Energy Cycles and Working with the Elements
We depend on the functioning of our energies. Our channels alternate according to specific cycles. During each hour, one element in our body changes into another. The earth element operates for several minutes, followed by the activation of water prana; then fire prana, wind prana, and finally space prana become active. Thus, a human being is an integral energetic structure.
Ida and pingala alternate. If you check, you will find that at any given moment pingala is active, meaning that the right nostril is open and functioning. At another moment, ida is active and the left nostril is functioning. Accordingly, the cerebral hemispheres alternate. Your perception of the world, your state of mind, and your aptitude for certain activities change as well.
When pingala is active, you should do coarse things—active, dynamic, rajasic activities—because your karmic prana is moving along the right side of the body, and you will succeed at them. When the left nostril is open and ida is active, subtle prana associated with the subtle body and clarity is active. When the left side is active, you will succeed at certain things related to creativity and subtle clarity of mind. And when they are balanced, the element of space, the element of consciousness, will open up within you, enabling contemplation and contemplative presence.
Developing Sensitivity and Its Dangers
Yogis who practice contemplation are well versed in these secrets. They sense when earth is active, when water, fire, wind, or space is active in the body. They feel their body. For good meditation, it is not enough merely to know how to concentrate, meditate, and visualize; you must also feel your energetic body through the physical body. Our energetic body must become like a scanner.
But such sensitivity has a downside. If we develop sensitivity incorrectly, we become hypersensitive, which is very inconvenient. For example, if you sit down on a bench where someone full of lust has been sitting, your svadhisthana chakra becomes clogged, you feel a kind of viscous prana, and your apana vayu becomes obstructed. You feel very uncomfortable.
Or someone has an attachment, and you are sitting across from that person on the subway or bus; their attachment flows into your anahata chakra, and you feel awful and upset—the whole day is ruined. You performed your morning practice, did three hours of asanas, pranayama, and meditation, then sat across from that person for 15 minutes and left with a lump in your anahata chakra. Then you begin looking at people this way: they are clogging my channels; they have too many worldly desires. This is hypersensitivity.
If you eat food prepared in the kitchen by someone who was not in a very good mood, you may eat it and literally feel poisoned. Therefore, if a wife is cooking food for her husband, she should recite prayers rather than think about what kind of man he is and how he does not bring home his salary, because he will have to eat those thoughts, and once he does, his mood will deteriorate. His mood will then return to her. Our thoughts are transmitted.
There is a story about a sadhu who accepted food from a layperson and began having thoughts of stealing something or beating someone up. He went to his Guru and said: “I cannot control my mind at all. Where are these thoughts coming from? They are not characteristic of me.” The Guru replied: “You accept food from this householder, and he has such a mind. You cannot purify this food, and it affects you. Stop accepting food from him.”
Another man accepted food from a woman whose thoughts were not very pure, though she wanted to accumulate merit, and every time he accepted food from her, his thoughts became impure. This is an ancient story; it is not a story about our monks. These are classic textbook stories. His guru said: “The next time she gives you food—some muffins, perhaps, or pastries or cookies—accept it on the tip of a needle.” He accepted it on the tip of a needle, and fate never brought them together again.
Hypersensitivity means that your energetic body has become overly sensitive, causing you problems, and this needs to be resolved somehow. You do not need this kind of hypersensitivity. You should feel your body, and it should be obedient, but you should not be vulnerable. You should be strong enough to absorb other people’s karma and prana and dissolve them within yourself.
Svara Vidya: The Art of Identifying Active Elements
When we study the art of svara-vidya and tattva-vidya, we learn to sense the tattvas in our bodies. For example, if you want to determine which element is active within you, you need to take a small mirror and breathe onto it. Depending on the shape left on the mirror by your breath, you can tell which element is active in your body.
For example, if there are many dots, this indicates the space element. It means that this is an auspicious time for you to meditate, but not a very favorable time to conduct financial affairs or establish relationships with others. When the space element is active not in a person’s right channel or left channel, but in the sushumna, everything slips through their fingers. You know, there are people who cannot accomplish anything, no matter what task you give them. But they can meditate. This means that vairagya has arisen i
