We can achieve much in our life, if we learn to keep an upright spine, in all our waking hours, while sitting, standing or walking.
With an upright spine, energy flows upwards from the base or root (muladhara) chakra towards the medulla oblongata, thence to the spiritual eye or agya chakra; and ultimately to the crown or sahasrara chakra, also known as the thousand-petaled lotus. At this chakra, we merge with Divinity.
Keeping our spine upright helps us to ward off all negativity and stay positive at all times.
Notice how a person who is sad, slouches and his spine is curved. His feet too are not firmly planted in the ground and he tends to sway; his emotions do a rock-n-roll; they are swirling in his spine, sending him not on a roller-coaster fun ride, but down into the pit of misery.
But when one’s spine is upright, though energy can flow down, in the next instant it rushes upwards to reach a pinnacle of joy.
God is in your heart and your soul. But God’s grace and divine energy flows through your spine. In order to reach God, we must learn to live in our spine. We should draw our spiritual sustenance from the spine, which works only when you keep this ‘God’ straight and upright.
To live joyfully and positively, we need to make our spine the centre of our life; the focus of our living. Our insecurities and unhappiness stems from the fact that we tend to live at the fringes, at the outside, rather than inside, in the centre.
When there is positivism and joy in the centre wherein reside all the riches, not materialistic but spiritual, why do we choose to live at the borders? Why do we make ourselves refugees in our own body, mind and soul, by letting our spine curl like the tail of a lower being?
By learning to live in the spine, we can learn to live in the self, which is to live with God.
When yogis talk about living in the spine, they are referring to the ‘astral spine’, the primary channel for life-force in the body, located in the centre.
But you don’t have to be a yogi to live in the spine. Any right-thinking, positive-minded person can live in the spine and draw on God’s divine life forces.
One can sit with an upright spine, either in a yogic posture or a chair. But how does one keep one’s spine upright while walking? It’s quite simple and comes with a little effort.
Just keep a straight back while walking and your spine, which you must consider the centre of yourself and the universe, will stay in a straight line.
Walk the straight, right path – in thought, word and deed – and your spine will take a cue and follow by being upright as you walk, not with a swagger, but with eyes on all things good and positive.
But what happens when you grow old and need the support of another person or a cane to walk? Will you still be able to keep an upright spine?
Well, there are many young people who slouch while they sit or walk; and there are much older men who walk straight, without walking sticks.
Keeping an upright spine is not an age factor, but depends on how you think and view the world―positively and joyfully or negatively and sadly!