Yoga for the third eye chakra in Kathmandu
Sharpen focus and trust your intuition.
Third eye classes are built around Ajna, the sixth chakra, placed in this framework between the eyebrows and traditionally seen as the seat of the mind rather than any element. They lean on balance, gaze and quiet attention, with longer stretches of meditation.
No classes scheduled in the next two weeks.
What Third eye does for you
You practice holding your attention in one place: in a balance pose, on a candle flame, on your breath. The effect people often describe is a clearer, quieter head and a sharper sense of what they actually think. Resting your forehead on a block in child's pose is a small pleasure in itself. It suits you if you want the inward side of yoga without a full silent meditation class.
It suits you if
- your thoughts scatter and you want to practice focus
- you like balance poses
- you are curious about meditation but want movement first
- you have a decision to make and want space to think
Read the full guide to Third eyeWhat a class is like, your first time, history and the words you will hear
What a class is like
Classes run 60 to 90 minutes and are mostly slow. Expect balance poses like tree, eagle and warrior three, forward folds and child's pose with the forehead on a block, then alternate nostril breathing and a seated meditation. Some include trataka, steady gazing at a candle flame, or visualizations of indigo light, and many chant 'om'. You will barely sweat, and there can be long silences.
Your first time
- Wear layers, since slow classes with seated meditation can get cool.
- Arrive early enough to settle, because late arrivals are noticeable in quiet classes.
- Grab a cushion or folded blanket to sit on for the meditation.
Good to know
- Expect longer silent stretches and guided visualization, which some people love and others find restless.
- Candle gazing can be uncomfortable with contact lenses or sensitive eyes; closing your eyes and picturing the flame works too.
Where it comes from
Ajna means 'command' or 'perception'. In the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana, written by the tantric Purnananda in 1577, it is a white lotus of just two petals between the eyebrows, the seat of the mind (manas), placed beyond the five elements of the lower chakras, with 'om' as its syllable. One traditional reading of the name is that this is where the guru's command is received.
The English name 'third eye' borrows from wider Hindu imagery, above all Shiva's third eye of insight, and from the tilaka mark many people wear between the brows. The popular link between Ajna and the pineal gland is modern: it grew out of 19th century Theosophy and later Western writing, and it is not in the tantric texts, which treat the lotuses as images for meditation and do not agree on a single number of centers.
Arthur Avalon, the pen name of Sir John Woodroffe, put the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana into English in The Serpent Power (1919), and the Theosophist Charles Leadbeater published The Chakras in 1927. The indigo color and the themes of intuition, imagination and insight belong to the modern Western system, built up through the 20th century by color therapists, Carl Jung's circle, the human potential movement and the New Age movement, and consolidated in Anodea Judith's Wheels of Life (1987). Which gland goes with which upper chakra varies from writer to writer.
In Berlin you find third eye themes in candlelit evening classes, meditation-leaning yoga and the later weeks of chakra series.
Words you will hear
- Ajna
- Sanskrit for 'command' or 'perception', the name of the sixth chakra between the eyebrows.
- Om
- The sacred syllable, chanted as the seed sound for this chakra and at the start or end of many classes.
- Drishti
- A fixed gaze point that helps you hold balance and attention.
- Trataka
- Steady gazing at a single point, often a candle flame, as a concentration practice.
- Nadi shodhana
- Alternate nostril breathing, closing one nostril at a time with your fingers.
- Balasana
- Child's pose: kneeling and folding forward with your forehead down.