Karla McLaren - Your Aura and Your Chakras: The Owners Manual

ALSO BY KARLA MCLAREN

BOOKS

The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You

AUDIOTAPES

Healing Your Auras & Chakras: Accessing Your Energetic Wisdom

Healing for Healers: How to Give Without Giving it All Away

First published in 1998 by

Samuel Weiser, Inc.

P. O. Box 612

York Beach, ME 03910-0612

Copyright 1998 Karla McLaren

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information or retrieval system, without permission in writing from Samuel Weiser, Inc.

Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McLaren, Karla.

Your aura and your chakras : the owner's manual / Karla McLaren.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-57863-047-9 (alk. paper)

1. Aura. 2. Chakras. I. Title.

BF1389.A8M35 1998

133.892dc21

98-22486

CIP

Cover design by Kath Christensen

Typeset in 11 point Berkeley

Printed in U.S.A.

EB

05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets all the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48.1984.

T his book, written in 1997, represents an early version of my work with empathic ability, trauma healing, and the channeling of emotions. I have since moved completely away from metaphysical concepts, and I now understand that my empathic ability is neither psychic nor paranormal. Empathic skills like mine are considered unusual because people are very confused about emotions; strong empathy can look exactly like a psychic skill. However, empathy is a normal attribute present in all humans and many animals.

After a seven-year sabbatical that included extensive research and a degree in the social sciences, I resumed my public career in 2010. My work is now focused on teaching empathic mindfulness skills that help people interpret the messages and gifts inside their emotions and increase their empathy and emotional awareness.

While the particulars of my work have changed considerably, the essence is identical now to what it was then: I want all of us to live as intelligently, as compassionately, and as deeply as we can.

I send you many blessings,

Karla McLaren

June 21, 2010

Beyond sculptures and symphonies, beyond great works and masterpieces, is the greater, finer art of molding a conscious life. Genius appears everywhere, but never so magnificently as in a life well lived.

Karla McLaren

I would like to thank my many teachers. My parents taught me to live effectively in the tension between the opposites. My brothers and sisters adored and challenged me, and made me smarter, faster, funnier, and kinder than I ever would have been without them. My mother continues to offer (but only when I ask) encyclopedic information about health, spirituality, art, and integrity. Mary Figueroa taught me to shine without excuses or apologies. Bruce Hyde modeled renown coupled with tenderness and dignity. Sarah Stone knew I was a writer before I did. She is my touchstone.

Marshall, Quinta, Brocke, and Kyia Lever provided me with moral and spiritual discipline, and an unintended education about the dangers inherent in spiritual leadership and group pursuits. Lewis Bostwick, Michael Tamura, and Pat McAnaney taught me about the limits and responsibilities of psychic power. My spirit guides persist in teaching me about the difference between knowledge and wisdom. And my many students and allies teach me everything else.

The people at Samuel Weiser continue to teach me about precision, clarity, and commitment. Kath Christensen helps me balance (beautifully, I might add) art and commerce. My son's patience (and lack of it) helps me balance the writing life with real life. My incomparable husband, Tino, embodies and inspires compassion, integrity, and emotional genius in every moment. I am blessed.

Working knowledge of the aura and the chakras has long been the exclusive domain of psychics and mystics. This is understandable in a culture that exiles spirituality to the outer fringes, but it is unfortunate. At present, psychics and mystics hold all of our spirituality, while the rest of us knock around in a world bereft of meaning.

Without a personal connection to our own spirituality and to God, most of us live in a netherworld, however pretty or moneyed it might be. We place our spiritual communication skills in the hands of churches and clergy, or shamans and mystics, and miss out on the greatest and most evolutionary adventure of all: the search for personal relevance, individual destiny, and a rich, meaningful path.

Without personal meaning, life is only a shadow of what might be. Deep devotion to a certain pre-existing spiritual path can bring meaning to some, but it can't work for everyone. One simple look at the many splinter factions of any given religion will make this clear.

Even Christianity, that supposed bulwark of all religions, has more splinters, fighting factions, strange offshoots, and fundamentalist ideologies than can be counted. The only common thread is a devotion to Jesus the Christ, though his appearance and demeanor change startlingly from one Christian sect to the next. It is much the same in any religious tradition.

The only thing religions have in common is a belief in a higher intelligence and a wish to share (often forcibly) that belief with others. Most religions do not support independent thought, nor do they allow their followers an autonomous connection to God. They wouldn't be religions if they did; they'd be philosophical societies.

Welcome to my philosophical society. The rules are pretty simple. I trust your abilities and your intelligence; I trust in God and Jesus, but I do so in my own way. I also trust in Lao Tse, Krishna, Buddha (in his peppier moments), Allah, Horus and Osiris, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

I am fatigued with the New Age and its focus on money, power, and perfect health. I prefer to live in the actual world, where I am a child of God, but not God himself. My work with psychic healing tools is not a way to gain power and perfection. It is my way to clear out my mind and psyche so I can receive healthy guidance, and not waste God's time on problems I can handle myself.

This isn't the place to find a new religion, more power, more money, or perfect health, but if you're looking for some new ideas, or help on your path back to your excellent, messy, meaningful, real life, then you're a part of my philosophical society, and I'm a part of yours.

Y ou won't need fantastic psychic power or vision to become a competent self-healer; all you'll need is simple, in-the-body, grounded awareness. If you are already a psychic and you've come to this book to increase your abilities, please know this: there is no ability higher than the ability to know yourself.

I have known too many gifted psychics whose lives went nowhere; I have seen and known the tragedy of using spiritual gifts on others instead of on the self. I have also found that truly well and integrated people are the best healers of all, though their healing is usually hidden in perfectly timed phone calls, searching questions, and loving gifts. The best healers don't swoop in and remove all discomfort; they simply assist people in healing themselves. The best healers remind you of your personal connection to God, or to the creative energies of the universe. They won't stand above you, god-like, and block your view of the divine.