Ajna Chakra - overview
The ajna chakra is located at the point between the eyebrows. It shrinks by ego and seriousness and flowers through innocence, simplicity and shedding the ego.
The third eye or Ajna is the key to experiencing a whole different realm. When this chakra opens, the being moves into a new level of awareness and other faculties become available to experience.
Characterizing the experience of the ego is seriousness, perfectionism, self-consciousness, fear of making decisions, etc. When you have moved beyond the confines of the ego, you have available the fluidity of Existence. The flow of Existence is not available for the ego to experience. The ego is really the mind, or mind chatter; the flow of negativity and complaint. Only when we drop the ego can we know the fullness and fluidity of Existence.
This flow of Existence is only available when we learn to follow the heart instead of the mind. The heart is the path of creativity and allows us to drop dependence on the mind. Being creative brings us an experience of our individuality and our unique contributions, as well as what it means to be in the flow. When we are stuck in ego, we see ourselves as a solid entity, and are unable to flow with Existence.
Surrender is an important part of the process of moving beyond ego. The Master's intervention is a blessing which we can experience through trust and through opening the space for him to enter.
The other keys to opening the ajna are awareness and meditation. Laughter and dance are powerful meditations that take us out of seriousness to the experience of 'no-mind'. Again, as with the manipuraka chakra, seeing life as a drama rather than being involved in it, allows us to become less serious about life.
As we take the mind less seriously, we begin to be embraced by the creative spontaneous flow of life. When we stop resisting, this experience will simply emerge and overtake us. Then joy and spontaneity will be our natural experience and we will have emerged into a totally different and fulfilling experience of life.
Understanding Seriousness (Seriousness to Sincerity)
Seriousness is nothing but paying undue importance to something, at the cost of everything else. It closes your mind to the openness and freedom of life and makes you dull and dead. It curbs your thinking and makes you stick to the familiar patterns that you know.
Seriousness stems from the inability to see that all of life is just a drama that is unfolding every minute and from being too concerned about the result. When you are serious, you see yourself as a separate entity, (too much of 'I') and you become egoistic.
Sincerity, on the other hand, is focusing on the task with enthusiasm and youthfulness. It is giving the task your best without worrying excessively about the result. When you are sincere, you can be laughing and playful. You can continue to do the job at hand in a playful and creative way and the job will get done in a joyful fashion.
Daily Awareness Practices
If you understand that the whole of life is only a drama, you can never be serious. When this understanding happens at a deep level, you will simply do things for the sheer joy of moving in tune with the cosmic drama or Existence. And when you do it this way, you are not serious, you are just sincere in playing your part, that's all. You will be able to see that everyone is not only a player but has become so serious with their role, and you laugh at that. You laugh at how each one is deceiving the other when playing the game. You laugh at the thought that you are playing a game!
When you are able to laugh, you have become the watcher, and when you have become the watcher, you are separate from the 'I' and 'mine' - the ego. So keep this awareness through every event during the day. Keep reminding yourself, 'This is just a drama. I am a player.' Keep this perspective at all times.
If you want to move from seriousness, first, flood awareness into every action of yours. The second thing is to stop being judgmental about everything that you see. When you stop being judgmental, you will simply love everyone and everything with total innocence.
Also, have the courage to make mistakes. Serious people are always afraid to make mistakes. They take themselves too seriously. They think too much about themselves. It is too much to make mistakes and have someone point them out to them. Actually, these people who are afraid of making small mistakes, end up making big blunders! So, if you are one of these people, consciously allow yourself to make mistakes and understand that you are making progress! When you make a mistake, you learn from it. You know both sides of the coin and thus avoid the danger of falling into the unknown side at a critical time.