Chakras and Sound Harmonics

Everything in this universe vibrates. This includes the chair you sit upon, the water you drink, the car you drive, the book you read, your dog, your plant and your own body. No matter how apparently solid and static any being or object is, in truth it is in a state of constant motion, as it is made of a sea of whirling, colliding atoms in a seamless stream of light. This motion of vibration has a sound, though human ears cannot hear it; this sound is called its resonance or frequency.

Frequency and resonance

Your body has a frequency or resonance, which is the sum total of all parts. Yet you are not one perfectly coherent stream of energy; you are more like a symphony, as each organ, bone, tissue and cell in your body vibrates in its own way.

As each part of your body resonates, it emanates a sound that is contributing to an overall harmonic of health. The condition of health sounds like harmony, as each piece of the bodily orchestra plays along with the others. In state of disease, the body has fallen into disharmony; the components are out of tune and out of rhythm with one another. Balance among the parts is more important for overall health than the robustness of any individual part; for this reason health in one person may look quite different than it does in another.

The frequency of each of these parts of your body is the result of your physical, emotional and mental habits. The way you predominantly think about your life contributes to a certain resonance in your liver and your kidneys; it creates a certain resonance in your spine and in your feet. The way you eat contributes to a certain frequency in your brain, your heart and your gut. Parts of your body may be nourished well while others are in a state of entropy; indeed, the very same choice may contribute to a raising of frequency in one part of the body and a diminishment in another, for each part has a unique set of needs.

The subtle correspondence between thought and body is clarified though an understanding of the Chakra system. Each part of the body is governed by one of the seven chakras or, put another way, is the physical counterpart of these “energetic organs”. The chakras correspond to modes of consciousness and domains of life; when a given chakra is open, we can assimilate a certain kind of experience or awareness with relative ease. When a given chakra is constricted, we have some resistance to a certain area of life, awareness or mode of expression. A certain action may manifest directness and self-assertion — indicating an open third Chakra — while simultaneously serving to hide us from our own vulnerability — a constricted sacral chakra. Thus one single habit may strengthen and nourish some organs while depleting others.

There are many ways to open and balance chakras, including psychotherapy, reiki, crystals, shadow work and hypnosis. Simple mindfulness and the careful, consistent application of new habits will balance chakras, and thus heal the body. However, since we are vibrational beings, resonating at certain frequencies, sound is a particularly helpful “shortcut” for opening blocked energy centers.

Sound Healing

Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician from sixth century B.C., famous for his world-changing theorems, had a lesser-known mystery school which taught about the esoteric meaning of sound.

Pythagoras believed the “music of the spheres”, the sounds of the heavenly bodies as they moved through space, was reflected in the sounds of vibrating strings. The reverberation of any humble instrument had the power to heal the body and spirit due to a note’s natural correspondence with Universal principles. This is a manifestation of the alchemical axiom, “as above, so below”. Each tone of the scale was associated with a color in the rainbow and a quality of the divine Godhead. Thus initiates of this Mystery school, in learning the secrets of acoustical proportions— the geometry of sound, as it were— were given direct access to the transmuting and healing energies of the heavens.

Pythagoras was not the only one to recognize this sacred order underlying sonic frequencies. In the East, sonic formulas called mantras are recited over and over creating changes in the body, mind and spirit. Mantra means protection of the mind; the mantra functions as a portal through which we may enter into higher realms of consciousness by entraining with the frequency of the sound. As we reverberate or tone the mantra— either mentally or vocally— we merge with the force, essence or deity associated with that sound, thus taking on that frequency ourselves.

As each tone corresponds to a color and quality, each has a natural affinity with the modes of consciousness known as the chakras. Lower, denser pitches, which are often felt as vibrations more than they are heard, resonate with the lower chakras. Higher pitches, including those so high that they are also felt more than heard, resonate with the…