Guide · Reading
Chakras, nadis and Kundalini: an introduction
The chakras as a traditional model of the subtle body: the three main nadis, Kundalini's rise, and the elements of Prakriti.
Awaiting subject reviewWritten from our source material and not yet checked by a teacher of this practice. Read it as reference, and learn the practice from someone who teaches it.
A traditional model
The chakras belong to the subtle body described by the Tantric and Hatha traditions. They are not organs, and the map on this site shows where the tradition places them, not where anything physical sits.
Three nadis, or channels, matter most. Ida and Pingala wind around the spine from the base to the eyebrow centre. Sushumna runs straight up the centre. The tradition describes Kundalini as energy sleeping at Muladhara, which in practice rises through Sushumna and the chakras in turn. That rise is called Sat Chakra Bhedana, the piercing of the six chakras, and it ends in union at Sahasrara.
The tradition also places within the chakras the powers of the twenty-four elements, or tattvas, of Prakriti, the material nature described by Sankhya.
How to read a chakra page
Each chakra page gives the tradition's account: its meaning, its place, its element and seed sound. Where sources differ, the difference is labelled. Organ links are the tradition's associations, not medical claims.
Ideas behind it
Nadis: 72,000 and the three main channels
The channels through which prana flows, and the three that matter most.
Kundalini
The coiled power that the tradition says sleeps at the base of the spine.
Sankhya: Purusha and Prakriti
The school that gives Yog its map: pure awareness, and the nature it watches.
Related
Sources and tradition
- YOG Union App Content Map, 2 November 2026, p. 10, chakra table (common tradition)