Solar plexus — Manipura
The third chakra sits between the navel and the base of the ribs, and its element is fire.
The root asked whether you are safe. The sacral asked what you want. This one asks whether you will actually do anything about it. Its statement is I do, and its function is given as self-esteem, identity and confidence — the machinery that turns wanting into acting.
By the end of this lesson you will have the solar plexus card, understand why fire and digestion belong together here, and have completed a Tuesday session.
The card
| Sanskrit | Manipura — mani, jewel · pura, city |
| Statement | I do |
| Location | Between the navel and the solar plexus |
| Medical location | The plexus |
| Body parts | Liver, bladder, digestive system |
| Symbolises | City of jewels |
| Function | Self-esteem, identity, confidence |
| Element | Fire |
| Note | E — Mi — 165 Hz |
| Mantra | Rum |
| Mudra | Namaste mudra |
| Colour | Yellow |
| Day | Tuesday |
| Ruling planet | Sun |
Sunita's notebook records a metal for the root, sacral and crown but not for this chakra. Rather than borrow one from another source, we have left it out.
The city of jewels
Manipura means city of jewels — mani, gem, and pura, city. It is the most flattering name of the seven, and it is worth asking why the tradition gave it to the stomach.
The answer is in the element. Fire is what transforms. Food arrives as raw material and the body turns it into everything you are made of and everything you do. That is the alchemy the name is pointing at: the place where things get converted into value.
The same idea runs through the psychological reading. Intention becomes action here. A person can feel safe, know exactly what they want, and still never move — and this is the centre the tradition holds responsible for that gap.
Fire, digestion and confidence
Sunita's petal list for this chakra puts strong digestive system and divine fire alongside confidence and will power. Those are not two separate lists that happen to share a page. In this tradition they are the same thing described at two levels.
The connection is more intuitive than it first sounds. Nervousness is felt in the stomach in most languages — butterflies, a knot, unable to eat before something frightening. The tradition simply started from that observation and built a centre around it.
So when someone describes feeling powerless, unable to decide, or as though they have no say in their own life, the solar plexus is where this tradition would work.
The usual caution, and it matters more here than elsewhere: this is a traditional mapping, not a medical one. Sound work does not treat liver or digestive illness. If someone has ongoing digestive symptoms, they need a doctor, and a practitioner who says otherwise is doing real harm rather than merely overclaiming.
Working with the solar plexus
The bowl. E, 165 Hz. A middle-sized bowl — the point in a graded set where bowls become comfortable to hold in one hand for a whole session.
The mantra. Rum — closer to rum as in the drink than room. There is a slight roll on the R in the traditional pronunciation, and the sound should be felt vibrating just below the ribs. Of the seven, this is the one people find easiest to feel in the right place.
The mudra. Namaste mudra — palms flat together, fingers pointing upward, thumbs lightly against the breastbone. Elbows out and relaxed rather than clamped to your sides.
Press the palms together with a small amount of steady pressure. Not much, but enough that you are doing something. It is the only mudra in the seven that asks for effort, which suits a chakra about will.
The colour. Yellow, held just below the ribs. The tradition's image is sunlight rather than a lemon — bright, warm, radiating outward.
The affirmation
I am strong, powerful and confident.
Once, quietly, at the start of the solar plexus's turn. Then silence and the bowl.
This is the affirmation students find hardest to say without embarrassment, and that reaction is worth noticing rather than pushing past. Say it anyway, in your ordinary voice, once.
Practice: a Tuesday solar plexus session
- Sit upright. This chakra wants a straight spine — slumping compresses exactly the area you are working on.
- Not straight after a meal. Leave an hour. A working digestive system is a distraction here.
- Hold Namaste mudra with the thumbs against the breastbone, light steady pressure.
- Say the affirmation once.
- Play — strike the bowl and let it run out completely.
- Listen, then feel — attention just below the ribs, in the soft triangle where they meet.
- Chant Rum once per strike, on the outbreath.
- Imagine yellow light in that triangle, warming rather than burning.
- Seven or eight strikes, then two minutes of silence.
Afterwards, one line in your notebook. Last lesson you wrote down something you want. Today, write down the smallest possible first step toward it — something you could do this week. Not a plan. One step.
Common mistakes
- Confusing confidence with force. This is not a chakra you attack. Loud strikes and hard chanting do nothing except tire you out.
- Practising straight after eating. Leave an hour.
- Slumping. Sit up, or the session works against itself.
- Reaching for it when the problem is anxiety. Anxiety usually wants settling from the crown down — Lesson 1.6. The solar plexus is for powerlessness, not agitation.
- Skipping the affirmation because it feels awkward. The awkwardness is data. Say it once and move on.
- Clamping the elbows in Namaste mudra. Let them float.
How do you know you got it right?
You can recite the card — Manipura, navel to ribs, fire, E at 165 Hz, Rum, Namaste, yellow, Tuesday, the Sun — and you said the affirmation out loud without swallowing it.
And you have one small step written down. That is the real test of a solar plexus session. The chakra of I do is not measured by how the session felt.
Something to sit with
Manipura is the city of jewels, and the tradition put it in your stomach rather than your head or your heart.
What do you think it means that the place where things get transformed was considered the treasury?