Aura Expansion🔗

This method is a way of becoming aware of your own etheric presence. The etheric body interpenetrates your physical body and extends beyond it like a shell. The etheric body is an open door into the Divine. We experience this body many times in our life, but we are unaware of it. Sometimes, we notice it in an unconscious way. When you are in a hostile environment, when you are afraid, feeling separate and isolated, you get a shrinking feeling. When you are joyful, loving, flowing, you feel as if you are filling the whole room. When you are inclusive, you can feel yourself expanding. This is your etheric body expanding and contracting! Without being aware of it, we use the signals of our etheric body to evaluate a situation or to communicate with each other.

Duration: 21 minutes

If you have practised palming, you will sometimes feel as if you are weightless, as if you are ready to fly. This feeling may come to you at other times as well, when you are practising some other meditation. When you are feeling this way, just close your eyes and become aware of your body Become aware of your form. With closed eyes, feel the form of every part of your body, moving from part to part. Feel the form of your fingers, of your hand, of your arm. Feel your legs, your trunk, your head. Become aware of the form of your whole body. When you try to feel your form, it will appear before you. Gradually, you will notice that around your body is a bluish light. This light will go on spreading, an increasing aura around your physical form. Initially, practise this with your eyes closed. When you are able to see your aura well, you can try it with your eyes open. Choose a totally dark room. Preferably, practise at night. When you start seeing the aura with your eyes closed, slowly open your eyes. You will see the same bluish aura around your physical form! For the first time, you will be able to see your etheric body. When you see your aura, don’t do anything. Just sit and watch. Even as you watch, the aura will begin to spread. It will become bigger and bigger. When you are not doing anything, your energy does not move outward. It accumulates in your etheric body. As your aura grows stronger, you will begin to feel a deep sense of peace. You will experience a silence. When you practise this meditation frequently, this sense of peace becomes a permanent experience.

We always experience ourselves as separate from others. We cling so strongly to our body boundary that we always feel like a solid being. Maybe at the body level this is the truth, but the moment you take a step inwards, to your energy body, you will see that every being in this universe is deeply connected to the rest. You are not a solid entity as you imagine! You are a flowing energy.

At the energy level, there is a constant interchange going on between you and everyone and everything around you. You are just a beautiful, blissful flux of energies! Because you don't realize how you are part of this collective consciousness, you hold yourself so tight even in your most intimate relationships.

Once you experience yourself as energy, naturally you are no longer afraid to expand and flow. This is a beautiful meditation to become more loving and flowing in your relationships.

Duration: Maximum 30 minutes

Step 1: Sit in a relaxed way. Close your body and take a few deep breaths. Keep your limbs as loose and relaxed as possible. Next, visualize your own aura.

Your aura is your etheric or energy body, which interpenetrates and extends beyond your physical body by about one foot. Visualize your aura as a luminous shell of soft light, like a halo around your whole body.

Now experience this aura growing in size in all directions like a glowing ball. Understand, this is not just visualization. You can expand and contract your energy body at will. Because we usually do it unconsciously, you are not aware of your own capacity.

As your aura grows outwards, you will find that it starts growing inwards also! You will start feeling it penetrating your physical body, till you cannot experience your physical body anymore. This is the truth! The moment you allow yourself to experience yourself as energy, you will realize that your body is not as solid as you think. You are now just a huge body of light.

Instructions (continuation)

Duration: Maximum 30 minutes

Step 2:

Now, visualize all your emotional relationships as part of your light body. Include all your relationships in your light, whether they are loving or not-so-loving. If you have somebody who is emotionally connected to you, say in another country, visualize that you have a huge body that extends out to that country, and that person (or persons) is also inside your light body! Let all the emotional connections, hateful or loving, be inside your etheric body. Now, visualize whoever you can, friends, strangers, people you have never met - everyone being enveloped by this body of light. Enjoy your own loving, all-inclusive presence! Expand and include as much as you can. As you expand, you will see that your individual identity simply melts and dissolves in the light. You are no more than a point of awareness in a vast ocean of love and light.

Step 3:

Now, visualize your aura shrinking slowly till you become aware of your body boundary again. Spend a few minutes inside your boundary with your eyes closed. Don't get up or move your body suddenly, or you will experience a sense of physical disorientation. When you feel totally comfortable inside your body boundary, relax and open your eyes.