by Donna Quesada: This article—the seventh in my series on Kundalini Yoga’s 10 Bodies
—focuses on the “Seventh Body of Light,” which is The Auric Field.
According to the teachings of Kundalini Yoga, the Self is not just a body, but rather, 10 Bodies, which include the actual physical body, six energetic bodies, and three mental bodies. The Auric Field, or “The Aura” is one of the energetic, or pranic bodies.
Altogether, the 10 Bodies are different aspects of our consciousness, all of which work together to cultivate our character, our state of being, the way we see the world, and even our destiny… including the events we usually attribute to “good fortune.”
The Aura, like the Arcline, which was discussed in the previous article in this series, is one of the more subtle and mysterious of the energetic bodies. This is also one of the more intriguing of the pranic bodies, due to how much has been written about it during the last century… from the development of auric photography, to the growing interest in the aura’s capacity to provide insight about our overall state of health.
This body, The Aura, is our electromagnetic field of energy that surrounds our actual physical body. Although discussing the aura strikes some as rather “new-agey,” this is one of the pranic bodies that has been explored scientifically from different points of interest, for well over 100 years, under scientists in Russia and Germany. And today, our understanding of The Aura continues to advance, under the leadership of researchers like Eileen Day McKusick who has advanced our understanding of what she calls our “Biofield” and its tendency to hold trauma, and by extension, disease.
The Aura is not such a stretch of the imagination when you consider the basic premise of Ampere’s law, which says that wherever there is electrical current, there is also a magnetic field. The cells in the human body contain different ions like chlorine ion, potassium ion, and sodium ion, all of which possess the tendency to conduct electricity. This makes the body a good conductor of electricity. It is said that at rest, the human body generates an average of 100 watts of output, while during heavier activity, that number reaches 300 to 400 watts, So, with this understood, our auric field is the natural electromagnetic extension of our electric bodies!
Nonetheless, in the western world, we tend to approach subjects in a dualistic way… In this case, we continue to assume a division between “metaphysics” and “physics.”
But dualistic distinctions eventually tend to break down, as we come to better understand the unity behind all phenomena. Take for example, the division that is often assumed between mind and body… Where is the mind? Where do we make decisions? What is thinking? And what is knowledge? Sometimes we feel it in our gut. Does that mean that our mind is in our gut? Actually, one of my own spiritual teachers says that we actually have three brains, the head brain, the gut brain, and the heart brain.
I believe part of the problem is that we sometimes have a hard time with things that we can’t see. Even though we use electric energy in our house every day… and we don’t see it.
Although Russian scientists began experimenting with photography meant to capture the auric field in the 1930s, it was Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s discovery of the X-ray in 1895 that proved to be the fuel for these sorts of advances in what would become auric photography.
With the right equipment, the invisible could be made visible! It then became observable “science,” and thus could be taken more seriously.
In 1939, Semyon and Valentina Kirlian, a Russian electrical engineer and his biologist wife, discovered coronal discharge photography and dubbed it “Kirlian photography”—a method of photographing by means of high-frequency currents. After continuing to experiment upon themselves, the Kirlians achieved the first results which showed that Kirlian photography could provide an index of a person’s physical health. The electromagnetic discharge would come to be referred to as the “Aura.”
By recognizing the importance of this electromagnetic field in both mirroring our state of being and our overall health, as well as shielding us from external assaults, science was now saying what Yogis had been saying for millennia.
According to Yogic teachings, The Auric Body is the energy field around our body. It can extend to between 3-9 feet around the body and works as our protective shield. It’s the energetic body that gives out a kind of reading of who we are.
To get deeper into the Yogic perspective on how the Aura works to protect us, it not only safeguards our physical health, but also boosts our mental fortitude. For example, when we’re feeling insecure or fearful, Yogic science would consider that to be a sign of a weak aura.
It makes sense to think of the aura as an indication of a strong immune system, as well as a strong emotional system, since… to put it in terms of eastern science, The Aura is created by the flow of prana (life force) through our energy meridians. And strong prana increases this flow and by extension, builds up the aura field.
In this way, we can see that our aura plays a big role in the maintenance of our health, both emotionally and physically.
To strengthen The Aura, Kundalini Yoga recommends all breathing exercises, especially the more vigorous styles of pranayam, such as Breath of Fire.
