Prana at Work

Feature

By Justin Stone

One of the hardest things for a beginner to understand is the fact that there must be physical changes for spiritual changes to take place. We are so used to thinking of “spiritual” as being something ephemeral that we cannot at all relate it to the physical organism.

In Krishnamurti’s biography, it is stressed that he went through much physical agony, which he well understood. He is quoted as saying, while in great pain, “I know you must do this, but can’t you be a bit easier about it?” Obviously he was talking to the Kundalini force, part of all-powerful Prana, responsible for the evolutionary changes, either gradual or rapid. Gopi Krishna, too, went through great suffering, from the time of his awakening until the eventual settling down in his new status. Prana (or “Chi”) is what pulls together the seeming-spiritual and the physical. As we sink deeper into the essence of Prana’s action, which we do with regular conscientious practice of T’ai Chi Chih, we become aware of what is happening. To evolve one thousand times faster than “normal” (usual) is no small matter. Some have done most of this in a previous life, as with Rinzai (Chinese: “Lin Chi”). A shy, pietistic seeker when he first came to his master, his personality changed radically (seemingly in a few minutes as he discarded his former identity) and he became an overpowering iconoclast, firm in his “growth of certainty.”

Seeming illness, and pain, can point in the direction of massive spiritual changes, something of which doctors do not seem aware. All physical change has to do with spiritual purification and development.