Ganesha: Image of a Divine Elephant
There is an unstudied phenomenon by modern science that, once its comes on the its radar will be one of those things that seems so obvious it’s a wonder there was no recognition of it before. This phenomenon is all around us, in fact it is fundamental to all existence; it is the life-force existing in all creation, what the yogis of India call prana.
In human beings we sense this life-force, or the lack of it in one another. Someone walks in a room and they are like a spark plug that raises the level of life-energy in everyone. Then again, there are those who are like blackholes of energy, draining energy from those around them. Creativity, making things happen, bringing in new ideas, awakening the feeling of God and the sacredness of life, all these are products of life-energy and everyone has some gift of this life-force to offer this world; some to a wider extent, others in a quieter way; and we can feel that power both in ourselves and in others.
In the same way we can sense this in people, so we perceive it in nature. There are places in the world that stirs life-energy—next to rushing water we are invigorated, or next to fetid, unmoving water we sense its deadness. Walking through some forests we feel the upright strength of the trees growing all around us, and in other places the sickly rot or burned out hulks of a forest that is past its prime. Even in a sickly area there are microbes and insects that feed off death and are preparing the forest for a rebirth, and on that level there is a great deal of life-energy at work even in its destruction.
Mystics and yogis have long recognized the role of life-energy, while physical scientists have largely been focused on the many avenues that life-energy works through, such as studying the sub-atomic and atomic worlds, molecules, microbes, insects, sap, photosynthesis, cellular functions, body organs, and interactions between life-forms. And while all these fields of studies are fascinating, there is an elephant in the room most do not see, and that is the life-energy that animates all the outward manifestations that can be seen under a microscope, a telescope or is what before our eyes. Those who have investigated the interiors of consciousness clearly see this elephant, and it is life-force.
Yogis have specialized for millennia in observation and conscious use of life-force prana. Master brought to the West a rational understanding of this force based on his own experience and drawing upon traditions explained to him by his great guru Sri Yukteswarji, who was in turn taught by Lahiri Mahasaya, who was in turn taught by Babaji. We learn that this life-force enters the body primarily through the base of the skull, from there it enters the brain and is distributed throughout the body by the spine and nervous system. These physical mechanisms are the conduits through which life-energy operates, but the underlying force and intelligence are not the conduits, but the prana itself.
In addition to the normal functions in man and in nature, prana plays an active role in the next evolutionary step in man: transforming the human to the Divine. In this area, yogis of India have made this a specialty. Master brought a refined technique called Kriya Yoga to the West. He writes: “By the special technique of Kriya Yoga, the ingoing breath of prana and the outgoing breath of apana are converted into cool and warm currents. In the beginning of the practice of Kriya Yoga, the devotee feels the cool prana current going up the spine and the warm apana current going down the spine…. When the Kriya Yogi learns to dissolve the ingoing and outgoing breath into a perception of the cool and warm currents going up and down the spine, he then feels his body as sustained by these inner currents of life force and not by their by-product of breath.”
This practice of Kriya Yoga awakens the practitioner to the reality that they are made up of this life-energy, and further, an even more refined understanding leads the practitioner to a subtler reality, all life-energy is Divine in nature, ringing out with qualities of bliss, peace, universal love and light. Fortunately, we do not need to wait for the snail-like pace of physical science to discover all of this. We can explore these frontiers today in the laboratories of our own experience. As a practitioner of this science, even now as I turn my attention within I am aware of the prana vitally vibrating throughout, and I experience that this body is not a physical being as much as a life-energy being—not defined by the physical limits, but it is vast in nature. Bliss fills this space, freedom, a knowingness that I am part of all, and all is part of me. It is a seamless transition that is like moving smoothly from a river to the river entering the ocean.
Now, you have been given a great gift, but you must fully employ the means given to you so freely. Make the most of this spiritual science for the realization of God and become living proof of what you have been taught. Know that you are truly made up of God-stuff, and then be a conduit through which the same power and intelligence that creates vast worlds is now fully operating in you. Help bring this world to its next evolutionary step and to discover its true underlying divinity–amazed that it somehow had been blind to this elephant in the room.