By Ashwini Guruji of Dhyan Ashram
The physical body you see in the mirror is only 1/5th of you… there is more to your body than meets the naked eye.
Just like everything in Creation exists in layers, the trees, the earth, the atmosphere, and an onion, similarly our body is composed of layers. As of now, we will focus on the layer that immediately surrounds our physical body, the etheric layer, also known as the Aura and Pranamaya Kosha. This layer controls the physical body, and it is through this layer that clairvoyance assesses the state your body is in.
Our body is run on prana – the life force that runs us and the entire Creation, without which we and everything else ceases to exist. But what is prana?
Let’s understand this with a small experiment
1. Sit down in a comfortable position with your eyes closed.
2. Rub your hands together and raise them in front of you at the level of your navel with palms facing each other. Relax your complete body including your palms. Because what we are going to discuss is something very subtle.
3. Take your awareness to the center of your palms and keeping your awareness there take your hands apart and slowly bring your palms closer to each other. Be aware of any sensation that you may experience in the middle of your palms.
4. Bring your palms close but not so close that they touch each other. Take them apart and repeat the process a few times. Make mental notes of all sensations that you experience at the center of your palms.
Now slowly open your eyes. Some of you would have experienced something. Write to me about what you feel.
For now, let me tell you this, what you did experience, is your own self, the way we exist beyond the physical body. This is Prana.
We all would have seen photographs of evolved beings with a golden aura around their head and a gentle white layer just about their physical body. This is the Pranamaya Kosha, the layer, which you just now experienced.
At Dhyan Ashram, there are sadhaks who have been given the siddhis of Spiritual Healing, where they can access the etheric layer with the aid of their consciousness and effectuate changes in the physical body. But these are advanced practices that are given only once the body is brought into a state of balance through regular practice of the kriya, and service and charity.
*) Ashwini Guruji is the Guiding Light of the Dhyan Foundation and an authority on the Vedic sciences. His book, 'Sanatan Kriya, The Ageless Dimension' is an acclaimed thesis on anti-ageing.