You may think that difficult situations and emotions you experience are caused by other people or random events. This book will convince you that inner imbalance is not caused by situations in the outer world—instead, your imbalances create the situations that interfere with your sense of well-being and peace.

Chakras for Beginners explains how to align your energy on many levels to achieve balance and health from the inside out. In everyday terms, you will learn the function of the seven body-spirit energy vortexes called chakras. Practical exercises, meditations, and powerful techniques for working with your energy flow will help you overcome imbalances that block your spiritual progress.

—Discover colors and crystals that activate each chakra
—Explore the balanced and unbalanced expressions of each
    chakra's energies: survival, sexuality, power, love, creativity, intuition, and spirituality
—Practice spiritual exercises, visualizations, and meditations that bring your energies into balance

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Chakras are energy centers. Pond calls them the "batteries for the various levels of your life energy." Their source is the universal life force. Of the many chakras we each have, seven are considered as primary. These seven are in a straight line along the length of the spine. Any blocks or imbalances in the chakras can result in disease or emotional difficulties.

After discussing chakras in general, Pond devotes a chapter to each of the seven primary energy centers. He first describes the "drive" or purpose of each chakra. For example, the first chakra is concerned with survival, while the fourth chakra deals with the quest for love. He then discusses all the ways in which the chakra can be out of balance, including problems related to too much energy as well as difficulties stemming from too little energy. After explaining how to balance the chakra, Pond discusses how to keep it in balance.

Each chapter includes exercises designed to balance and maintain the individual chakras. He finishes with a section on special tips and techniques for activating the chakras. He also explains how colors and crystals can affect the chakras.

The last part of the book is a collection of essays about chakras. In those, he discusses subjects like kundalini, spirituality, and transmuting negative energy into a positive force. He also includes several meditations.

Pond's intention with Chakras for Beginners is to help people acquaint themselves "with the chakra system, how it works, and how it should operate optimally." Readers will find that he has provided all the information they need for understanding how to keep their chakras free of blockages or imbalances.

66 of 67 found the following review helpful:

Great journey through the Energy CentersFeb 20, 2000
By Alex Holland
I really enjoyed this book. The author, David Pond, clearly knows his subject and with ease takes you on a journey through each chakra. As well as giving the traditional vital statistics for each, he augments this information with psychological, emotional, and intuitive perspectives. Accompanying each section are exercises and meditations for nourishing and balancing these energy centers. This book is well integrated, clear, and elicits a strong sense of how important self knowledge of the chakras is to our individual vitality, our society, and our planet as a whole. I thoroughly enjoyed the essays towards the end of the book. These tied it all together and gave perspectives on how chakra energy is utilized at every moment of every day, at every level of our being. This book made the chakras come alive for me. They are no longer just a great metaphysical idea, but an integral element of our process of being. Thank you, David. Good work.

26 of 26 found the following review helpful:

Just the introduction I was looking for!Oct 31, 2005
By Beth Cholette "doctor_beth"
I have practiced yoga regularly for several years now, and this has led to an interest in exploring the chakras, the seven "energy centers" of the body. I was able to obtain some basic information online, but I wanted a book which would provide more details as well as exercises--hopefully incorporating yoga--which would focus on balancing the energy of the chakras. Happily, this book met my needs very well.

After offering an overview of the chakras and the importance of keeping them balance, author David Pond addresses each of the seven chakras individually. In particular, he describes both the balance and unbalanced perspectives of each chakra as well as offers several exercises both for connecting with that chakra and awakening the energy contained within. Some of the exercises do contain suggestions for yoga--i.e., performing tree pose to attain balance--but most of them are more meditative in nature.

In the second half of the book, Pond presents a selection of "Essays," which are basically short chapters (2-3 pages on average) about the relationship between the chakras and other issues, including the ego, vows, negative energy, visualization, and other similar topics. I found this section to be less helpful, as here, Pond's tendency towards new-age thinking (he is an astrologer by profession, after all) became a bit too much for my tastes. However, he concludes the book with additional exercises, meditations, and a chakra chart, all of which I found useful. All-in-all, this is a very nice introductory book about chakras which provides good basic information as well as easy-to-follow meditative exercises.

15 of 15 found the following review helpful:

Good beginning book for working with chakrasJan 11, 2002
By Cynthia M. Caton "minion"
Having a slightly more than beginners knowledge of the chakras, I found this book to be a great introduction to the charkas. To me, it seemed as though he was writing to a female audience. This book is also good for pagans or non-pagans. Pond goes through all of the chakras and gives some meditations at the end. I found the chapters on the sixth and particularly the seventh chakras to be a bit confusing but perhaps that is the point - that they are hard to commit to paper.

The only criticism I have is that I wish there were more meditations. Other than that, I recommend purchasing for beginner / intermediate students

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