishes. That is a samsaric affirmation of the heart. 

A dharmic affirmation of the heart is to Love. The truth is that it doesn’t matter whether or not someone loves you. Because you don’t feel the love. If you are full of confusion, ignorance, and hate, no matter how much love is poured your way, it cannot touch you. 

But if you are loving, if you love just to love, and open your heart to the present moment despite whatever it may contain, then that love depends on nothing. It fluctuates on nothing. Endless and powerful and rooted, this love will endure lifetimes. 

The affirmations:

Shutting Down:

7: I am not uniting with a higher power.

6: I am not having special or unique thoughts. 

5: I am not expressing my ego’s reactions.

4: I am not seeking love from anything else.

3: I am not executing my agenda.

2: I am not led by lust.

1: I am not consuming to justify my existence. 

Booting Up: 

1: I am here because the earth wants me here.

2: I am purposeful divine art.

3: I am what determines the world I live in.

4: I am love.

5: I am always a sincere expression of the moment.

6: I am honest with reality and observe without judgment.

7: I am Being. 

Each number corresponds to a chakra. You start at the highest chakra, the crown, and work your way down. Then you start at the bottom and work your way up. Do this while sitting with back straight or lying down. Combine it with visuals of each chakra. 

When done right, this is a solid wake up call to remember that we draw the energy of our existence from the cosmos itself and nowhere else. 

Namaste, sangha.