Energy Relationships
Those whose awareness is bound to the earthly level frequencies know, as the real person, only the physical body. Others, who refine their self identification by attuning to finer frequencies, know of an undying consciousness. To know this is to know that we are immortal. But before we can reach the point of comprehending the immortality of our universal consciousness, it is essential that we understand the relationships between and among various hierarchical levels of energy. This understanding is not an intellectual process. It is a matter of letting our interior awareness travel along the lines of the diffuse patterns of energy so that we can actually perceive all their modes of power and its operation. The yogi does this. He sends his awareness on this incredible interior journey and returns to chart for others the maps of consciousness. There is no other way to comprehend what consciousness is, what roles it plays in running our personalities.
The yogi finds that the energies (of various levels of subtlety ranging from the low frequency, earthly solid manifestation to the very high frequency, almost undetectable mental waves) all interact with each other in many ways; he finds that the relationship between the denser and finer energies is that of interdependence. The denser ones affect the finer ones in a more immediate way, but the finer ones turn out to be the masters in the long run. Take, for example, our dense body. Its bad posture adversely affects the flow of breath, but when the will in our consciousness decides that the breath be made to flow perfectly, the body has to arrange itself in a posture that will facilitate the flow.
The relationship between the body and prana may be viewed similarly. A bad posture clogs the pathways of prana. But it is the experience of those who practice the subtler varieties of hatha yoga that once the blocks on the prana’s pathways have been removed through the practice of postures, the prana itself begins to give little surges into the organs so that the body rights itself inadvertently into correct postures. What is more, many practitioners of kundalini yoga report that as a result of their practices, an involuntary cleansing of internal systems takes place which affects the prana matrix and thereby influences the body.
The relationship between prana and mind energies is no different. An incidence of low prana may befog the mind for the time being. But again, the will of consciousness infuses the mind with a certain illumination, and then prana has no alternative but to obey the mind. Thus, through deep meditation, the mind can be used to intensify the strength of prana.
As we have hinted above, the key to the relationship between the various energies is the will that is inherent in consciousness. Will, however, should not be confused with the much used term, will power, which has become a word that almost connotates violence. Will power is an exertion of the lower mind. Will is simply an inherent quality of consciousness through which consciousness directs all its operations. These operations then affect our exterior environment and become our actions. One who cultivates self awareness observes and, through the will, consciously controls all the interior operations of mind, prana, and body.
The higher frequency energies contain within themselves all the power of the lower frequencies, but not vice versa (again, they are hierarchical in nature). By the same token, the mind can measure all the powers of the body and senses, but they in turn cannot measure much of the mind’s power. It is for this reason that some modern scientific instruments can measure physiological signs of a certain mental state but are powerless to measure the state itself. In other words, one may measure delta brain waves, but a depth gauge to measure the experience of sleep itself has not as yet been invented.
This leads us to some very interesting observations about the mental state of sleep. The body, of course, shows that one is asleep. The question then arises as to whether the signs seen in the body can tell us everything about the mental state of sleep. The answer, certainly, is “No.”
(to be continued)
Reprinted from Revision, Vol 3, No. 1, Spring 1980
