Energy in Practice

Between Science and Experience

For this edition of Transmutations, we bring you a shakti zap from the Alembic’s own Michael Taft, co-founder of the center and one of the central pillars of our meditation mandala. Here Michael addresses the tricky question of spiritual “energy,” a concept that pervades traditional and modern contemplative traditions, but that also presents the scientific and rationally-minded practitioner with a conundrum: how do we work with a dimension of practice whose markers elude our scientific instruments? — Erik

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Go to any local yoga class. As you’re getting into your workout, you might hear the teacher say something like, “As we move into our next pose, let's not just stretch our bodies, but also stretch our aura.” Or maybe: “If you're not feeling that prana tingle, you're probably just working your muscles. So breathe deeply and let's channel that cosmic energy.” Or maybe: “Subtle energy is like a Wi-Fi signal; it's invisible but has the power to connect us to the universe... or at least to a more peaceful state of mind!”

Anyone with even a passing interest in science—and an appreciation for measurement instruments—could be forgiven for dismissing this stuff as nonsense, even as they grumpily persist in their workout. Spiritual energy talk can sound like meaningless gibberish, but it also leaves a bad taste in the soul, like you ate some cosmic junk food—Fairy Flakes™—filled with crappy additives. There’s certainly no empirical evidence for “energy” in this sense, and so the language around it often comes across as childish, preposterous, and even dangerous, at least to those of us with a modern scientific sensibility who have respect for the instruments that read and measure actual physical forces. 

Happy with prana

Yet, far away from the crystal wands and angel affirmation cards of the New Age, serious meditation and spiritual traditions, as well as old school healers from many cultures, have made use of such concepts for millenia. Though going under different names, human beings throughout history have believed in and worked with the “life force” or “energy body” or “holy spirit.”  It is a very new and quite radical departure to think otherwise—something that has only arisen in the last 150 years or so in the West. But though we may be tempted to dismiss these ancient claims as primitive superstition, and to believe that we now know much more about the world, this attitude leads to an interesting and provocative contradiction.

Most people who get involved in a meditation tradition or a serious school of yoga, and who do a significant amount of practice, will eventually find themselves having an up close and personal encounter with prana—or, if they are practicing many martial arts, with chi. Whether or not they are expecting it, they will feel freaky (and sometimes upsetting) “currents” or “flows” of “vibrations” along their limbs and spine. They may shake and writhe with involuntary movements, or experience all kinds of otherworldly shivers and buzzings. Or just plain weird shit. It will happen despite their lack of belief and perhaps even haughty contempt for such hippy nonsense. And it is personal. It is in your body. It is rocking your world. It is, for lack of a better term, real. 

Furthermore, when you have such experiences and then start to work with the energy, the effects are palpable, persistent, and not always particularly “subtle.” Often fairly powerful encounters with “energy” occur, and sometimes in a predictable fashion. In many cases the results are positive, maybe even spectacular, beautiful, rapturous, or life-changing. Sometimes they are not so positive, or give rise to difficult or even pathological conditions. Results this distinct seem hard to pin on something that doesn’t exist or is totally imaginary. By any definition we have of “undeniable,” this sort of energy experience is it. And for those who have had many deep encounters with such forces, there is no saying it didn’t happen or was somehow delusional. So we are left with a conundrum: how do you explain it, or even make sense of it? 

A map of chi

There are a lot of ways to go at this question, which I won’t delve deeply into here. We can go full premodern and attempt to take on a worldview we can never really inhabit fully or authentically. Or we can do our best to “explain” it using something that sounds a little bit like science, but is mostly just feverish hand-waving. Or we could go postmodern, and wave our hands instead about the “social construction of reality” that, according to some, undermines scientific facts. My recommendation, however, is simpler: just let go of needing to explain it at all, and just go with it as an experience. There is something there, but we don’t really understand it, and maybe we can’t really understand it. And that’s OK. 

So, while we don’t have any scientifically valid theory about what such “energy” could be—all traditional explanations of it make no sense to the modern understanding of physiology—we can bring a certain empirical sensibility to our experiences anyway. We can become spiritual pragmatists. We can accept “energy” and its various traditional maps in a spirit of imaginal play or the suspension of disbelief. There is no need to figure it out or make any sort of greater sense of it. We can instead relate to it as something we’re just playing with, a mystery that invites us into a partner dance. And that mysterious, beautiful, vital, and deeply embodied sense of play might be the whole point.

Michael Taft is a meditation teacher, author, and podcaster. From Zen temples in Japan to yogi caves in India, Michael has been meditating for over 35 years and has extensive experience in both Buddhist and Hindu Tantric practice. He currently teaches meditation courses, retreats, and individuals worldwide, and is the author of several books, including the bestselling The Mindful Geek. He is the founder and host of the Deconstructing Yourself podcast, and a co-founder of the groundbreaking Alembic center in Berkeley. He was previously editor-in-chief of Being Human, and was the long-time editorial director of Sounds True. Michael lives with his family in the Bay Area.

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TRANSMUTATIONS is a biweekly publication from the Berkeley Alembic, a transformational center that offers classes, workshops, retreats, and warm cups of tea.

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