Why Do We Have Energy? Where Does it Come From? Subtle Energy from a Yoga Perspective.
Yoga teachings can help people re-build philosophical and practical foundations that inspire a desire to engage in the simple techniques of healing and evolution.
Contents
Why Context Matters
Why Do We Have Energy? Where Does it Come From?
Subtle Energy, The Energy Body, Subtle Body
Making it Practical
Resources
Why Context Matters
The philosophical and practical underpinning of yoga is comprehensive. While it’s so vast as to be greater than most people could explore in a lifetime, it forms the foundation upon which effective tools are based. And that’s the point. The foundation is why the evidence-based techniques work.
While the complex designs behind how life is created and expresses itself on the level of consciousness, energy, and Spirit is great and beautiful beyond words, effective practices on a human level demonstrate a simplicity that reflects a divine design that can be difficult for the modern human mind to comprehend.
We’ve been mis-educated and mis-directed our whole lives. We’ve been taught a convoluted mish-mash of unnatural ways of leading life — ways that benefit corporations, tax collectors, and power holders more than us, our families, communities, and the Earth. The systems that teach, govern and influence humans today don’t teach how to regulate the nervous system, heal trauma, seek direct connection with inner wisdom, nourish the body, mind, and soul, steward the infinite blessings of our soils, water and air, and so on.
Therefore, in order for a human today to commit to the simple truths of healing and thriving, they usually need to build a new foundation, to understand the context for why breath-centered movement or daily meditation or balancing muscular strength and flexibility can change seemingly intractable problems in their life. For example, while I enjoy walking and being in the sun, only after extensive study of evidence-based outcomes and what’s happening in the body’s physiology and mind did I commit to routinely incorporating these simple techniques.
Why Do We Have Energy? Where Does it Come From?
Like any of the ancient wisdom texts that cultures have preserved and rediscovered, the philosophy upon which yoga relies begins at the beginning.
To understand why breathing practices are life-changing for example, we can begin with the source of energy.
In yoga philosophy, prana emerged from the stillness of aether and is the source of manifestation.
We might call this the relationship between The Field and The Force.
Aether is The Field that connects and permeates all things.
Prana is The Force, the movement of energy through The Field.
Notably, some definitions for consciousness are quite similar to that of aether. For example, experts have found consciousness to be:
The Intelligence of the universe
A “primary principle of existence” and “universal phenomenon”
“A fabric of the universe that pervades all sentient (and perhaps non-sentient) beings”
“The eternal driving force for all that exists, that manifests itself through physical form in order to experience”
An “ultimate nothingness that exists before anything is created, appears to come into existence, and is perceived”
We might presume, then, that aether (the field everything bathes in) is made of — or arises from — consciousness.
At the beginning of a cycle, prana sleeps in the infinite ocean of akasha. This ocean exists motionless in the beginning. Then arises motion of the akasha by the action of prana; and as this prana begins to move, to vibrate, out of this ocean come the various celestial systems – suns, moon, stars – the earth, human beings, animals, plants, and the manifestations of all the various forces and phenomena. Every manifestation of energy, therefore, according to the Hindus, is prana. Every manifestation of matter is akasha.
Subtle Energy, The Energy Body, Subtle Body
Subtle energy is another name for energy generally, and for the nonphysical force that underlies existence and animates organisms.
Subtle energy is simply energy that cannot be accurately measured using current [establishment] scientific methods. It is not supernatural, paranormal, or scary — it is just energy.
Cyndi Dale, The Subtle Body 2009 link
The energy body is another name for pranamaya kosha and is synonymous with biofield, defined here as a field that surrounds and permeates living bodies.
The phrase “subtle body” may be used as another way to describe the energy body, pranamaya kosha or biofield. Or, it may be used to refer to the inner body generally, including thoughts, feelings, sensations and the body’s physiology, for example. In this use, the intention is typically to guide students to “shift focus from an outward performance of a pose to an inward exploration… observing sensation in the body: the movement of the fascia and pulsation of blood moving through the veins.” (Tias Little quoted in article by Ryan Peacock)
Cyndi Dale notes that “we can tell energies exist because they produce an effect” but because they are unseen and immeasurable by certain Western sciences, the word “subtle” is often used.
While subtle energy may not often be measured by modern scientists, it seems more of a choice by establishment powers than a technology limitation, since there have been many reports over the past hundred years of measuring tools such as:
The “biofield equipment” used for the pictures here.
Kirlian photography as explained here.
Devices used by Wilhelm Reich to measure orgone (another word for energy and prana), as shown here.
Cameras that read energy fields using “Electro Photon Imaging” such as the Bio-Well camera shown here.
Subtle Space is the Plane of Information
Emerging from and enveloping gross space is subtle space, housing the emotional, mental, and intuitive self-streams. Subtle space is the plane of information, the realm of dreams, and the initiation landscape of spiritual contemplation, opening the first doors into our awareness of the subtle energies, which have been referred to in various traditions as etheric, astral, psychic, and so on. Subtle connotes that, here, information and substance are finer and less dense than simply what our physical eyes can see. Beyond the subtle, there exists causal space. In sacred texts, expressions such as Ground of Being, Void, and Emptiness have been used to identify its nature. In the mystical understanding, this quality of emptiness is not seen purely as a null space but rather as a formless void containing all potentials, all possibilities.
Thomas Hübl & Julie Jordan Avritt, Healing Collective Trauma 2020 link
Making it Practical
The point in sharing such teachings as those above is to help re-direct indoctrinated minds to reconnecting with the real questions of how Life works in order to align with the Laws of Nature for healing, beauty, evolution, creation and service.
An entire life can go by with a person immersed in ideas and screens that inform them that a person is an unimpressive, flawed body made of chemicals to manipulate and a mind that is simply a vault to be filled with facts supplied by government educators and corporate influencers.
By focusing instead on the realities that ancient wisdom traditions kept alive for us, a person can do a breathing practice or sit down to meditate with context that will likely at some point take root and serve as a new foundation, from which their potential is boundless.
I totally agree with that our education system should teach us how to regulate our nervous system, listen inwards, develop pur heart capasities, not only our brain capasity. That´s why we have made our new book "Keys to a better life- yoga for youngsters" with a foreword by HH Dalai Lama, co authors being professor in psychology Ingunn Hagen and world famous author, psychologist and chakra specialist Anodea Judith. The book is currently only in norwegian- but our literary agency are working to get it published around the world. So happy you are spreading your knowledge of these life tools!