Attention: caffeine, white sugar, and hours in front of the tv or computer screen can block your third eye. Here we present two effective exercises for opening the sixth chakra. The possible results: phenomenal memory, stopping the flow of thoughts, clairvoyance, and a deep insight into ourselves.

If there is a chakra that has really become famous, it must be the third eye. Situated in the middle of the forehead, the third eye is in charge of the functions of the brain, mind and thought. People that have opened this chakra have a phenomenal capacity for concentration and memory, together with paranormal powers. When this chakra is blocked, the results are agitation, sarcasm, stupidity, and a dullness of the mind.

In Sanskrit, the third eye is called Ajna, which in English means the “command center,” and, indeed, exactly as the brain manages all the functions of the body, so this chakra administrates all the different levels of the being. A person who is very open at the level of the third eye is almost all the time in a state of lucid vigilance and sharp attention. His eyes are wide open and his vision precise, deep, and profound. His mind is quiet and balanced, and the concentration, like the memory and analytical skills are exceptional. It’s these kinds of people who can study for an exam in a very short time and have an excellent grade.

Their verbal capacities are exceptional, and it’s very difficult to defeat such people in arguments. The eyes are awake and they have a spark of genius. The mental power gives him an exceptional charisma that can fundamentally change the opinions of others.

The state of lucid relaxation opens the third eye, whereas tension and obsessive anxiety dilutes its power. Spiritual practice and study which awakens attention and vigilance, such as learning to play a musical instrument or even juggling, also awakens the third eye. On the other hand, boring occupations and scattered attention make the third eye very dull.

The herbs mint, basil, and ginkgo biloba strengthen and balance the third eye, whereas caffeine, marijuana, and white sugar take it out of balance and even close it. Yoga and meditation practice which resorbs the senses regenerates the energy of the third eye, whereas long time in front of the computer or television screen wear out the third eye.

The Spoon Exercise

When the third eye is blocked, the attention is bouncing like a television which flips the channel every few seconds. In this state, the mind is not a useful tool governed by will but a device to increase pleasure and reduce pain, controlled by the imagination.

Scientific research claims that an average person can only be completed focused on one thing for a maximum of 6 seconds, after which his mind is distracted involuntarily somewhere else. For most people, the lack of capacity to focus and give full attention to one thing blocks the ability to deepen their world. In order to develop the capacity to concentrate and open the vision of the third eye, yoga offers a simple but extremely efficient exercise.

In the first step, we take a small object (like a spoon), and place it 30-50 centimeters in front of the forehead. We look at it and study its shape in detail.

In the second stage, we close our eyes and visualize, with the utmost precision, the shape of the object from the first step. That is to say, you close your eyes and you visualize a spoon.

As mentioned, you can do this exercise with any object, but it’s recommended to start with a simple object without many details and gradually move to objects which are more complex. A daily practice of 20-30 minutes will open the third eye and significantly amplify our capacity to concentrate, making all the tasks of learning, memorizing, and analyzing data extremely efficient and precise.

Stopping the Repetition of Thoughts

Psychologists discovered recently that more than 90% of our thought process is repetitive, so actually almost all of our thoughts are reruns of old thoughts reappearing again and again. This repetitiveness wastes a lot of our mental processing power. Opening of the third eye stops the repetitiveness of thoughts and uses the saved energy for amplifying the processing mental power and the intelligence altogether.

The uncontrolled repetitiveness of thoughts creates an inner agitation, which doesn’t allow us to stop our thoughts even for one minute. Once you have enough energy at the level of the third eye, you can gradually stop your mind and see the world without limiting interpretation, without background noise. The experience of unstoppable thoughts is similar to watching a really nice movie together with a group of deranged kids who keep making comments loudly and even jump in front of the screen. With the silencing of the mind, the kids disappear and the fascinating movie touches the heart of the viewer without any filters.

When the third eye is opened, the search for happiness is no longer limited to a search in the outer environment but spreads to the inner world. Here, inside a sacred space in the depth of one’s being, a man finds happiness which doesn’t depend on anything. When his thought stops, he gradually discovers that everything he ever searched for exists inside of him, and consciousness, which up to now was fishing for happiness outside, discovers that it’s already the ocean of happiness itself with infinite resources. Until now, consciousness was only seeing definitive, limited, relative aspects of the world. In the words of the poet William Blake, “when the doors of perception are clean, the world appears as it is: infinite.”

First of all: aum

The symbolic representation of the third eye is a lotus with 96 petals, 48 on each side. In the center of the lotus there is the famous mantra aum who is considered in the East the sound, the logos, from which the whole world was created. This primordial, universal vibration created from itself all frequencies, and is still the central axis of the entire manifestation. Mental repetition of aum gradually activates the third eye and attunes the human being to the tremendous universal energy of this mantra.

Bodhisattva

The opening of the third eye completely transforms all the structures of relationships. At the level of the third eye, for the first time, we find true compassion, which contains the suffering of the other, heals it, and gives him tools to heal himself. Civilizations which are influenced from the perception of the world at the level of the the third eye are based on the principal of compassion and the wish to release all sentient beings from suffering. In northern Buddhism in general and Tibetan Buddhism specifically, there is a lot of the influence of Ajna Chakra, as we can see in the vow of the Bodhisattva, in which the Buddhists swear not to leave this world into the wholeness of Nirvana until all beings will be freed from suffering.

Shambavi Mudra: an Effective Exercise for Opening the Third Eye

The Indians tend to decorate the center of the forehead exactly in the seat of the third eye in order to strengthen the awareness to this area. In Judaism, putting the “tefillin” on the head represents the superiority of the head over the heart in this tradition. One way or another, the opening of the third eye exists in almost every spiritual tradition. It facilitates the concentration in meditation, in prayer and in the study of the scriptures. Ajna Chakra opens the spiritual eye and gives the capacity to see the hidden spiritual truth behind the veils of illusion. The spiritual texts were written as enigmatic codes to be read and truly understood only by those who have the spiritual vision awakened in them.

The tender weapon that can break through all the veils of illusion is introspection, looking within. Introspection turns on the light in our inner world and allows man to begin putting order in the house which exists within, cleaning the dust from the windows of his consciousness. In order to give the process of introspection extra power, Tantra Yoga offers an exercise named Shambavi Mudra [often also called Chachari Mudra] in which the closed eyes look up in conversion to the center of the forehead towards the third eye.

A great part of the power of our attention exists in the eyes, and when the eyes look towards the center of the forehead, the power of this attention is turned within and activates the third eye. After some weeks of practice, the eyes relax into this position and there appears the sensation of silent absorption into the center of the forehead. This absorption arranges and spontaneously cleans the mind. From this silence arises a profound and clear understanding that gives a person the feeling that he or she is completely invulnerable, that inside there exists something permanent, indestructible, ancient, and eternal.

Bonus for the Advanced: Paranormal Powers

Ramakrishna

The third eye is also the center of paranormal powers. Once you give a lot of energy and attention to this area, you will meet paranormal powers whether you intend to do so or not. The most common phenomena to appear first are telepathy and clairvoyance, which are the direct perception of certain subtle energies and subtle realities, normally unseen by the eye, becoming visible for the third eye.

It is absolutely necessary to mention here that these paranormal powers are not at all the goal of Tantra Yoga, and they can be a very big hinderance on the path. They might create pride, arrogance, and close the practitioner’s heart. A great master of Tantra Yoga, Ramakrishna, mentions, “The pride of ordinary man will go eventually, but the pride of a saint about his own sainthood, that one is really hard to remove.”

Great masters such as Ramakrishna himself and others would only use paranormal powers spontaneously, when only necessary, with humility and in a very discreet way.

How the Universe is Seen from the Third Eye

Alex Grey

Whereas for a person with an open heart chakra, the world looks like a symphony of love, a person who is awake at the level of the third eye of Ajna Chakra sees the world as if with x-ray vision. The hidden causal levels are revealed. The capacity of vision soars like an eagle, uniting the fractions of the foggy reality into a whole, magnificent and clear unity. From this place, the whole world is perceived as complex harmony, as a gigantic hologram in which everything is related to everything in such a perfect and beautiful way, which awakens, again and again, wonder and adoration to the sacred act of creation.

Some of the paintings of Alex Grey illustrate this reality. The book of “Yetzira,” which is attributed to Abraham, describes the steps of the formation of the world, representing such a perspective. We can also find such a view in the Upanishads, in the Tao de Ching, in the Tantra Loca, and in the Avadhuta Gita. These texts describe a hidden reality which is the root of the visible reality.

The journey from the manifested to the unseen is the journey for opening the third eye. This journey is always exciting and intense because the more the unseen becomes visible, the more the mystery grows.