Chakras and Shingles—Historical Fragments of the Chakra System in Contemporary Yoga

Abstract After a few days with intense yoga training, curious red spots occurred on the back across my shoulder. Curiously, it appeared right after a period where I had been reading about the chakras. So I could not help noticing that the rash was on the left side of the back, right at the heart chakra. With the global growth of postural yoga, various concepts connected to yoga have become more visible in the landscape of movement practices. One such concepts is the chakra system. However, it can be challenging for a practitioner to fully grasp the significance of the system in a given context. In this article, I explore how a complex inheritance of ideas related to the chakra system, rooted in different cultures and periods, continues to reappear in contemporary yoga.