Meditation on the chakras is a contemplative practice from the yogic and tantric traditions of India, which map a subtle body of channels (nadis) and centres (chakras, wheels) superimposed on the physical one. The best-known scheme, systematised in medieval tantric and hatha-yoga texts, arranges seven principal centres along the spine from the base to the crown, each associated with an element, a seed sound, a lotus of a given number of petals, and a deity.
In practice the meditator concentrates on these centres in turn, often coordinating breath, visualisation and mantra, with the aim in many systems of awakening the coiled energy called kundalini at the base and raising it to the crown, where its union with the divine is experienced as liberation. The specific correspondences vary between texts and lineages, and the familiar seven-chakra, rainbow-coloured model widespread in the modern West owes much to twentieth-century interpreters who adapted the Indian sources.