 The Subtle Body
This information comes from Kundalini Tantra by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, there is a lot more stuff in the book, and to get it right I�d have to rewrite most of it, but this is some, mainly dealing with the objective existence of a subtle body in man, things like the nadis (energy channels) and the charkas (points of concentrated energy along these channels) all probably known to most of you, the yogis identified these things at what is commonly thought to be about 5000 years ago, they gave this energy the name prana (vital force, ref. To Start Wars might help) and came to their conclusions by analysing themselves, the energy that resides in the body, and manipulating this to bring about even higher states of awareness, while this particular vein of research, a mutant off spring of neurophysiology/psychology, is still very much in a infantile state, but it seems at this stage that much, almost everything that can be verified so far, of what the Yogic Doctrines teach has a real basis, for eg. Dr. Leonard Ravitz, a Yale Neuropsychiatrist, has found that there is a bioelectric force field, measured at 12ft. around the human body, which interpenetrates and is interdependent upon the physical structure of the human body, and actually motivates it to function, this is called the vital body/cover (I think) in the yogic tradition, they identify 5 different bodies.
A similar thing was found by Russian Scientists when doing research on a psychic named Negla Mikhailova, she was able to move objects with out touching them, and they of course found no way to explain this, but what they did find was during this time tremendous vibrations passed through her body, her brain waves, pulse and heart beat, all beat in union, and all this was synchronised with a force field that pulsed in the direction of her gaze, after she finished doing these tests she was completely exhausted, there was almost no pulse, at one time she lost 4 pounds in half an hour, the EEG reading showed an intense emotional state, she had high blood sugar and her endocrine system was disturbed, her whole organism was as if she had suffered from a tremendous emotional shock.
Another experiment that shows that this body can be manipulated by the mind, and actually effect the surrounding environment was preformed using an onion, an experienced yoga practitioner sat for a while doing a specific Prajnayama, breathing exercise, then went and sat about 2 ft. away from the experimental plant, with his feet and hands fixed in position, the cell division of the plant and therefore the metabolic energy increased 108% to the power of 5, which is pretty amazing, they then got a control subject to sit near the plant, who did no Pranayama, no effect at all was seen.
In other experiments to do predominately with the charkas, Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama developed his own equipment that was designed to measure the electrical currents in the body, one such device measures the flat rate of the body, and any jump or influx of electricity, he put electrodes on acupuncture points up the left arm, and down the centre of the torso, one of the major Nadis in the Body, and another electrode on the right palm, not supposed to be directly connected through these channels, but obviously connected through physical nerves, he stimulated bodies with a painful 20 volt shock under the finger tips of the left had, (another acupuncture point) this shock registered all over the body, including the right palm, with in milliseconds, then he gave a very mild, sensationless shock trough the finger tips, of course the subject felt nothing, but the electrodes showed that this shock traveled up the channel in the left arm, and down the middle of the body, terminating at the navel, which is not explainable in modern neurology because there is nothing here to catch or process this type of information, nothing at all registered in the right palm, which sould be expected as with the 20vlt, but whats surprising is that this shock was recorded at the navel in between 2 and 3 seconds after the shock was administered, Similar experiments by Dr. Nagahama, substantiate this, and also show that these channels, operate at a speed hundreds of time slower than physical nerve conduction, and along pathways Western Science knows nothing of, the only reference being that of the Yogic Nadis and similar concepts, Buddhist, accupunture etc.
Dr Motoyama, also developed a lead shielded, light proof both, rather like a telephone both, in order to detect the electromagnetics of the human body, it�s reaction in the body and the surrounding environment in the form of electric, magnetic and optical changes, they positioned coper electrodes and photo electric cells at the top and bottom of the both, in front of the body in the excepted area of the major charkas and on a panel that was able to maynover to focus on any part of the body, along with this they monitored respiration, the autonominious nervous system, changes in blood flow, Heart rate and subtle vibrations in the skin, and also postitioned a button that the subjects could press if they started to have any profound internal experiences
What they found was that when testing control subjects there was no change in relation to the bodies normal energy flow in the chakra points, people who had little training in activating they're showed a definite but small rise in the amount of energy in these particular areas, but were unable to properly control this energy, but people experienced with the use of they�re charkas were able to easily control the energy in these areas, but also a greater influx was seen
One that subject that gave really strange results was a lady who was told to focus on her Anahata (Heart) Chakra, while she did this she pressed the button to show she was having a subjective experience, where this mark appears on the chart the photo electric cell in front of this chakra recorded a weak amount of light emanating from it, while the electrode registered energy of high potential and frequency coming from the same area, it�s been a common story that when a person reaches enlightenment they�re bodies can sometimes light a dark room, and we�ve all see the pictures of the saints and there halos, where did this idea come from?
I found a book a while ago about Swami Rama Tirtha, I was really struck by this guy, it contained his letters, poetry, biography and lectures, I was really, really impressed, he seemed very different from most other Swamis, but later on I stumbled this accidentally, which left me a little shocked at the time, the thrid pic I down
http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/Rama.html
[This message has been edited by evolove (edited 09-27-2002).]
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The Subtle Body
2002-09-24, 11:23
