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A while back my friend let me borrow The 8 Human Talents by Gurmukh, and I finally finished it about a week ago. The book focuses on Kundalini Yoga & Meditation and the 8 chakras. Before reading this book I thought there were only 7 chakras, but Kundalini Yoga views people as having 8 chakras. The author tells how each of the chakras plays a role in 8 basic human characteristics.
To break it down:
Root chakra controls your acceptance.
Sacral chakra controls your creativity.
Navel chakra controls your commitment.
Heart chakra controls your compassion.
Throat chakra controls your truth.
Third-eye chakra controls your intuition.
Crown chakra controls your boundlessness.
Aura chakra controls your radiance.
For the most part, I liked how the book was set up. Each chapter focuses solely on one chakra. The author provides meditations and breathing exercises to bring each chakra back into balance and provides examples of how they become unbalanced and how they are all connected. One thing I really enjoyed about the book was that she offered the "shadow" side of the chakras as well. For example, guilt is the shadow emotion to the second chakra, where our creativity is housed. If we're feeling guilty for any reason our creativity is what suffers.
The part about the book I didn't like was the anecdotes she provided. I found most (if not all) of them very unbelievable and exaggerated. Once I hit the middle of the book I just skimmed through the anecdotes because it became very predictable and tiresome. There was also a massive lack of references and sources. The author says that "studies show" X results for Y case, but doesn't back it up. It just seemed like she was making up statistics to prove her point. It was almost like she was trying too hard to mix the very spiritual aspects of yoga and science, which I don't believe is always possible or appropriate.
The bottom line is that I found this book pretty inspirational. It's full of self-acceptance, self-love, and self-respect. It offers lots of encouragement. By far what I enjoyed most about the book is the meditations and breathing exercises. As frustrated as I was with the "bulk" of the book, I will probably purchase my own copy so I can always have the chakra-specific exercises on hand.
