Working with the Third Eye Chakra - Part 1

Welcome to the Third Eye Chakra. How far we've come!

If you haven’t read the previous posts on the first to sixth chakras, you can find
them here:
Base chakra articles: part 1 and part 2
Sacral chakra articles: part 1 and part 2
Solar plexus chakra articles: part 1 and part 2
Heart chakra articles: part 1 and part 2
Throat chakra articles: part 1 and part 2

The third eye chakra is one that people with spiritual interests tend to get excited about, however many people tend to disregard this aspect of our being, thinking it superstitious, irrational or imagined. Unfortunately this way of thinking limits our experience of the wonder of what it is to be alive. Our existence itself is miraculous and wonderous, and if we take the time to be curious and follow our intuitive feelings, we can find ourselves having truly amazing experiences.

The third eye is associated with our inner vision or the view of the mind's eye. It is through the thrid eye that we "see" our dreams,astral projections, meditation journeys, memories, visualisations, and imagination. Here we are also aware on a psyhic level through skills such as clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairaudience (clear hearing) or clairsentience (clear feeling). Through subtle awareness in the third eye we might also see energies, spirits, spirit guides or deities. It is also through the third eye that we come to wisdom and an understanding of abstract concepts, metaphor and poetic truth. We "see" the truth.

The third eye chakra is the vision of the inner eye on many levels. It is to “SEE”.

Underactive third eyes are quite possibly the norm in our society, however, in spiritual circles, overactive third eyes are actually fairly common too. Finding the balance between underactive and overactive third eye energy in our society can be quite difficult. Society tends to be underactive, with the general status quo being a cynical, empirical, data-based, scientific worldview of what our reality is all about. To be a "believer" in anything spiritual is often seen as a bit kooky. Spiritual people often find eachother and create communities, which is great, but it can also lead to a comfortability that ends up leading some people to extremes. In some circles, the use of mind altering substances at times when the mind is not ready can also lead to an overactive third eye. The ideal state is of course, somewhere in between these two states.

Overactive

Words we tend to use for people who are displaying the characteristics of an overactive third eye are "away with the fairies", "spaced out", "not with it", "all in his/her mind", "lost it". If we find ourselves in this state it is because we have gone so far INTO our mind that we have lost track of reality. Our experience is flooded with the images of the mind, and we layer this experience onto our reality, which can cause disconnection. We might make assumptions of people that are based in our imagination, or see "signs" all over the place that are not helpful. We may take our dreams too literally or feel bombarded by spiritual energies. The signs we feel we see may even cause us stress or have negative messages that are really projections of the mind. We lose track of truth and reason and need to come to a place of balance. Some people are very distressed by this experience, while others tend to feel calm here. Many people who are calm in this state tend to have difiiculties in their day to day lives as they can become disconnected from the physical planes.

Underactive

When the third eye is underactive we tend to shun all kinds of belief as nonsense, ridiculous, insane or a waste of time. We see the world without wonder, meaning or purpose. We find the idea of spirits, energies or deities to have little credit. If we do have any kind of spiritual experience, such as a dream, a chance meeting or a granted wish, we brush it off as coincidence, or try to explain it away in another way. We might find it difficult to recognise our intuitive senses or to have the courage to follow them if we do feel them. We explain away any messages we recieve and do not seek out the opportunities they might lead us to. Synchronicities (chance life events) are not met as they are often not recognised. We also have difficulty understanding or accepting practices like divination (eg tarot cards), horoscopes, energetic healing, magic and meditation.

Balancing...

The process of balancing these energies finds us somewhere in between cynicism and blind faith. I like to call it the path of the "open minded skeptic". To be open minded, you need to be curious and experimental; follow those hunches and see what magic might happen; talk to the spirits and see what they say; pick up the tarot cards and give it a go. Have a sense of playfulness in what you do, but not a mocking disbelief. Be open to the possibilities of finding wonder here. To be skeptical, I don't mean be disbelieving, just maintain a sense of being unattached to it being either true or untrue. Be aware that it could all just be in your head, but also be aware that it might bring you amazing experiences. This is a hard balance to find.

Balanced
When our third eye is balanced we are aware of the subtle layers of existence - energies our our bodies such as the aura; spiritual presences; divine energies and presences; the energies and spirits of animals, plants and landscapes. We find we have more vivid and memorable dream experiences, possibly experiencing lucid dreams or astral projection. Our meditative visualisations will also be clear and focused. We strongly feel intuitions or recieve messages from guides about whether or not to take certain actions and though we may use meditation for clairification, we tend to follow these and see where they lead us. We are more inclined to have synchronicities happen in our lives - for example, we meet a person who can help us with a problem just at the right moment; we follow a hunch and find ourselves in an experience that brings us deep wisdom, etc. When we are open here we also realise the power of magic and ritual to shape our realities with our Will, and understand how to become aligned with the energies of the universe around us. People with very balanced third eyes may be drawn to energetic healing, psychic work or divination.

Questions to ask:

Am I a believer or a cynic, or a bit of both?
Are there times that I find it hard to be open minded?
Are there times that I find it hard to question my beliefs or spiritual experiences?
Do I feel in connection with spirits or energies?
Do I feel my intuitions and follow them?
Am I open to synchronistic experiences?
Is my inner vision clear and focused?

In the first base chakra blog there was an exercise for a meditation to assess the energy of your chakras. You might like to do this meditation again to check in with your progress.

My experience

I have to admit, adding the throat chakra to my schedule has shaken things up a bit and I haven't been able to keep up the whole set of activities. In the heart chakra I think I learned not to be so hard on myself though, so I am just doing what I can and being grateful when I manage to do the whole lot. It feels a lot like spinning plates, and trying to add another and another... at some point it gets pretty tricky. I guess it has helped me to see how true enlightenment can come from achieving and maintaining balance in all of them all the time! And I was only trying one activity in each! For the final three chakras I am going to keep up this attitude of allowing myself to do what I can, though my goal is to do all of them as much as possible. I tell you what, when I do it feels awesome.

So far I've added the following to my days:
Base chakra - eat healthily and cut out addictions
Sacral chakra - exercise or do yoga or dance
Solar plexus chakra - meditate on mindfulness and write in my journal
Heart chakra - daily gratitude photo to Instagram.
Throat chakra - either write a poem or do an mantra/chant meditation

The third eye is an area I have been looking forward to working with the whole time as we have moved through the chakras in these blogs. For a long time I have been interested in astral projection and lucid dreaming and want to work on these here. I have had some significant experiences, and I would really like to get to the point where I am able to stay with it for a bit longer. Lucid dreams are when we "wake up" within our dream - we become aware of the fact that we are dreaming. When this happens, if we can stay with the dream, we are able to do all sorts of fantastical things, like fly through the air, travel in an instant to distant places or speak with spirit guides. Astral projection is similar, but there is less projection here of the imagination which manifests as form. It's a bit complicated, and possibly worth another blog post to explain it! Let me know if you're interested.

Anyway, the way that you initiate lucid dream experiences is basically to question your reality in daily life. Always asking "am I dreaming? Is this "real"?" etc. You can then test reality by either doing a little jump (if you're dreaming you will float), pulling your finger (if dreaming your finger will stretch), look at a clock (it won't be working right), or turn a light on an off (it won't work right either). You might remember the spinning top used in the movie Inception? That's the same idea. They are just testers for which reality we are in. If we do this as often as we can in our daily life, we will remember to do it in our dreams, and then we will become aware that we are dreaming. Give it a go! It's quite amazing.

So, yes, for the third eye chakra, as often as I can remember, I will be checking my reality and also recording my dreams in my dream diary to hopefully improve my experience.

In the next blog post I am going to talk about stones, other activities, and affirmations that relate to the third eye chakra. In the meantime, you might like to have a look at the Pinterest board I have made for the third eye chakra which has a lot of ideas.
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Amulets for the third eye chakra are available at www.forestspiritjewelry.com under the JEWELRY tab. I hope you find something you like!