[NoOne]

A common problem those involved with Kundalini, chakras, energy work or just plain spirituality of any kind might face in their day-to-day lives is how to explain all of this to the great mass of ignoramuses of this world, who may show a sceptical, belittling or dismissive attitude to something that to most of us here, is as real as the blood coursing through our veins and the air filling our lungs with each breath.

I use the word ignoramus decidedly as it best describes an attitude where one essentially ignores the signals and perception inputs of their own body, to the extent that they are completely unaware of the very processes that underlie every second of their existence in this reality. You really have to ignore an awful lot to take a strictly materialistic view of the human body, but due to the comprehensive programming and brainwashing we receive from birth, this ignorant point of view remains the norm.

So, should you meet a slightly open-minded person, who is ready to entertain that they may not know everything there is to know and empirical science, as a philosophical method of inquiry (being a tiny sub-branch within the vast edifice of philosophy) has its limitations, this is how you may go about explaining the ineffable and intangible reality of chakras, nadis, prana, kundalini, spirit and much else beyond to them.

The easiest method, I find, is to make them aware of their emotional body first. This is already an energetic construct (with an undefined form of energy and matter, which we can probably just label “dark” as scientists do, because it is not visible to the naked eye or scientific instruments), centred around the chakras and the nadis. If they were to say that chakras don’t exist as is the current scientific consensus, one might point them to the existence of love as an intangible force and its central organ in the body, the energetic heart (sternum), which according to them, isn’t a real organ and doesn’t exist. Yet, we experience our “hearts” as the energetic, emotional and spiritual centre of our very being.

Think back to the first time you were in love. Note the sensations you feel in your body as you remember this feeling. What is this feeling you feel, what is this organ in the sternum, where it is felt and what are those “heart strings” or gunas, invisible ties of energy that link you to the object of your affection?

When I was 18, a freshman in college and in love for the first time, I could not only “feel” the strings connecting us, but I could “see” them with my mind’s eye, or perceive it, if that is what you prefer and the energetic image or imprint of our love is still seared into my memory. What I saw back then, where three colourful strings of energy (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas Gunas) emanating from my heart, through the sternum all the way to the person I loved. In this state of “being in love” we were in tune and I felt every little energetic and emotional vibration of the other as if we were linked across space and time, which, we were. You’re probably also familiar with the sensation of being in tune with the person you love, to the extent that you know what they’re thinking before they say a word or if you are apart, they will know when you’re thinking about them, or you will anticipate a phone call or text from them, before it happens. Oxford biologist Rupert Sheldrake theorised that a phenomenon similar to quantum entanglement was responsible for this phenomenon, which we can all observe in our daily lives, especially around loved ones and pets. Yet again, it is unacknowledged by science and the sceptical mainstream, despite pretty much everyone having personal proof of it.

In fact, staying with Rupert Sheldrake’s research, who is an erstwhile colleague and now arch-nemesis of the famous materialist Richard Dawkins, it has been shown through various statistical research methods, that the “sense of being stared at”, premonition, telepathy and many other supposedly psychic phenomena are in fact everyday occurrences not just in humans, but animals too and must be fundamental to how nature and the universe operates. Yes, science hasn’t yet caught up to the reality of our everyday lived experience in this regard, but we can be sure, that once sufficient attention (and thus funding and recognition) is paid to this currently neglected and ridiculed field of research, large strides will be made in a very short time.

So, in summary, there are many spiritual and subtle-physical phenomena that we can’t currently explain using the very limited and rudimentary tools of empirical science, but that does not mean that we should ignore them and efforts should be made to trust our own perceptions of such phenomena and not to take the claims of scientists, most of whom have zero knowledge of the spiritual realm, as some sort of gospel. Yes, science is an important tool in understanding physical reality, but what it isn’t, is a philosophical and moral framework by which we can live our lives and understand the full spectrum of our existence, including that of consciousness or the spirit.