Energy Sensing & Awareness Technique

May 5th, 2007

Basic awareness and energy sensing are part of the foundation of nearly every mystic path. It is impossible to master any advanced techniques without first acquiring a certain degree of skill in the techniques that make up that foundation. Attempting to practice advanced techniques without developing a proper foundation is like attempting to run a marathon without first learning how to walk — you won't get very far.

To provide you with a solid foundation from which to work, I'll start by covering the basic topics of awareness and sensing energy and will work up to more complex techniques later.

In the beginning, people usually have the most luck using a combination of visualization and physical sensation, so this exercise will involve a bit of both.

The first thing to work on is sensing energy within the body. For the moment, the energy within your own body is the energy over which you have the most direct control. It is a good place to start because the energy will be very responsive to your efforts. Do not worry about moving the energy yet; for now, just work on sensing it.

I do not consider the body a "pipe" or "shell" with energy flowing through it. Instead, I think of it as if the body is entirely made of energy in various forms and stages of transformation. Thinking of the body as a pipe or shell through which the energy flows tends to give the impression the body is somehow separate from the energy, when instead the energy is a basic component in the makeup of our body.

You are not a container for energy, you are energy. We do not have only specific pathways with energy running through them along certain locations in our body; we have an entire body made of energy. We have pathways where the energy is far more concentrated (an aspect which leads to the Chinese meridian concept) and we have areas of heightened energetic activity (an aspect which leads to the chakra concept), but it is important to remember the rest of the body is also energy. This detail will become even more important later when we progress to more advanced techniques. Keeping it in mind now will make things much easier once you begin exploring how the energy moves, shifts, alters, and interacts.

It is easiest if you begin this exercise lying on the floor or on the bed, wherever you can stretch out. If it is feasible, turn off the ringer on your phone, close the door, and dim the lights. I recommend starting with a few minutes of slow, relaxed breathing. It allows your energy to settle into a relatively consistent pattern.

Once you feel comfortable and relaxed, shift your awareness to a specific part of your body. Start with something like your little finger or your thumb (it doesn't matter which hand). Do not just think about your finger, do not just try to picture it or look at it, do not just ponder the usefulness of opposable thumbs; instead, focus every ounce of your awareness on that part of your body.

Start by feeling how the air moves against it, and then quietly observe any other physical sensations. Immerse yourself completely in experiencing that one single part of your body. Do this until your awareness of the rest of your body fades into the background. Forget you have a head. Forget you have lungs that are breathing air in and out. Forget about your feet and your eyes and your legs and the laundry and the mortgage and the guy at the office who steals credit for all your work and instead just pour your entire awareness into that part of your body.

For the moment, pretend your entire existence rests within this one part of your body. The important part of this exercise is to let the rest of the world fade from your awareness for a while. This will allow you to observe the energy specifically within the area of your focus, without anything else interfering with your observations. (This is also good practice for later techniques that require extensive focus.)

At first, it might be difficult to focus your awareness this way. We tend to think of our awareness as part of our brain, located right behind our eyes, so it can be difficult to fully shift our awareness and focus it elsewhere. Keep at it. With a basic awareness exercise like this, there is really no wrong way to do it. Even if you don't feel like you're doing things the "right way," you are.

Try this technique with different parts of your body. Observe how the response in one part of your body may be different from the response in another part. For example, compare the sensations you observe when focusing on your knee with the sensations you observe when focusing on your chest. Try to note all the differences.

Eventually, you will begin to feel things you didn't feel prior to shifting your awareness there. It will start with physical sensations. You might notice a change in temperature or a slight shift in pressure in that area. You may notice a prickling or a tingling sensation or even a tickling feeling. People also often report feeling as if their finger/thumb is swollen or somehow expanded beyond the confines of the skin. When I first began my own studies, I sensed energy as a "magnetic" feeling, a pressure pushing outward or tugging inward.

It is important not to become too caught up in the physical sensations, and especially to avoid getting caught up in them to the point where you focus on trying to achieve physical sensations rather than focusing on openly and quietly observing as other sensations occur. With a bit of practice, you will go beyond the initial physical sensations. You will notice the energy itself, not just the physical sensations caused by the energy's activity. The temperature changes, pressure changes, prickling, tickling, expanding, and tingling are only observable effects. The activity of the energy is the underlying cause of those effects, and that is what you ultimately need to be concerned with.

As you practice, you'll begin to grow accustomed to those effects, and your awareness gradually will begin to seek the cause. You will notice yourself tuning in to how the energy vibrates and shifts, and if you practice this faithfully for a few minutes each day for a few weeks, there will come a day when you suddenly realize you are no longer just sensing the energy but are instead noticing the energy moving, and then not just noticing it moving but noticing how it moves, observing it interacting with other areas of your mind and body, and observing it interacting with external things.

I can't stress enough how important it is for beginners to practice this exercise every day. It only takes a few minutes per day, but devoting a few minutes per day in the beginning can pay off in huge dividends later. The reason for practicing every day is primarily because it will help you notice new things more quickly. If you only practice every once in a while, then you will constantly be fumbling to get an idea of just the basic physical sensations, and each time you practice, it will have been so long since the last time you practiced that a sensation that is not necessarily new will seem new just because it has been a while since you've experienced it.

If you practice every day, the consistency in experiences will allow you to create a baseline to which each subsequent day's experiences can be compared.

It is very important to work on these initial concepts until you're comfortable with them. These concepts for manipulating energy are the foundation for so many other things. Without these basics, you can't really gain a firm grasp of anything more advanced.