In dealing with all the chakras I would try to give a brief as it is in the texts and then I would be giving you a simplified version so that the post can address a wider audience. The first Chakra or Muladhara is positioned close to anus, at the perineum, and it has four petals which match the vrittis of greatest joy, natural pleasure, delight in controlling passion, and blissfulness in concentration.
In Samkhya philosophy, the concept of Muladhara is that of moola prakriti, the metaphysical basis of material existence. Muladhara is the chakra that draws down spritual energy and causes it to assume a physical existence. It is like the negative pole in an electrical circuit, which provides the potential for the evolution of form.
Within this chakra resides sleeps the kundalini shakti, the great spiritual potential, waiting to be aroused and brought back up to the source from which it originated, Brahman.
Muladhara is the base from which the 3 main psychic channels, nadis, ida, pingala and sushumna, emerge.It is related to the physical processes of reproduction and excretion, and also to the various fear and guilt complexes associated with them. All a person's Samskaras ( potential karma ), are expressed here, in a physical form.
This chakra is associated with the deities Indra, Brahma and Dakini, the element Earth and the color red.
The energy that was unleashed in creation, called the Kundalini, lies coiled and sleeping, and it is the purpose of a tantric yogi( please do not entertain misconceptions that Tantra means sex because it does not, it literally means 'To Connect') to arouse this energy, and cause it to rise back up through the increasingly subtler chakras, until union with god is achieved in the Sahasrara chakra at the crown of the head. Sahasrara is positioned above the head or at the top of it and it has 1000 petals which are arranged in 20 layers each of them with 50 petals. Often referred as thousand-petaled lotus, it is said to be the most subtle chakra in the system, relating to pure consciousness, and it is from this chakra that all the other chakras emanate. When a yogi is able to raise his or her kundalini, energy of consciousness, up to this point, the state of samadhi, or union with god, is experienced. The earliest known mention of chakras is found in the later Upanishads, including specifically the Brahma Upanishad and the Yogatattva Upanishad. These vedic models were adapted in Tibetan Buddhism as Vajrayana theory, and in the Tantric Shakta theory of chakras. It is the shakta theory of 7 main chakras that most people in the West adhere to, either knowingly or unknowingly, largely thanks to a translation of two indian texts, the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana, and the Padaka-Pancaka, by Sir John Woodroffe, alias Arthur Avalon, in a book entitled The Serpent Power.
Now, the easiest way that I have found to balance and charge chakras is to think about it as if you were cleaning off a greasy marble.
Let's start with the first Chakra you should always start with, the "Root Chakra"
The corresponding color is Ruby Red. The chakra is located at the base of your spine where your "tail bone" is. The Root Chakra is in control of things like "the fight or flight" reaction, our inner feeling of safety and serenity. When it is out of balance, you will find that you are generally restless, anxious, worried, afraid, or feel generally unsafe. It can also manifest into physical things like extra weight around your thighs or stomach.
Now, close your eyes and picture your Root Chakra. It's not complex, just picture a Red Chakra at the base of your spine near your rear.
It should be fairly small and clear rudy red, it should also be spinning clockwise. If it seems dark, muddy, cloudy, darker red, black or anything other than Rudy Red and clear, then it needs to be cleaning.
Whether it seems fully clear rudy red or not, take the time to wipe it clean. Just imagine that it's a marble that you can pull out and rub clean, like your wiping some dust or old grease off of a marble. Or you can picture drenching it in water to cleanse it. The important part is not in how your visualize that it is done, so long as you 'feel' that it is cleaner. Remember not to worry so much if you can't quiet 'see' it in your inner eye, this will come with practice if you can't naturally see it. Just knowing you are doing it is enough in most cases and it is common to not be able to see it when it is out of balance.
Now, try to notice if you can tell what direction it is spinning, or how quickly. A balanced and charged chakra should be spinning clockwise without wobbling and should spin pretty fast.
for simplicities sake, lets say your not sure how fast it's spinning or in what direction. Mentally make the chakra stop spinning. This won't hurt during this time, so don't fear doing it. Just stop it from spinning all together and then turn it clockwise. Don't worry to much about whether your going the right way or not, your mind naturally knows which way it clockwise and you will notice if it's not going the right way by the way it feels.
Once you have it going clockwise, imagine that you take a finger and spin it around as you would a marble on a table. Or for another image, think about what a pinwheel does when you blow on it. Or one of those little hand held electric fans. It spins and keeps going and going without much effort on your part. This is called "charging" your chakras. Once you have cleaned, balanced and charged your chakras, it is most common to "see" the color of that chakra flash before your closed eyes, or you might feel a connected happy emotion that corresponds to that chakra. Don't worry if it doesn't happen right away, it will with practice.
Then you are done with that chakra!
