PODCAST TWO
EXERCISES SIX TO THIRTEEN
Subtle body awareness: experiencing the astral body
Following this short talk will be some exercises to experience the astral body, for which you will need a willing and like-minded partner.
The astral body is the energy body through which we experience thoughts and emotions. It’s the sense through which we know what someone else is feeling, even if there is no visible indication in their body language, or they have not told us what they are feeling. We might walk into a room and sense there has been some angry interchange between the people there, who are now silent. We might feel sadness or grief in an empty hospital waiting room, or tension or anxiety in the students in an exam room at school or among passengers aboard a plane about to take off. It’s our astral body that allows us to feel these emotions.
As well as emotions, our astral body can allow us to enter the same thought field as other people. We use this facility when we brainstorm with a group of people for solutions to a problem. Inventors might form a ‘think-tank’, which means that everyone’s creative ideas act together - synergistically as catalysts for lateral thinking. For another example, consider how different the thought field is in a library to that of a shopping mall. How different would a jail feel to a ballet performance, or a rock concert? What we’re talking about is atmosphere and it’s our astral body that allows us to feel these invisible things.
We can often sense the astral body with our etheric senses, in which case it feels subtly different to the etheric body which we experienced in the previous podcast. It takes a great deal of practice to tell the difference, so don’t worry if you haven’t got it in the first five minutes! It’s not just as simple as feeling emotions or catching thought, though we can tune in empathically and feel what someone else is feeling emotionally and sometimes get what they are thinking this way as well – though do not assume that what you are receiving is the same as they are feeling or thinking.
What I’m really talking about here is the quality of the energy, because emotions can feel heavy or light, draining or explosive, flat or sexually charged. It’s sort of like you are feeling different qualities of fire, or weather. Different flavours, if you like.
When we are feeling someone’s astral body with our own astral senses, our own emotions and thoughts resonate with theirs, but they might not be exactly the same. For example, we can catch their mood, but the content might be solely our own. Our own emotions and therefore, our emotional reactions, can be triggered – so do take care with this. As an example of how infectious emotions are, it’s quite common to cry at a funeral, realising at the same time that we are not crying for the person in the coffin, but actually for someone we loved who died long ago. Our own unresolved grief has been triggered by the general sadness of the occasion, when everyone is feeling sad.
The more we have worked on ourselves in inner work and or in meditation, the more we will recognise when our own stuff is being triggered, and feel the difference when we tune in instead, to the other person’s astral body. And at this point I should mention that it’s essential that we only do this when we have the other person’s agreement to do so.
The exercises that follow focus on awareness of the astral body between you and a willing and like-minded partner.
6. EXERCISE SIX:
Sit facing your partner about an arms-length away and close your eyes. Become aware of your breathing and the natural cycle of inhaling fresh new energy and exhaling the old in a very organic way. Settle into your body, feel it from the inside. See if you can increase how comfortable you feel within your own space simply by allowing yourself to do so.
Still with yourself, establish a base line for how you are feeling in your body. Use inner sensing to feel how you are in general, in terms of relaxation, mood, energy level. Can you feel any areas of tension in your body? Any areas of congestion that may not be purely physical? Spend a few moments relaxing by intention, exhaling old energy and letting go whatever you no longer need to hold onto.
When you feel relatively comfortable within your own body, slowly open your eyes. Without speaking, gently tune into the other person. Without intruding, take in how they seem to be in an emotional sense. Take time to create a space of acceptance and receptivity between you, observing without judgement, feeling how they feel by what emotions you feel, by perhaps, what happens to your breathing. Be open. If momentary self-consciousness makes you laugh, let that happen until it passes, and simply relax looking at each other in gentle, non-staring eye-contact. Match your breathing to the other person’s, so you are breathing in synchrony. Silently share the space you are in. After a few minutes, verbally share your impressions with your partner.
END OF EXERCISE SIX