Shai Tubali ist spiritueller Lehrer und Experte für die Psychologie der Chakras. Ich liebe alle seine Bücher über Chakras – besonders aber sein jüngstes, mit dem du der Einzigartigkeit und der Schönheit deiner Chakra-Persönlichkeit auf die Spur kommen kannst!

Wenn du erst einmal herausgefunden hast, wie das geht, verwandeln sich innere Konflikte in Selbstkazeptanz und Selbstliebe – und das ist der erste Schritt auf dem Weg in ein Leben, das im Einklang mit deinem Seelenplan steht. Der zweite Schritt ist, dem zu folgen, was dich glücklich macht!

Denn eben weil jeder und jede von uns so einzigartig ist, gibt es kein Patentrezept für das persönliche Lebensglück. Aber es gibt die Chakras als Landkarte und Wegweiser. Wie wunderbar! 

In diesem XL-Interview erklärt Shai Tubali,

* warum die Chakras weit mehr sind als energetische Zentren, und wieso sie jede Form menschlicher Entwicklung perfekt erklären

* warum du dazu geboren bist, zwei oder drei Farben des Regenbogens zu repräsentieren, und nicht alle – und warum das ein absoluter Segen ist

* welche Formen von Blockaden es gibt, und was es mit dem „shadow self“ der einzelnen Chakra-Persönlichkeiten auf sich hat

* wie du stark und furchtlos mit beiden Beinen in der Welt stehen kannst

* warum dein Lebensglück etwas Einzigartiges ist – und warum nur du herausfinden kannst, was dich wirklich glücklich macht

Ich wünsche dir viel Freude und jede Menge tiefe und lebensverändernde Einsichten – die schriftliche Version des Interviews findest du weiter unten! 

https://yogalounge.wistia.com/medias/ba0kvfbbwg?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

Seminar- und Retreat-Termine von Shai Tubali findest du in seinem Event-Kalender.

Infos zum Seminar „Das Herz von Beziehungen“ am 26./27. Oktober in Wien findest du hier.

Und hier kommt wie versprochen die schriftliche Version des gesamten Interviews:

Laya:

Today I have a very special guest, and I am absolutely excited and honoured to talk to Shai Tubali in this video. Thank you so much, dear Shai, for being here and taking the time to share your knowledge and your wisdom with us!

I guess that many of you know Shai already, maybe you have seen a youtube-video or read one of his books, or even attended one of his seminars – but maybe a short introduction for those who don’t know him yet: Shai is not only a well known expert of the chakra system, which will be our main topic for today, but also a spiritual teacher, who has combined Eastern spiritual traditions such as Yoga with Western psychology and philosophy and even brain research findings as well as Christian and Jewish mysticism to an integral approach to human healing, transformation and evolution.

In our conversation today we will dig very deep into the topic of the chakra system as a model or roadmap of human psychology and personal development.

Shai, you wrote several books about the chakra system already, and your latest one is about the seven chakra personality types. I will show the German version of the book: The title is “Entdecke deine Chakra Persönlichkeit, finde heraus, wer du wirklich bist und entfalte dein wahres Potenzial.“

Again and again you emphasize that the chakras are far more than energetic centers associated with colours and symbols or specific sounds, and you suggest to go much deeper and explore the chakra system on a much more profound level. Can you please tell us something about this deep approach to the chakra system?

Shai:

Yes, I am very happy that we’re starting with such a broad question, because the seven personality types are founded on this broad foundation. The first thing that is important for me to share in this regard is that what we usually think of chakras is actually a very limited perspective. We imagine them to be seven centers in our energetic body. This is true of course – but these seven centers within our energetic body are just a reflection or an extension of what we can regard as the seven centers within the universe’s energetic body, which means that you could think of the universe as having seven chakras of it’s own.

When you think of it like that, you can imagine your chakras in communication with the seven cosmic chakras – and that would be our relationship with life as a whole. Our seven chakras enable us to communicate with those seven cosmic chakras. When we think of it like that, this explains quite easily how chakras are not just energetic centers, but they are actually a full map, a complete map of human development – not only spiritual. The spiritual is the known map of the yogic tradition. This is a wonderful map, that actually describes very well the process of awakening and enlightenment.

But it also constitutes a map of psychological development, of emotional maturation and actually of everything you could ever imagine as a form of possible development for human beings. So when we begin to understand it in this way, we also understand how we can use chakras to basically explain any kind of process of development in the most perfect and complete way. This means that you will not miss anything, because it already inherently covers all the possible topics of human experience and human perspective.

In this way chakras are also a very good explanation for how come we are such complex beings. It is very important to stress: complex is not complicated!

Laya:
That is an important distinction, right?

Shai:

Exactly, we become complicated when we do not understand our complexity, because our complexity makes a lot of sense. When we understand the chakras in this way, we also understand, how come we as humans embody such contradictions or differences, how come we are both spiritual and material in one body, how come we are both persons and beyond a person, how come we have an ego, but we can also be selfless. So all these strange contradictions – how you can we be so many things at the same time – is explained very clearly through the seven centers, because they are meant to function simultaneously.

Laya:

That is also  kind of a relief – that there is nothing wrong with us because we are complex, and we have so many aspects, right?

Shai:

Yes, exactly! Because it is complex, we tend to cling to certain rigid concepts of ourselves. For example what we did in the yogic tradition in some of the schools is to say that life is an illusion, because we can’t understand how it can be, that we live in a reality with real emotions and real relationships, but also to a certain degree none of it is real. So than we just have one concept and we say: everything else – don’t care about. But that’s not human life, so we need to understand that with the chakras we can also go beyond our conceptual spirituality.

Laya:

Yes, and there is another aspect: For the chakra system we often hear, that all of the chakras should be very balanced and the energy should be strong there for us to be fullfilled and happy and content. This can stress us out a little bit, right? To think we have all these seven dimensions, and each of these should really be balanced.

But in your book you state, that it is completely okay if some chakras are not as active as others because every individual is meant to embody and manifest a certain aspect of the human personality spectrum according to it’s main or major chakra personality type. This again sounds like a relief to me. Does this mean that as soon as we know which chakra personality we are or have, we should concentrate on it’s strengths and purpose for this lifetime?

Shai:

That is a really interesting question, because the answer is delicate, we need to be careful here. On the one hand, all our chakras (and you will need to differentiate between the active chakras and balanced chakras), ideally need to be balanced, all of them need to be balanced to attain psychological wholeness.

And I must add here, I have known people and I have followed people who have become fully balanced in all seven chakras – this is not some kind of crazy destination that I am inventing. And even more than that, all our chakras need to be awakened, which is a higher state than balanced, if we want to achieve spiritual enlightenment. This is true, and in that sense this can take many, many years. Every now and then we will find ourselves guided by our inner wisdom to focus on the balancing of a certain chakra, and to treat some neglected areas of our life

So that is true – but this is, on the other hand, not the truth when it comes to two things: our fulfilment and our expression in the world.

Fulfilment means what, when I focus on it and I devote my life to it, makes me feel the happiest, that I have found the meaning of my life. Here it is very important to know that there are different types of meaning and happiness, and we don’t share the other’s happiness. That can by the way be a source of a conflict between couples – because they don’t understand each other.

And the second thing, which is actually connected, is our expression in the world. What we are meant to embody, to express, for others and as a form of teaching and service, what we are made to radiate, which elements. In this sense no one can be everything, no one can be all seven chakras. Nobody can fulfil and express all seven chakras, and actually even the greatest spiritual teachers, who have been for sure fully balanced and awakened in all seven chakras –  they could not be all of the chakras in manifestation. That’s why we get very different teachings from different teachers. Osho emphasises a lot the second chakra, the celebration of life, and then you get Gurdjieff who speaks of self-discipline and self-remembrance and self-overcoming. And then you get Rumi, who speaks of „love is the only path“. There is a reason that they teach different things, because each teacher embodies in his or her teaching one or two chakras – and that is all.

Laya:
So let me guess that Gurdjieff was a third chakra type, and Rumi was a fourth chakra type – is that right?

Shai:

Yes, exactly! Sometimes when I speak of the seven chakra personality types, people get offended. They say: „Why do you put me in a box? Can’t I be all seven chakras or all seven chakra types?“ And I say yes, inside of you you have all these seven perspectives, these seven capacities, but in the way you are going to be fulfilled and express, we must focus, that is our limitation, and our blessing, a gift as a soul fulfilment and soul expression.

Laya:

I guess it is related to purpose also, right?

Shai:

Exactly –  purpose. Think of it like a diamond, that we are meant to shine one of it’s angles or aspects. Another image, another metaphor is the rainbow, and I love the metaphor of the rainbow, because this is actually a perfect metaphor for the seven chakras, and in this sense, internally deeply you were meant to be the rainbow. Our identity goes beyond all the colours. But in the way we express, what we radiate into the world, we can only be one, two or three colours at a time.

And that is beautiful, that is not bad!

Laya:

In your book you characterise the seven chakra personality types on a very detailed psychological level, and you even specify their percentage in world population.

I will give a short overview of the seven types and of these percentages.

We have the first chakra type, the so called builders, and two people out of five, that means 40%  of the world population are builders.

Then we have the second chakra type, the artists, and here we have only 7 %. And then the third chakra type, the achievers, have 25%. And then we have the heart chakra types (such as Rumi, as we heard before), the caretakers are 15%. Then we have speakers, the fifth chakra type, and similar to artists here we have only 7 % of the population, and then we have the sixth chakra type, the thinkers, who are very rare, only one in 20 individuals is a thinker. And even more rare are yogis, the seventh chakra type –  there is only one in 100, so 1% of world population are yogis as a chakra type.

Now I am really curious: How did you figure out this distribution? And I am also curious, if it is the same all over the world population, or are there some differences from the east to the west, or between women and men, for example, or are there some cultural differences in this distribution? 

Shai:

Well, this is where I get into trouble (laughs), because that surely isn’t scientific or statistical, this is sort of a wild evaluation that I made, when I tried to estimate how many of each type as a ratio within 100% of a healthy and functional society will be needed. In this sense we need to understand the chakra types as a mapping of human society. So if we imagine how many builders (the first chakra type) are needed to create a functional society, it is obvious that it is a huge amount, because society needs a foundation, it needs laws, it needs order, it needs rules, it needs functioning systems – for that we need the majority. So you could also think of it with this sort of experiment: Imagine a group of hundred people, finding themselves on a deserted island. They need to create out of nothing a functioning society. How would they split within themselves in order to create that? If you imagine it like that, how many thinkers would you need to create a society on a deserted island, or artists? Because if you try to build a whole society on thinking or artistic spirit it will not function.

Laya:

Or even more extreme: yogis! Imagine 100 yogis on an island like that…

Shai:

Which would be beautiful, just not functional (laughs).

I believe that in this sense the intelligence of life brings into the world exactly this intelligent ratio between the types.

It is actually beautiful, because it shows us how much we need everyone. On the one hand, because everyone is perfectly required for the creation of a complete society and a balanced society, every each one balances the others.

Laya:

It also shows that there is no hierarchy. I mean, yogis or thinkers are not more important than builders, right? It is beautiful, how everyone contributes to the functioning of our world!

Shai:

Exactly –  that is for me a very important point of this method, that it is meant to teach us this kind of love and respect, the feeling that everyone is needed. On the other hand we don’t need too many thinkers or yogis or artists, we need them with their tremendous contribution, even yogis with the 1% presence in the world population, we know how much yogis have contributed to human society with their invention of meditation for example.

Laya:

A big influence on the evolution of humankind ….

Shai:

Exactly – the only thing, that is the problem here, is that because of this ratio we live in a society that is also governed or dominated by the values and the philosophy of life of the first chakra type (the builders), the third chakra type (the achievers) and the fifth chakra a type (the speakers) and that makes all the other types feel uncomfortable about their natural tendencies. That’s why you can find many disguised types, you see? They are actually something else, but they are trying to be first type, third type or fifth type,

Laya:

I see! Because they can’t see their own value, right? The value of their own natural type, because society doesn’t reflect that.

Shai:

Exactly. Society tells us: Stop thinking, stop being philosophical, do something with yourself, or stop being so lazy and create music, and become a …

Laya:

… manager.

Shai:

Exactly. Become serious. Yes, that’s quite a situation.

Laya:

I think with this interview and this video we will contribute for this to change for the better!

You mentioned the huge diversity of personality types, and this is due to that there is not only a major chakra type, but we all have also a secondary and a supportive type. This explains why this goes way beyond the seven archetypes of the seven chakras. And in your book there is a method how we can find out our main chakra type and our secondary and our supportive chakra type. Now I would like you to tell us: Once we have figured that out – how can we use this knowledge to fulfil our life’s purpose and unfold our full potential?

Shai:

Can I ask you, whether in reading the book you have come to a conclusion about your major type and secondary – Just out of curiosity!

Laya:

Okay,  I came to that my major type is fifth chakra,  my secondary type is sixth chakra and my supportive type is the third chakra.

Shai:

Wow, that is a very powerful and fiery personality type! So I will tell you about that with me: My major is the sixth type, the thinker, my secondary is the fifth type, the speaker, and my supportive is the third type. That is the same combination, but in a different order.

Laya:

Just the major and the secondary type are switched – that’s funny, interesting …

Shai:

Yes , so first of all, as we can see already, it is a lot of fun to begin to understand this interplay within our personality between three strong chakras. This creates basically our complex personality with it’s nuances. Otherwise it would be just seven caricatures, because when you think of them, just what they are, that’s very extreme!

The first role of the other two types is to balance or enhance some of the qualities of our major type – but that is very general. Of course we need to understand that with our secondary type this creates 42 personalities, and 252 personalities of these three-type-combination, which I have never have taken the trouble to explain –  that would be crazy I guess (laughs).

So the most important insight that we can gain, is our major and our secondary type. The supportive is wonderful to realise but it’s less crucial. Our major chakra type is the WHAT and the secondary type is the HOW. So basically if you translate that, simply you can say that the major chakra type is like your soul-print, it’s the way you perceive the world, and what you are meant to fulfil, what you are meant to express in the world, to bring out of yourself. So it is your deepest fulfilment and deepest expression.

But the secondary tells you, HOW you can fulfill this core personality, how you can manifest it in the world, with what kind of energy.

So if we take my example of the sixth and fifth:

Sixth are usually scientists, they like to sit in a laboratory or a library, and they don’t like human company so much, they just want to be with books, to philosophize, to understand –  they are researchers. But my secondary chakra type would not give me rest, because it is a speaker.

Laya:

They are outgoing, connecting …

Shai:

Exactly, so this means that I could never just keep my insights in books or with myself. Whatever I understand I must teach, it must become an education. Of course, if you don’t understand this interplay you might enter some kind of conflict within yourself.

Laya:

A lot of tension, right, between the two of them …

Shai:

Yes, exactly. What is important about the secondary chakra type is that it’s very relevant to our career decision, because it determines what will enable us to flower as our chakra type, so this explains a lot.

Laya:

So once we have this knowledge, it also has implications on our career decisions, for example.

Shai:

Yes, it explains a lot, because for example if you have a secondary chakra type, that is extremely airy and ungrounded, unfortunately in terms of career and fulfilment you will have quite many troubles. You see, there are many combinations that are so utterly ungrounded, that’s why they have difficulties in expressing in the world, and with what we can call „making something with themselves“ On the other hand, they have so much  beauty, they are like a flower, and that is why they need to go through some kind of process of self-acceptance, that they are not meant to be like others.

Laya:

So to know our personality types and the three chakra types that contribute to it the most, also helps us to cope with these inner conflicts.

Shai:

Definitely – understanding ourselves and accepting ourselves.

Laya:

there is another aspect that I would really like to dig into. In former books you also cover the topic of blocked chakras on a very deep psychological and spiritual level, and in my own experience as well as in my experience as a yoga teacher and coach, I found that very often the chakra that contributes the most to the personality type, let’s call it the major chakra type of a person, is very often blocked or primarily blocked, and I wonder if you have made similar observations. There is some kind of thesis I have here – that this phenomenon could be related to our souls way of bringing forth our strengths to the fullest, so that we can really fulfil or express our purpose on the highest possible level.

Shai:

Yes, I like this thesis, I would basically add to what you just said,  because I want to explain from three angles, what that could mean, this kind of blockage that you have identified in people of a certain chakra type, from my own understanding.

The first angle is that, and that’s a bit funny, at least funny when we speak of it, it may not be funny in real life … Every chakra type is always too much of oneself. It’s like it suffers from an excess. This means that we are always unbalanced. A thinker is always too much of a thinker in a way that neglects many other areas of life. A speaker is always too much of a speaker. So this is definitely connected to one form of blockage in the sense of excess. You are just doing too much of yourself, and the funniest thing here is that we always think that this „too much“ is actually good for us, while it creates psychosomatic disorders, it makes us very, very often feel bad, and clash with people, and not understand why people tell us that there is something that troubles them about us. That is very important to understand, because we have excess, and we need to balance our chakra type, to restrain it, to calm it down.

The second is that every chakra type has a shadow, a sort of a part that neglects all of the other parts of life and sticks to their own perspective or identity in a way that begins to make them rigid and very unable to acknowledge many aspects of their life. Many aspects become neglected and they try even to suppress and deny them („No I don’t have a problem!“). That’s very important to understand, too.

Maybe we speak about the shadows later on, we can explore it more.

And then another form of blockage is, that every chakra type has more potential of this specific chakra than others, and then compared to other people it feels stuck, for example if you are a throat chakra type (a speaker) you’re meant to express so much to become such a visionary, a dreamer, an influencer or an educator, that compared to other types you may feel that this is stuck, that you have a problem, you have an issue.

So these three elements can contribute to the general feeling that we have a special stuckness.

Laya:

Okay, may I ask you – this feels like a blockage, but there is no blockage! I just compare myself – of course I’m a throat chakra type, I’m communicating a lot and I want to express myself a lot, and it is totally fine, but if I compare myself to someone else, I will find myself „Oh, I am excessive here“. Is that what you meant?

Shai:

Exactly. You are not excessive, you are only excessive when you begin to damage yourself and others. That’s the only point when it’s excessive, because sometimes it becomes self-destructive or destructive to other people, because for example third chakra types (achievers) can  become extremely angry, and this type of anger is a dangerous, unrequired and unwelcome type of excess. But otherwise we are meant to celebrate our excess (laughs)!

Laya:

Okay, let’s do this!

Shai:

Now what is still important, is to notice that on the other hand the chakras that don’t belong at all to your map, to your three most active chakras, they also can be in danger of being extremely stuck, blocked, because we basically don’t give them much attention, we don’t think that they are that important. Actually one of the keys to balancing our chakra type is thinking of all the chakra types that we don’t have in our map and then say „Oh, that could be quite nice from time to time to add a little bit of the artist, a little bit of the thinker”, because otherwise we are slowly becoming one-dimensional.

Laya:

So maybe it’s like adding a little salt and pepper to our tomato soup, if we are a tomato soup chakra type.

Shai:

That is a perfect metaphor, because it’s good, since it is about spices, you see?

Laya:

Like a little aroma …

Shai:

Yes, a dish that is just one major taste can be very extreme,  but we all know the secrets of a good dish (laughs).

Laya:

Well, we spoke about the shadow self already associated with each chakra personality, and I wonder how are those shadow selfves associated with the shadow selfs Carl Gustav Jung spoke about? He knew a lot about the chakra system, I think. Is this the same, or is this something completely different?

Shai:

Well, I’m not that of a Jungian, so I will be very careful in answering that definitely. But I will just explain what I mean by shadow self here and then maybe you can tell me (laughs).

Usually our shadow self is what we can call our greatest life friction, our greatest theme, it’s like they are different forces that are in friction within us, that in their friction they create some sort of a life theme, and this life theme will follow us wherever we go, and trouble us, and most of our therapies and most of our processes of self correction and self healing will concern this main theme. And it’s always very interesting to see, because some people have the shadow self that they don’t belong to planet earth,  that they are not real, they are not humans, they don’t belong to here. Others may feel that their main theme is the fear of change, that they can’t bear changes, that they are always trying to make life unchanging.

So here by the way I want to mention that the thinker’s shadow self is that they feel like they only observe the world and life, they don’t belong here, they are just by mistake put in a human body. They don’t want to be humans, they don’t want to make their hands dirty. On the other hand, there are achievers, and they only identify with doing and with action and being busy. Take away from them all this busyness, put them in a moment of emptiness – and they are terrified, because they have no idea who they are. So this is the shadow self, it is like a sort of a constant wish to avoid certain aspects of your life and to basically cling to what is most familiar to you, what makes you feel at home, even if you suffer because of it.

So obviously when we live in our shadow self in terms of our chakra types, we begin to become very narrow, very rigid and ridiculously arrogant, because we try to cover up our weakness and our confusion with some kind of over-confidence, you see – this is the way. So obviously our job in this shadow self is to first of all clear away this intense identity with our chakra type, which means that our chakra type is meant to be a form of service to the world, finding our place in the world, it is not meant to be some kind of  „That’s who I am, and I will be nothing else.“ So we need to go through the challenge that is presented by our shadow self, because only then can we ever reach a point, in in which we are only the beautiful side of our chakra type, which is this service, this radiation of the colour of the rainbow.

Laya:

So it is important to acknowledge this shadow self instead of suppressing it.

Shai:

Oh yes! And to become really aware of the pattern – because I think what is really interesting is that people sometimes think that their life theme is very specific to them, that nobody shares them. But when I start to explain the shadow selves of the different chakra types, then people say “Oh that’s exactly what I’m experiencing!” So it is personal, but also not personal – it is a life theme of your type.

Laya:

But it can feel very personal, when you experiencing it!

Shai:

Exactly – because of this life theme of our chakra type we also experience negative moments in our life, so all our traumas usually revolve around this life theme.

Laya:

That’s really fascinating, and I think there is at least some analogy to the Jungian shadow self – they get kind of saboteurs if we suppress and don’t acknowledge it.

Shai:

I see, so a shadow self in that sense is like a sort of a half complimentary half?

Laya:

It is a part that we don’t love or like, and we think that it is bad somehow. So it is part of us, but we don’t want to have it, so we suppress it in some way.

Shai:

Yes, so they share some similarities, but not perfectly.

Laya:

Not perfectly, I think so too.

Now I want to zoom out a little bit, because chakras are of course very fascinating, but I think that they are one pillar of your approach and your work and there is of course a lot more to it! And I want to read something I found on your website, where you describe your approach to living as a spiritual being in a human body and it says  “My philosophy is simple: saying ‘Yes’ to the challenge of life wholeheartedly, unreservedly; incarnating with all our body, heart and soul. Our spirituality should make us not only calmer, but also stronger – and show us how to live fearlessly in the midst of the world.” I would love to ask you, for you what exactly it means to be or to become stronger, and how can we overcome our fears and live fearlessly in the midst of this world, that is sometimes very messy, seems to be very complicated or even scary.

Shai:

That is indeed a zoom-out (laughs). So you are asking what actually makes us feel stronger?

Laya:

What exactly do you mean by the word „strong“? I mean, how can we concretely stand strong in a world that can be messy and sometimes we feel like we loose the ground underneath our feet?

Shai:

Well, „strong“ means, that with our spirituality, with our meditation, with all the spiritual qualities we feel, we can actually contain this life, contain life’s challenges and we don’t need to evade any of them. You see, that nothing is bigger than ourselves, nothing is too much that we can actually enter this world embodied with full incarnation and not keep one foot here and one foot in the heavens so in the astro-dimensions so wherever we are.

This is the result of my work of many years, I have worked already 20 years as a teacher. I have noticed that this spirituality that basically tells us that we are the world, that the entire universe is within us, within our consciousness, that we are immortal beings, I’ve realised that it is meant to make us feel so strong, actually the strongest ever. Spiritual realisation is the source of true strength that is actually indestructible, and because you are indestructible you are also fearless and because you are fearless you can love, you see?

So that is why my work is always about, for example, in the third chakra how to create such an indestructible self,  such a true inner power, that you don’t fear life challenges, so that you can really embrace them head on or that you can keep your heart chakra open and never close it, because actually when it is open it can contain fearlessly everything and when it is closed it is much more vulnerable. So all these concepts of enclosing ourselves in some kind of a protective shell, of fragile spiritual self,  that is I think a big misunderstanding of what spirituality is meant to give us, and that is the feeling, the recognition that our home is wherever we are and not over there, up there, or within ourselves. This is home, home is everywhere.

Laya:

Then we can be fearless.

Shai:

Exactly.

Laya:

There is one –  no, there are two more questions that I want to ask you, I could talk on and on because it is so fascinating… I also read that besides being a spiritual teacher, you are also an artist, I read that you even wrote a novel once and that you also became a film maker recently. I wonder what does creativity – or what does art – mean to you from this holistic or integral spiritual perspective? 

Shai:

Okay I wasn’t expecting this question (laughs)…

Laya:

Surprise,  surprise …

Shai:

I don’t see art as separate from truth or from spirituality, because I believe that truth and art are about just one thing: about beauty, truth is beautiful and art can create beauty and inspiration and attraction towards beauty. So art, when it is in it’s right direction, can actually do exactly the same process, only in a more emotional and vivid way. It can touch us in parts that, let’s say,spiritual teaching doesn’t necessarily do, so  that is why I’m highly attracted to cinema as stories that can inspire us to transform, and I’m actually also right now a researcher in a university, and as a researcher I am researching movies – that is a part of what I do. What I do as a researcher, I bring out all the transformative potential of that creation. So that is of course the higher purpose of art – to do the same like truth teaching or like what we talked about, about chakra development, but in a way that touches us directly in a gut feeling, in a way that shows us a story of a hero, that can be the story of our own heroism.

Laya:

Yeah, we find ourselves in these stories, right?

Shai:

Exactly!

Laya:

Thank you so much –  I liked very much when you said that it is about beauty. It doesn’t have to be so complicated, as you said in the beginning!

Shai:

When I teach, when I give a seminar, it is all about the aesthetics, it’s also a form of art, you see? Something about truth is poetry.

Laya:

I love that! Now that we are coming to an end, I want to get a little practical about the chakra personality model you suggest here and recommend in your new book. Maybe you have one action step our listeners or viewers can take to create a life that is in alignment with their chakra personality and purpose and their soul design.

Shai:

What do you mean by „action“?

Laya:

You know, like one first step to go in this direction, to feel more aligned with their chakra personality.

Shai:

Well, the most important thing is to identify it, for sure. To identify your chakra type, that is definitely the most essential part, because we can guess, but guessing is not enough, we need to understand that we sometimes need to dig out our chakra type from the midst and the suppression and the false identification and social adaptation.

So this is a process, we cannot just say „Yes, I know what I am“. It is a process and when you really tap into it, when you begin to say „Yeah, I am a thinker“, that is actually a life-changing moment, because from that moment onwards you are saying „This is what I am, this is my form of happiness and nothing in this world can dissuade me from this, I know what makes me be one with my soul.“

And so the first thing that is meant to happen as soon as you have identified yourself is a process of self acceptance and self love. And I know this sounds not very much of an action, but it is actually the first step that needs to be taken, and that is to feel major self acceptance.

We have talked in this dialog about shadow self and imbalances, but we need to put it all aside for some time. Celebrate it, relax into it, say „This is my perspective, this is what god or the universe wanted me to see and to feel in the name of the greater truth, the great rainbow“.

That is the first thing, and then the second thing is obviously to begin to follow – also hopefully in your career, in the choice of work you do in life – , exactly what makes you happy. Because if you don’t follow exactly what makes you happy, you will feel frustration. So first is self acceptance, second is following exactly that also in what you do in life, trying to begin to change, to gravitate towards your type, because as I mentioned before, there is absolutely no one prescription for happiness, it’s not like a  perfect diet or something like that. It is so individual, that it needs to face all of  other peoples resistances. Everyone will tell you that you are missing something, that is why the first step is self acceptance!

Laya:

If I understood you right, you recommend not to rush through this process, but to take your time and also look behind at all the identifications we have and really take the time to understand who we are deep inside.

Shai:

Exactly – because it takes time for most people. Some people just read the book or listen to a seminar and they very quickly say „This feels like home, what you are describing is like myself“. Then there is no question about it, but for many people especially if they have lived with a partner that belongs to another type, that is more dominant, usually they have been shaped, and they start apologising for their tendencies, so to tear out the costume and say “This is what I am” – I know it is funny to say, but actually it is a form of self recognition and it’s almost like coming out of a closet sometimes (laughs). But it is beautiful, because it’s our soul getting the chance to shine out.

Laya:

That’s what we all long for, I guess.

Shai:

Yes – that is why we are here.

Laya:

Well, thank you so much, I just want to ask you if there is something we haven’t covered, that you want to share or tell us or add to our conversation?

Shai:

I think we have covered a lot.

Laya:

I think so, too.

Okay, and people here in Austria and Germany have a lot of possibilities to see you live in one of your seminars, we will give the link below the video, you will even be in Vienna in October, so we will put the link to this seminar also below the video. Well thank you so much, thanks again for sharing your wisdom with us.

Shai:

Thank you so much!

Big, wild love

Laya

PS: Kennst du schon den Persönlichkeits-Test „Was blockiert dich?“ Er hilft dir, herauszufinden, was dich blockiert, und wie du mithilfe der Psychologie der Chakras deine Blockaden lösen kannst!