Lesson 2.6: Throat Chakra - Vishuddha

Course Two: The Seven Chakras · Lesson 6 of 11 · 10 min read

Throat chakra — Vishuddha

The fifth chakra sits at the throat, and it is the first of the three above the heart. From here the tradition stops describing the body and starts describing awareness.

Its statement is I speak, and its function is purification. Those two belong together more closely than they appear: in this tradition, saying the true thing is what makes a person clean.

The card

No metal is recorded for this chakra in the notebook.

Ether — the element that is mostly space

Earth, water, fire, air — and then this. Ether, or sky, or space depending on the translation, and it is the last of the classical elements and the least substantial.

The reason it lands at the throat is straightforward once you see it. Sound needs space to travel through. A voice is air shaped by a body and released into the room. The bowl you strike is bronze, but what reaches the person lying on the mat is a disturbance travelling through space.

So the tradition puts the element of space at the place where sound is made. For a sound practitioner, this is the chakra you use every time you chant, every time you speak an affirmation, and every time you tell a client what is about to happen.

Speaking and listening are the same chakra

Look at the body parts again: throat, neck, mouth, ears, shoulders.

The ears are in the list. This chakra is not only about producing speech — it governs receiving it too. In this tradition, someone who talks and never listens has the same problem as someone who listens and never speaks. Both halves of communication live in one centre.

That matters for practice. When you work on another person in Course Three, the throat chakra is as much about your capacity to hear what they are telling you as about anything you say to them.

And the shoulders being in the list is the detail that convinces most people. Almost everyone recognises the neck and jaw tightening around something they are not saying. The tradition noticed that a long time ago and put it in the same group.

Working with the throat

The bowl. G, 198 Hz. Noticeably smaller than the heart bowl — from here upward the bowls in a graded set sit comfortably in one hand.

The mantra. Hum — closer to hoom, with the lips closed at the end so it finishes as a hum rather than a vowel. It is the most physically obvious of the seven: close your mouth on the ending and you will feel the throat and the front of the face vibrating. Lesson 2.10 goes further into chanting.

The mudra. Vishuddhi mudra — interlace the fingers of both hands with the palms turned toward you, then bring the tips of the thumbs together and point them upward. Hold the shape at the base of the throat, a few centimetres away from the skin, with the chin very slightly lowered.

Keep the shoulders down. The instinct is to lift them as the hands come up, which tightens exactly the area you are working on.

The colour. Sky blue at the pit of the throat — the pale blue of daylight, not the indigo of the third eye. As Lesson 1.5 warned, these two are the pair most people mix up.

The affirmation

I am willing to be conscious. I speak wisdom, and I speak for real.

That word again — willing. The heart chakra used it and so does this one, and in both cases the affirmation asks for openness rather than a claim.

The second half is the striking part. I speak for real is not elegant English, and I have kept it exactly as Sunita wrote it, because the plainness is the point. Speaking wisdom is an aspiration. Speaking for real is a decision you can make today.

Practice: a Thursday throat session

1. Sit upright with the neck long and the chin very slightly tucked. Not craning up.
2. Roll the shoulders back and down a few times, and unclench your jaw. Most people are holding both.
3. Set up Vishuddhi mudra at the base of the throat.
4. Say the affirmation once, out loud rather than silently. This is the chakra of speech — say it with your voice.
5. Play — strike and let the tone run out.
6. Listen. Give this more weight than usual. The ears belong to this chakra.
7. Feel — the pit of the throat, then the jaw, then the shoulders.
8. Chant Hum once per strike, on the outbreath, ending with the lips closed so it hums out.
9. Imagine sky blue at the throat, and space opening around it.
10. Seven or eight strikes, then two minutes of silence.

Afterwards, the exercise. Say one true thing out loud today that you would normally leave unsaid. It does not have to be difficult or dramatic — I'd rather not, or I don't know, or thank you, that meant a lot. One sentence.

This follows directly from the heart lesson, where you named something you were willing to accept about yourself. This chakra is where it gets said out loud.

Common mistakes

• Chanting loudly. Volume is not the point and it strains the very thing you are working on. Quiet and steady.
• Lifting the shoulders into the mudra. Hands come up, shoulders stay down.
• Working the throat when the problem is the heart. Someone who cannot say a thing often has not yet accepted it. Start a chakra lower.
• Ignoring the listening half. Half of this chakra is receiving. Most students only practise the speaking half.
• Confusing sky blue with indigo. Pale daylight blue here; dark blue between the brows.
• Saying the affirmation silently. On this one chakra, use your actual voice.

How do you know you got it right?

You can recite the card — Vishuddha, throat, pit of the throat, ether, G at 198 Hz, Hum, Vishuddhi, sky blue, Thursday, Mercury — and you can explain why the ears and shoulders are in the same list as the mouth.

And you said your one true thing. That is the test. This is not a chakra that can be completed sitting down.

Something to sit with

The tradition calls this centre especially purified, and it governs speech.

What would change in your life if everything you said were true — not brutal, not unfiltered, just true?