A chakra can be understood as a confluence of energy, almost (crudely) like a traffic circle where different currents enter and exit. When we think about a chakra as something distinct with distinct borders that is different from the physical structures in its locality, this chakra is akin to a particle in physics.
Physicists envision matter has having wave-particle duality and complementarity, and field-particle duality and complementarity. This simply means that a bit of matter can be seen as a finite distinct thing with distinct boundaries (particle) or as a possibility, probability, or potential (wave, and ultimately field).
This envisioning happens as a result of First Mind (M1) superimposition: The identity a human being experiences as a distinct body/thing is cast onto the "world out there", creating the experience of finite-ness or thing-ness in consciousness.
Similarly, when we feel, see, experience, or think about a chakra as a distinct thing, we are emphasizing the First Mind, particulate view. By allowing attention to pool and settle within this experience, we see that the distinct experience of a chakra begins to relax, open, and delocalize, assuming more of wave-like experience.
The superimposition of First Mind distinctness is lessening, clearing. Eventually, as this experience continues to refine and alchemize, the wave becomes field-like and non-local, approaching the Second Mind (M2), akin to the unified field.
This process of traversing the particle-wave-field pathway (M1<––>M2), back and forth, is the process of alchemy, transformation, and integration, and it can happen at each of the chakras. The more finely, intimately, and bidirectionally the path is traveled, the more stagnant feelings, beliefs, and trauma–which define the boundary of the First Mind–are processed and released, heralding the dawn of love, vision, and understanding as integration. It is ultimately the wisdom of love and understanding that allow one to function through the world of matter and form in a relevant, helpful (to society) way.
If the movement from particle to wave and/or particle to field is abrupt and if the pathway is not continually revisited in the context of a lifetime, then versatility, relatability, and integration are exchanged for a relatively narrower version of transcending–the result of bypassing feeling and beliefs, and therefore also bypassing love, vision, and understanding. This is the difference between detaching from the individual in search of the whole vs. including much more than the individual in seeing the whole.
Thus, enlightening–in the context of our society–is perhaps not so much about transcending, but rather integrating transcending and materializing across all fine, relevant micro-ranges of experiences and applications.