Ignoring life’s vital force comes at a great cost — teaching it unlocks healing. When cultures forget the fundamental force that animates life, suffering and imbalance take root.
Teaching the science behind this force empowers people to rediscover forgotten paths and unlock greater healing.
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Dear friends and colleagues,
I’m well aware that everyone is navigating a lot these days, and the sheer volume of information can feel overwhelming. So I’m mindful about setting a clear intention when I write to you — and stating it plainly — so you can quickly decide whether my post is helpful in this moment.
It was a bit harder than usual to succinctly introduce the information I want to highlight in this post. That’s because it involves big ideas — like opportunity cost and the most foundational reality of life — as well as practical topics like teaching, training, and marketing. Here’s my attempt to sum it up:
There is a profound cost to growing up in cultures that have forgotten the primacy of the vital force that animates life. When this fundamental force is overlooked, we build our lives on the surface — chasing secondary concerns while neglecting the very foundation that sustains us. By recognizing, exploring, and aligning with this force, we return awareness to the source from where we restore balance and rediscover a more integrated way of living. By returning to foundational truths, far greater healing and wholeness becomes possible.
This is not to suggest that you should be or become an energy healer or speak of energy in your typical work — nor to imply that you should not. Rather, the point is simply the importance of being educated in foundational truths from which everything else can find its proper place in our frameworks of understanding.
Considering the Opportunity Cost of Every Choice
The single most important thing I learned in my undergraduate program was the concept of “opportunity cost.” It’s stayed with me all 40 years since. Once you start thinking this way, it changes how you make decisions, both in business and in life.
Basically, opportunity cost is about recognizing that every choice comes with trade-offs. Choosing one thing means giving up something else—often many other things. What I find most powerful is the amplification effect: small daily choices compound over time. For example, if we let social media or email dictate our mornings, one of the costs is the time we could have spent meditating or working on a creative project. But if we commit to meditation or daily creative and business work, that repetition builds momentum, producing results far beyond the sum of individual efforts — with such powerful results that it’s nearly impossible to fully convey the impact of sustained, committed action.
What we Learn and What We Don’t
Even if all I shared were those thoughts on opportunity cost and momentum, I’d feel our time was well spent. :) But ideally, I want this to set the stage for reflecting on the information we choose to focus on — and the opportunity costs we’ve already paid for what we were forced to learn (and not learn) in schools. You might not agree with my strong conclusion that schools are indoctrination camps, but you don’t have to agree to recognize the value in making intentional choices about what you learn and explore.
As a full-time researcher for decades, I’ve found that independent study and curriculum development are some of the most enriching parts of my work, and they’ve prompted me to reflect many times on opportunity cost and intentional learning. It happened again this week.
The opportunity cost of focusing on the superficial, the disconnected, the material, and the manipulated is enormous. In contrast, this post explores the vast force that animates us and everything we interact with.
You’ll Gain So Much in Just a Few Minutes with this Subject
While updating the Energy & Subtle Body Anatomy lesson, I felt so inspired that I had to share.
These vital teachings can speak to the deepest parts of ourselves while also offering practical ways to bridge the gap with others who might otherwise never have the chance to learn subjects that empower them in ways they’ve never imagined.
Even yoga teachers and trainers are unlikely to have explored the subject from some of these angles. Whether or not you’ve studied it before, as long as you apply mindfulness and embodiment tools that let you feel the effects firsthand, these teachings can give your practice and teachings a meaningful, methodical structure that inspires your students and clients to engage more deeply and stay committed to their learning and practice.
Energy & Subtle Body Anatomy
Lesson Overview
In this lesson, we introduce the foundational concepts and core understandings of life-force energy.
Objective
Have a foundational understanding of energy from scientific, philosophical, and practical perspectives, and be familiar with the yogic perspective on life force energy (prana), how it moves and functions, and how yoga practices influence and regulate this energy.
Vocabulary
aura, biofield / biomagnetic field, energy, energy body, ida nadi, nadis, pingala nadi, prana, subtle, subtle body, subtle energy, sushumna
Study Guide
What is the nature of life-force energy?
What term or terms are used in Western science to describe the life-force energy that yogis call prana and Chinese philosophy calls qi?
Where do ancient traditions say this energy comes from?
Define and discuss the terms prana and nadis.
How do yoga practices impact subtle energy and what are the primary techniques for working with it?
Energy / Subtle Energy
Energy: Movement
The universe is fundamentally dynamic and vibratory in nature. Both scientific inquiry and contemplative traditions recognize that energy manifests as motion across a spectrum of frequencies — patterns of movement that shape the forms and processes we observe in the physical world.
Energy is movement — patterns of vibrating activity that carry and transmit information.
Energy expresses itself through waves, oscillations, and frequencies that shape the behavior of matter and fields.
Subtle energy is another name for energy generally, and for the nonphysical force that underlies existence and animates organisms.
Everything We See and Don’t See is Made Up of Vibration
It’s not often that science and ancient wisdom agree wholeheartedly on… well… anything. But surprisingly, both agree that everything we see (and don’t see) is made up of frequencies. Zoom into any matter that appears to be still, and you’ll find billions of atoms vibrating together with different energies, as if in a cosmic trance. – Jane Knight
Subtle Energy isn’t Supernatural
Subtle energy is simply energy that cannot be accurately measured using current [establishment] scientific methods. It is not supernatural, paranormal, or scary — it is just energy. – Cyndi Dale
Thought as an Example of Nonphysical Reality; “Slice Open a Human Head and You Won’t Find One Thought in There”
If you have a difficult time grasping the concept of the subtle body, reflect on your mind and thoughts. Thoughts are nonphysical entities. Yet, ask anyone… and they will tell you that thoughts are quite real. Scientists have been able to pinpoint areas in the brain where thoughts originate or take place, but slice open a human head and you won’t find one thought in there. According to Vedic texts, the mind, intellect and ego reside within the subtle body. – Michelle S. Fondin
Energy: Information that Vibrates, Intelligence
The vibrating activity that we call energy contains information.
Energy researcher Cyndi Dale teaches that energy is “information that vibrates.”
Thomas Hübl agrees, defining energy as “the ceaseless flow of intelligence, of data-information in motion.” He calls subtle space the “plane of information.” [source]
Distinguishing Information from Matter; Processes Aren’t Things
I believe we have to make a distinction between the metaphor of matter and energy and that of information. The older metaphor deals with matter and force… and is expressed in Einstein’s famous formula connecting those elements, E=mc squared. While these terms are useful for building locomotives, bridges, and atomic bombs, they are not so useful for understanding the human body. Physical processes aren’t things, they are dynamic and take place in an open, fluid system, and therefore fit better with the metaphor of information than that of matter and force. – Robert Gottesman MD
Terminology: Many Names for the Same Thing
Life-force energy is called prāṇa in yoga and qi (or chi) in Chinese philosophy. Near-death experiencer Anita Moorjani observes that many Westerners lack a framework for understanding this vital aspect of life: “There is no direct translation for this word in English, and because there is no translation, I find that people in western cultures don’t usually even realize it’s a thing.”
In contrast, the concept of prāṇa has been the subject of deep inquiry within the yogic tradition. Over centuries, yogis have developed a rich body of wisdom and practical methods for understanding and working with life-force energy. As yoga scholar Sandra Anderson writes:
At its heart, hatha yoga is… the management of prana, the vital life force that animates all levels of being.
While ancient traditions describe a holistic, life-animating force in great depth, in Western science there is no single established term, and mainstream inquiry often focuses on discrete physical processes rather than the unified life-force and its behavior.
As a result, modern approaches remain fragmented, with insights emerging from multiple disciplines that are still developing and incomplete. In those contexts, Western theorists have employed a variety of terms to describe foundational forms of energy, including:
cold electricity
dark energy
energy from the vacuum
etheric energy
scalar energy
tachyon energy
zero point energy
While these terms are not always considered equivalent within scientific frameworks, they are attempts to describe the fundamental energy of life and the universe.
Subtle: Less Dense, Unseen, Nonphysical
Dale explains, “we can tell energies exist because they produce an effect.” Yet when something cannot be easily measured by Western scientific instruments, it is often described as “subtle.”
The word “subtle” can mean elusive or difficult to perceive. In the context of energy, it refers to the fact that life-force energy is not directly detectable by the five basic senses.
Hübl describes it this way: “Subtle connotes that information and substance are finer and less dense than what our physical eyes can perceive.”
Dale similarly explains that subtle energy may be too high or too low in frequency to be easily measured with common instruments.
Although subtle can also mean delicate, Dale emphasizes that subtle energy is not weak or fragile as it’s the organizing influence that guides and shapes the physical world.
While subtle energy has not been consistently measured or monitored within mainstream science, this appears to reflect institutional priorities rather than technological limitations. Over the past century, a number of researchers and inventors have reported developing instruments to detect or measure subtle energy, including:
Biofield imaging equipment used for in energy-field photography here.
Kirlian photography, a method that records electrical coronal discharges around objects as discussed here.
Devices developed by Wilhelm Reich to measure what he called orgone energy (another word for energy and prana), as shown here.
Systems that use electro-photon imaging (EPI) technology, such as the Bio-Well camera, which aim to visualize energetic patterns around living systems as shown here.
Note: Materialistic science defines energy as the capacity to do work. While this definition may be technically accurate, it sheds little light on how energy operates in our lives and how we can optimally interact with this fundamental life force. Quantum physics and related areas of research reveal far more insight.
What is the Source of Energy?
In yoga philosophy, prana emerged from the stillness of aether and serves as the source of all manifestation. We might describe this relationship as the interplay between The Field and The Force:
Aether is The Field that connects and permeates all things.
Prana is The Force, the movement of energy through The Field.
For further reading, see this article by Adam Apollo.
Notably, some definitions for consciousness are quite similar to that of aether. For example, experts have found consciousness to be:
The Intelligence of the universe
A “primary principle of existence” and “universal phenomenon”
“A fabric of the universe that pervades all sentient (and perhaps non-sentient) beings”
“The eternal driving force for all that exists, that manifests itself through physical form in order to experience”
An “ultimate nothingness that exists before anything is created, appears to come into existence, and is perceived”
We might presume, then, that aether (the field everything bathes in) is made of — or arises from — consciousness.
Yoga Philosophy: Prana is the Movement that Emerged from the Field
At the beginning of a cycle, prana sleeps in the infinite ocean of akasha. This ocean exists motionless in the beginning. Then arises motion of the akasha by the action of prana; and as this prana begins to move, to vibrate, out of this ocean come the various celestial systems – suns, moon, stars – the earth, human beings, animals, plants, and the manifestations of all the various forces and phenomena. Every manifestation of energy, therefore, according to the Hindus, is prana. Every manifestation of matter is akasha. – Swami Vivekananda, The Yogas and Other Works 1953 link, quoted by Olga Kabel link
Beyond Subtle Space is Causal Space, Containing All Potentials
Emerging from and enveloping gross space is subtle space, housing the emotional, mental, and intuitive self-streams. Subtle space is the plane of information, the realm of dreams, and the initiation landscape of spiritual contemplation, opening the first doors into our awareness of the subtle energies, which have been referred to in various traditions as etheric, astral, psychic, and so on. Subtle connotes that, here, information and substance are finer and less dense than simply what our physical eyes can see. Beyond the subtle, there exists causal space. In sacred texts, expressions such as Ground of Being, Void, and Emptiness have been used to identify its nature. In the mystical understanding, this quality of emptiness is not seen purely as a null space but rather as a formless void containing all potentials, all possibilities. – Thomas Hübl & Julie Jordan Avritt, Healing Collective Trauma 2020 link
The lesson continues here and is framed within a broader context here.
Sincerely,
Shelly Thorn
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