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Prana: Looking at Divine Energy
Our spiritual traditions have always known about it, and worked with it. Our scripture is full of stories about it. Eastern medicine is built on it, too. Western medicine is now beginning to look at it. The Hindus call it prana. It is beyond defining, really, but we might call it the life force. It is the creating and sustaining energy that supports the world. Western scientists might refer to it as biofields, biologists as morphic fields. Some Native American traditions call it ni, and some African shamans use the word num. Chinese medicine calls it ch’i. And in the Christian tradition, I think this Mystery that has so many names is what we call the Holy Spirit. Jesus understood the power of this energy. The stories of his life are full of healings and miracles. There are similar stories in Jewish scriptures and in the Hindu tradition and other spiritual literature. These are stories about healing and the power of God, and they are also stories about energy. In the human body, there are multiple, interrelated energy fields. We are coming to understand that health depends on that energy flowing freely and abundantly throughout the body. Energy medicines like acupuncture and homeopathy and energy practices like tai ch’i and meditation work out of this understanding. When prana (the life force) flows freely, we are healthy, and probably spiritually connected. When that energy flow gets stuck, we have problems in our life, emotional, spiritual, or physical. When the energy is healthy and abundant, we feel good and we are in tune with the Holy. When that energy is depleted, or when it is unhealthy energy, we get sick or depressed or powerless. In similar ways, energy impacts communities and the planet. When prana is strong, or when it increases suddenly, there are some signs that clue us in to that: a burst of aliveness, goosebumps, the lifting of tensions, clarity, feeling safe and relaxed, optimism, feeling light or free, calm, inner peace, more vigor and vitality. When our life force is depleted, or when our energy is negative or stuck, our mind and body informs us of that, too: we feel fatigued, unsafe, small and constricted, edgy, shut down, bored, out of touch with our body, scattered. We know that some things increase prana, and some diminish it. If you click on “Practicing the Faith” you will find a long, fascinating—often surprising—list of things that increase prana (like water, sun, prayer, old healthy trees) or decrease prana (television, shopping malls, clutter, complaining). This is information you can use right now to deepen your connection to the Holy, to others , and to your true self. It is important to come at this with humility. It’s not fair to make energy information an easy excuse to be more self-centered than we already are: oh, I left my partner because he drained my prana; couldn’t have that, you know, not healthy. Life is full of things that drain our prana, and if we are so concerned about it, we might well start ridding ourselves of tv or shopping malls or our string of unfulfilled commitments before we use this as a convenient excuse to be judge someone. There are simple ways to protect yourself from others’ negative energy, to cleanse and increase your prana (click on “Publications” and look at Resources). It is not ok to use our little bit of knowledge about energy to feed our self-serving ego at another’s expense. Historically it was the religious institutions and the holy people who were the holder of this knowledge. They knew the importance of being connected to God, having the Spirit, the life force, flowing freely. The church (and similar bodies in other faith traditions) knew how to increase that life force in us, how to teach us what we needed to know to keep our life force strong and to renew it when necessary. The church knew that there are things that will deplete our life force, opening us to illness and to depression or unhappiness. The church knew how to protect us from negative energy, and, when necessary, how to cleanse us of it. It knew how to teach us to do that for ourselves. And yet, for whatever reasons, the church forgot it knew all this. Practices and symbols were handed on to us that seemed anemic; no one showed us their power or their reason for being. We became so head-centered that we dismissed energy (and God) as illusions we have outgrown. The church forgot how to teach us what we need to know to live in harmony (with God, with one another, with our bodies and the rest of creation). Pretty soon the church forgot it even held these treasures. The church abdicated its role as spiritual power. But the wisdom is still there. It’s even still there in our religious traditions, although that is often a well-kept secret. I invite you to think about this, to try the practice I suggest in “Practicing the Faith” and see if this way of looking at the world doesn’t revitalize your faith or your spiritual practices, and perhaps offer you a more expansive model of God. Jesus stilled the storm. He healed the hemorrhaging woman. He brought Jairus’ daughter back to life. What if those stories are telling us something about how the universe works? Something Jesus knew, but we think we don’t? Pay some attention to your prana, to ch’i, to the movement of the Holy Spirit within and around you. Just see what you observe. God is pouring prana, God’s own life force, into the world. It is not in short supply. Open yourself to as much as you can hold.
©2007 Janice Jean Springer
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