Awakening to Your Invisible Inner Reality

[This is an excerpt from my book "Beyond the Power of Now."]

Q: You’ve said that identification with the physical form prevents enlightenment. So how can this body, this physical form, lead to a realization of Being?

A: According to Tolle, “The body you can see and touch cannot take you into Being.” But even though the gross physical form cannot enlighten you, Tolle insists that the “invisible inner body,” the “animating presence within you,” can bring you to a realization of Being. Tolle states that this “inner body lies at the threshold between your form identity and your essence identity, your true nature.” Tolle considers this inner energy field so important to the enlightenment process that he enjoins us to “never lose touch with it.”

What, exactly, is this “invisible inner body” or “animating presence” that Tolle is directing us to? Very simply, it is what Hindu yogis term the prana-maya-kosha, the second of the five hierarchically ordered (from grossest to most subtle) koshas, or “sheaths,” that encase or envelop (and veil) the indwelling Being-Consciousness. In his monumental text The Yoga Tradition, Dr. Georg Feuerstein, the foremost authority on yoga today, describes the five sheaths thus:

1. The anna-maya-kosha, or sheath composed of food; that is, of material elements: the physical body.
2. The prana-maya-kosha, or sheath composed of life force: the etheric body in Western occult literature.
3. The mano-maya-kosha, or sheath composed of mind: The ancients considered the mind (manas) as an envelope surrounding the` physical and the etheric body.
4. The vijnana-maya-kosha, or sheath composed of understanding: The mind simply coordinates the sensory input, but understanding (vijnana) is a higher cognitive function.
5. The ananda-maya-kosha, or sheath composed of bliss: This is that dimension of human existence through which we partake of the Absolute. In later Vedanta, however, the Absolute is thought to transcend all five sheaths.

The “animating presence” or “invisible inner body” that Tolle enjoins us to focus our attention on is not the indwelling Spirit-force; it is simply the vital life-energy that animates all living and breathing creatures. In humans, the prana-maya-kosha, or vital life-energy sheath, manifests itself in three primary forms: 1) as an etheric body, the energetic correlate of an individual’s astral (or soul, or psychic-matrix) body; 2) as a network of non-physical meridians, or nadis, through which subtle life-energy (prana, or chi) moves and enlivens the organism; and 3) as the process of breathing air (which, when yogically, or consciously, done, intensifies the movement of prana-shakti, or life-force energy, in the disciple).

Can focusing your attention on your animating presence or invisible inner body take you directly into spiritual Being? Not according to Dr. Feuerstein. He informs us that the “dimension of human existence through which we partake of the Absolute” isn’t, as Tolle asserts, the prana-maya-kosha (or life-force sheath). Rather, it is the ananda-maya-kosha (or bliss sheath).

The bliss sheath (or dimension) is a synonym for Shakti, Ananda, the Sambhogakaya, and the Holy Spirit. When Shakti is apprehended independently of Siva, when Ananda is experienced as separate from Cit, when the Sambhogaka is enjoyed as distinct from the Dharmakaya, and when the Holy Spirit is beheld apart from divine Presence, then the Blessing Power, or radiant Light-energy, of the Absolute is objectified, which, in effect, reduces it to a sheath—albeit a blissful one—that prevents the nondual realization of the divine Being.

The divine Being, or Absolute, can only be realized when the in-pouring Holy Spirit, Shaktipat, unites with the immanent Son, indwelling Siva, in the Sacred Heart. In other words, only Spirit (or Light)-energy, and not mere life-force energy, can en-Light-en a disciple and bring him to a realization of nondual spiritual Being.

Because Tolle places so much emphasis on the inner energy field without differentiating it from the Holy Spirit (the Bliss Body, or Blessing Power, of the Absolute), I believe that it is important to further elucidate the distinction between the pranic life-current and the divine Spirit-current. To this end, the following definition of prana, excerpted from the glossary of Adi Da’s Santosha Adidam, provides a clarifying summary of the difference between cosmic life-energy and divine Spirit-power:

The Sanskrit word “prana” means “life-energy.” It generally refers to the life-energy animating all beings and pervading everything in cosmic Nature. In the human bodymind, circulation of this universal life-energy is associated with the heartbeat and the cycles of the breath. In esoteric Yogic Teachings, prana is also a specific technical name for a number of forms of etheric energy that functionally sustain the bodily being.

Prana is not to be equated with the Divine Spirit-Current, or the Spiritual and Always Blessing Divine Presence. The finite pranic energies that sustain individual beings are only conditional, localized, and temporary phenomena in the realm of cosmic Nature. Even in the form of universal life-force, prana is but a conditional modification of the Divine Spirit-Current.

Tolles’s point of view on the animating life-force is diametrically opposed to Adi Da’s. Tolle calls this invisible, inner pranic sheath a “deeper reality,” but if it truly is a deeper reality, then why do all the classical hierarchical spiritual models (including the five-sheath one) list the life-energy body below the human mind in the spiritual-evolutionary continuum? And if the life-energy body, or “vital,” truly pertains to a deeper, “indestructible,” reality, why then do all living creatures—including lowly cockroaches and rattlesnakes—possess such a body while lacking man’s higher cognitive functions?

Tolle believes that you can become conscious of Being simply by focusing your attention on your inner energy field. He says, “Direct [the focus of your attention] away from thinking and direct it into the body, where Being can be felt in the first instance as the invisible energy field that gives life to what you perceive as the physical body.” The truth is, simply being consciously present to any object (including your inner energy field), and arresting your thought process, temporarily stops becoming and results in the experience of being— but not in the experience of spiritual Being, not in the experience of the divine Being. Although focusing your attention on your bioenergetic field is a fine form of meditation, you can only be truly conscious of the divine Being when you are blessed with spiritual Energy from the Deity. The classic Hindu formula: Sat (Being) = Cit (Consciousness)-Ananda (Blessedness) informs us that only Cit-Shakti, not prana-shakti, can directly awaken us to the Divinity.

To summarize: Tolle is both correct and incorrect in his assessment of the physical form’s role in enlightenment. He is correct in stating that the gross (insentient) physical body cannot bring you into Being, but he is incorrect in claiming that the invisible (bioenergetic) subtle body can. The truth of the matter is that only the Bliss (Light) Body—the Sambhogakaya (or Holy Spirit)—can lead you to spiritual enlightenment. Yes, it’s true that the physical body can be “remodeled” into a “holy temple” that can serve as a receptacle for the Holy Spirit. And it’s true that focusing your attention on your life-energy body can help you to control your prana, arrest your mind, and awaken your kundalini. But only the Sambhogakaya, the Bliss Body itself, can (via its re-union with the Dharmakaya in the Sacred Heart) bring you to a realization of the radiant, divine Being.