An early reviewer book from a few weeks ago, off Library Thing, that I forgot to move over here --




I was incredibly impressed with the down to earth, easy to process nature of this book (and that's speaking as someone who uses and owns at least a dozen favorite books on Chakras, has spent whole years focused on them with a spiritual community, and is presently dedicated to them for a seven year period of intense study).

Each chakra is laid out with clear terms, referencing all the things that go with it. Talking about the psychology of how each one effects your life, or how negative situations in your life might have made it more inwardly sheltered from the way it's supposed to be. I like that he focuses on how easy it is to find chakra's in an imbalance and incorporates how to put your chakras (and yourself/your life) back on the right path.

The book reminds you, often, that it is truly an on-going process, taking care of yourself, and your chakras as you make choices/take actions and react to other people's choices/actions in the world around you. That these things are always in flux, always coming out of joint and we can always be working to pull it all back in a calm, clear homeostasis within ourselves. I'd advise this book more for a beginner, but I definitely learned a thing or two I hadn't previously connected to it, too. ( )

I found the Shai Tubali's explication of the chakras practical and helpful, providing insight into the psychological self. One could begin a study of the chakras with this book, but as it not only provides an overview but determinative questionnaires and recommended practices it is a worthy guidebook for those seeking to not only understand but balance their chakras. ( )

As a holistic health coach and reiki practitioner this book is a welcome addition to my library! I would have given it four stars if it had included more images.Even though I know the colors and symbols associated with the chakras, I wish they would have been provided along with the sections in this book. A lot of chakra work is done with the part of us that works with imagery so to remove it entirely seems counter productive. I understand that the author makes it clear this isn't a book for beginners. Despite their explanation I still think images and reviews would have benefited this book.

All that aside, it's a good book to dive deeper into all the emotional and psychic aspects of each chakra. I also appreciate the recommended practices suggested by the author. It's definitely a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book I'll be keeping to reread instead of giving away! ;) ( )

I've read dozen of books on the chakras, studied Reiki and healing touch extensively, and I found this book to be an easy to read guide on the chakras. While looking at the chakras from a more clinical, psychological viewpoint, the author takes the reader through each chakra and what emotional and psychological areas it focuses on.

It is hard to write a book on chakras that does not deal with the body's energetic system, as chakras are a significant part of the body's energy system. By discovering what chakras are working and not working, the author helps to guide people into better emotional and psychological health and wellness.

I think that this slim volume would be a great addition to anyone's library on the chakra system and wonderful introductory book for people who are looking for ways to work with their chakras and become more psychologically sound. ( )

A note about these newly posted non-link reviews.

I don't suppose that I should be surprised at having received this book from the LibraryThing.com “Early Reviewer” program … over the past 40 years I've no doubt read dozens of books dealing with the Chakras, in a wide range of contexts, cultures, and traditions. However, books from LTER are always a bit of a “pig in a poke” … being things that one has indicated (usually based on a brief paragraph) that one might be interested in receiving, but rarely volumes that one has had a chance to look at, consider, or particularly want. Because of this I was very pleased with Shai Tubali's The Seven Wisdoms of Life: a Journey into the Chakras, as it is a reasonably well-crafted look at the Chakras, if from a rather “newagey” standpoint of personality typing, etc. Up front, the author states that he's focusing on the “psychological and transformative aspects” of the Chakras, and less on the “mystical and esoteric aspects”, although as soon as he gets into defining things, he's smack in the middle of describing the Nadis (the 72,000 “energy channels” throughout the body), and Prana (the “vital life force” which flows through these), which is certainly more the latter modality than the former.

Here's a bit from his introduction:

      Man is not just flesh and bone. By saying that, I do not mean to support abstract and romantic ideas such as the soul. On the contrary, I mean to stress a whole realm of psychological dynamics, that may be invisible to our outer eyes but nonetheless are active all the time. Invisible is not irrelevant, just like atoms are a necessity in the total understanding of matter.

      There is another anatomy for man, a subtler one, which envelops the visible plain of the physical body like invisible sheaths. This anatomy is extraordinarily important both for the complete understanding of our psyche and for the realization of the further evolution of our consciousness.
…
      In many respects, one may refer to this subtle anatomy as the anatomy of our psyche or, in an even broader sense, as the anatomy of our consciousness. The direct implication of this insight is that by understanding the depths of this anatomy, one may acquire a comprehensive map of one's psyche, through which one can navigate in a much more conscious way.

... that's a pretty good summation of where the author's going here.

Now, I suppose that there are folks out there reading this that don't know Chakras from Chuckles, so here's the short version (from me, not Tubali): Chakra is a Sanskrit word which means “wheel”, which serves to describe particular energetic points on the (etheric) body where a “whirlpool” focuses particular types of energy, and are associated with colors, etc. There are generally held to be seven of these, 1st – in the crotch, 2nd – about at the bladder, 3rd – around the gut, 4th – at the heart, 5th – at the throat, 6th – between the eyes just above the brow, and 7th – at the very top of the head. Depending on the system/tradition these have specific functions and attributes, and The Seven Wisdoms of Life presents the author's particular take on them.

In the second (main) part of the book, these are put forth as “The Search for – ” the following:

1. Security


2. Joy


3. Power


4. Love


5. Communication


6. Wisdom


7. God

... with each of these having similar sub-sections dealing with the aforementioned “psychological and transformative aspects”... including:

• Characteristic emotions and typical reactions.


• The type of trauma accumulated in the chakra.


• The chakra-oriented personality.


• Masculine aspects and feminine aspects.


• The “type of happiness” associated with the chakra.


• The “worldview” of the chakra.


• The “evolution of the chakra as it is reflected in the process of growth in a human lifetime”.


• “Collective imprints” in the charka.


• The “historical phase in human evolution” associated with the chakra.


• Important interactions with other chakras.


• The chakra in “spiritual transformation”.


• Recommended practices for aspects of the chakra.

... there are also “polar emotions” focused at the level of the chakra, as well as “famous expressions” of the chakra personality type in terms of historical/mythic figures.

Again, this has a pretty significant “new age” lean to it, pulling from traditional systems to fit the “personality type”/psychological model the author has structured. To his credit, this seems to hang together quite well on its own terms. In the “Summary” section he discusses four ways to “extract wisdom” from the chakras … these include “higher wisdom”, “spiritual practices”, and “right actions”, but one, “purification”, sounded an awful lot like Scientology, with vrittis (a Sanskrit word that is literally “whirlpool”, but means “disturbance of mind”) standing in for Thetans:

Purification is a therapeutic process, during which both body and mind are cleansed of psychological impressions and memories. These impressions appear in the chakras as vrittis – personality tendencies that reflect our deepest subconscious.

... but that's probably just me being snarky.

There are two appendices, one on “The Journey of Kundalini Along the Chakras”, which gets heavily into the Sanskrit dictionary in describing how this is “the most important subtle force for the spiritual evolution of mankind”, and one being “Questionnaires for Self-Evaluation”, which includes two – a “Chakra Personality Type Evaluation”, and a “Chakra Imbalance Evaluation”. I, personally, found these worse than useless, but I'm the wrong guy to judge those sorts of things as they always irritate me.

Despite the latter points, I found The Seven Wisdoms of Life a decent attempt at making a “newagey” system with “psychological and transformative” over-tones … not exactly a book I'd outright recommend as a Chakra book, but not bad for what it is. This is relatively new, so it might be bouncing around in the more new-age brick and mortar book mongers (which you should probably patronize if you wanted a copy of this, since the big on-line sources aren't offering much of a discount). Again, this wasn't exactly “my cup of tea”, but it wasn't something I particularly disliked either … as is frequently the case (in the words of Dennis Miller) “you mileage may vary” on how this will appeal to you.

CMP.Ly/1

A link to my "real" review:
BTRIPP's review of Shai Tubali's The Seven Wisdoms of Life: a Journey into the Chakras (1034 words)