It's All About Energy

When I was a schoolboy, I did a work experience placement with a physiotherapist. I enjoyed sport, and physiotherapy seemed like a good career choice. But when I arrived, I soon realised that this was no ordinary physiotherapists. Patients were as likely to be treated with acupuncture and herbal remedies than the usual resistance exercises and whilst I was there a couple of healers who had recently returned from India came to help.

The incident that stuck in my memory – and remained with me for the rest of my life – occurred when one of the patients began to feel ill, as though they were going to be sick. The healers asked if they could treat her. The man rubbed his hands together and placed them on the sick ladies back; he held his partners hand with his other hand. Within a few moments his partner was dashing off to the toilets to be sick, and the patient was feeling better.

I suppose, with retrospect, there are various possible explanations for what happened. Not least of all, the power of suggestion. But it could also have been the result of energy transference – the imbalance being transferred from the sick patient to the healer’s partner through their touch. After the female healer threw up both the healer and the patient were back in balance and feeling fine. That’s certainly how the healing couple explained it. But is there such a thing as “energy transfer”.

Well, the concept of energy and energy transference has been a part of tantra for centuries. Perhaps the most famous form of energy transference is known as Shaktipat, where energy is transferred from a guru or similar to awaken the kundalini energy that lies dormant in their disciple. This is usually done through touch, but it doesn’t have to be.

Whilst it’s easy to be cynical about such things, most of us have probably experienced butterflies in our stomach and when I was young, I was plagued by what I experienced as an electrical current in my forehead whenever I leant too close to someone. Perhaps unsurprisingly both the stomach (where we experience butterflies) and the forehead were recognised by ancient tantra practitioners as chakra centres (think of these as energy intersections) in the subtle body – that is, our energy bodies.

What we experience then is a connection of energy, like the joining of a circuit. Indeed, the tantric understanding of our subtle bodies is that we have a central conduit that joins us to the earth, through our root chakra, and the heavens, through the sahasrara chakra at the top of our heads, making us part of an infinite circuit of energy. There are even stories of adept tantric yogis leaving their physical bodies and travelling through this circuit as an energy body – sometimes even possessing another physical body.

Within Tantra this energy is called shakti and shakti itself can take many different forms, ranging from the physical to the transcendental through different levels of subtlety. An analogy that may help to visualise this energised existence is that of an onion: the onion consists of several layers, the outermost is like the manifest universe, it can be observed, measured and experienced through our senses. But beneath this physical layer lies several more subtle layers that are more difficult to experience and detect. Within this analogy, the onion would consist of everything in existence, the entire universe, but also, everything within the universe is its own individual onion – onions within onions; layers within layers. Everything then, is energy, and we practice tantra yoga to increase our awareness and experience of the energy that fills, surrounds and binds us.

But if it is possible to feel the energy inside us – as most of us have probably experienced at some point in our lives – and it is possible to increase our own awareness and experience of the energy within ourselves, which we can achieve through the practice of tantra yoga, is it also possible to experience energy transference? Are we able to balance our own energy levels? Are we able to plug ourselves into the energy circuit that connects heaven and earth?

I certainly believe so, and I believe that we are able to enhance this experience by consciously removing the barriers between us, by immersing ourselves in our natural environment and connecting to the earth – and its energy field – through our senses. This is the aim of eco-tantra. To be as natural in nature as you are comfortable, to connect to your body and your environment through conscious movement, conscious breathing and meditation. To go outdoors and practice tantra yoga. So why not give it a go; you might just find yourself healing along the way.