As a life form we are these aspects 1^st Matter – form held together by energy and capable of movement and sensation. Born of matter from parent

2^nd Energy

-- physical (moves the body),

-- psychic (egoic mind—movement of identification, desire, preference, repulsion, attachment, --mine),

-- subtle (pranas –internal movements that cause us to feel like a separate “me” because they are attributed to one body – the flow upward, downward, and in a circular way connecting thoughts with sensation, senses with thought, and managing the movement of internal organs such as heart beating, digestion , elimination, sexual activity, coughing, collecting sound into language, expressing thought as words and understanding, transmitting smell and taste.)

3^rd Mind -- psychic energy collected and recirculated in the form of thoughts and imaginings and dreams being generated from memories and impressions and beliefs, continual in flow

4^th Spirit – awareness, consciousness, presence which entered matter and became identified with a particular form and story. It likely enters at conception and triggers the growing process and at some point in the womb after the form acquires movement becomes aware of itself as beingness As the senses and experiences develop after birth it begins to identify as an “I”.

It is through movement that life comes into form – life emerged through the movement of waters over land, repeatedly over millions of years and moved from ocean forms to land forms the same way. A fetus grows into a child through movement and propels itself from the womb through repeated movements. Movement stimulates growth, expansion and life evolving.

As you walk and do tasks and exercise notice how the body feels in movement as compared to how it feels in repose? Can you sense internal energy changes?

It is through psychic movement that identity comes into form. Notice a desire and how it feels to follow it. Notice restlessness until you decide to do something. Thoughts move forward and back like the tide, repeatedly. What is it that wants to be doing something? Is it following a preference to be busy, to respond to a sense like hunger or touch, a need to move away from something, a need to have or create or acquire something? Where are these movements coming from?

Subtle energy can be very quiet or very disruptive. When you are very still, not following any psychic or physical movements, you quiet the work of the senses and you can tune in to the subtle sensations behind them. It is like a vibration just waiting for something to do. It will follow attention so if you move attention to different arts of the hody you can feel it there. Yoga, Tai Chi , Qigong, Aikido and other martial arts work with this vibration, strengthening awareness of it and the ability to direct it in specific ways. Healing practices work similarly but combine psychic energy with the subtle pranic energy in specific patterns.

Certain forms of repeated movement, breath patterns and/or concentration can trigger a deeper rising of energy, causing what could be called a quickening of the life force, and a deconstruction of familiar patterns of thought and sensation. This has been called the rising of kundalini energy, which is a word representing the coiled subtle energy at the base of the spine, which in most lives stays coiled until a person dies and the energy forms are ready to leave the body. When it arises during a lifetime, eventually all the energies shift so that perspectives, belief systems, and identifications move out of the personal orientation and into the impersonal. It causes a psychic return out of mental identifications and into the ground of being. Another way of saying this is that instead of identifying with mind one identifies with consciousness. Both still function but consciousness is no longer confused about who it is. Sometimes the ranges and capacities of consciousness are expanded in this process as it knows itself to be unlimited and free. But the person as matter and form can become more naturally present in his or her own environment as well, as the mind no longer resists the experience of being in a body. This is wholeness, presence, being here now. This development satisfies completely the spiritual urge to be connected to God, so it has been called a spiritual awakening or Self-realization. In Buddhism it is called knowing your true nature. In Zen it is called Waking Up. In Hinduism it is a form of samadhi