Sensitive Energy

The basic energy that fuels our inner work and that forms the material of the lower body of the soul is the sensitive energy, which brings vibrant color and vivid impressions to our life. This energy fuels what we ordinarily consider to be awareness, connecting us to our perceptions, to the present moment. Within the sensitive energy we find our medium for actual contact with the particulars of life, for noticing the large and the small. We can breathe. We can taste our food. Though not yet fully awake, we are not as asleep as when the automatic energy dominates our being. Choice, initiative, and independence from merely reacting to events, all become possible. Life is enriched and natural, no longer so habitual.

The possibilities enabled by the sensitive energy are immensely important to the quality of our inner life. Lasting benefits accrue when we explore and understand its role in our emotions, in our thoughts, and in our physical perceptions. We can learn specific spiritual practices to manage, collect, contain, and transform it into higher energies.

In the body, the sensitive energy enhances our kinesthetic and proprioceptive impressions. We can sense directly that we actually have a hand or a leg. Under the automatic energy we move without contact with our body; unless we stub a toe, we walk with no awareness of our feet, like our half-awareness when we drive. The sensitive energy, however, provides a visceral, organic awareness of our body in movement and at rest, bridging the chasm between mind and body. In later sections we suggest methods for learning to be in touch with the sensitive energy in the body, to experience and even direct its flow. When we refer to the Energy Body, we primarily mean the sensitive energy. Intentionally sensing the body affords a powerful grounding in the present, a most useful method on the spiritual path.

In the mind, the sensitive energy enables us to be aware of thoughts as thoughts. With the automatic energy, thoughts pass through our mind and we pass along with them, carried unawares by our thought stream. With the sensitive energy, we know our thoughts, we know their meaning, and can solve problems by intentional thinking.

In the emotions, the sensitive energy brings awareness of the spectrum of feelings passing through our heart. With the automatic energy, our emotions have us, we lose ourselves in them. With the sensitive energy we feel our emotions as emotions, without being completely lost or entrapped in them.

As the highest energy under our direct control, the sensitive energy provides the immediate, tangible substance of our spiritual work. Through practice we can collect and organize it into a robust whole, the basis our soul-body, a firm foundation and container for the higher energies, a platform from which to live a less-dreamlike, more natural and organically joyful life.

The world of the sensitive energy corresponds to the worlds known as Asiyah (Action) in Kabbalah and Ajsam (Bodies) in the Sufi cosmology.

For an introduction to energies see Inner Energies.

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