Energy medicine is basic to all experience, yet it is difficult to speak about. One of the reasons energy medicine is challenging to talk about is that it refers to phenomena beyond the purview of our everyday waking consciousness.
As children, we have a wider perception of the subtle experience that underlies our thoughts, words, and actions. When we question these perceptions, we may be met with unhelpful responses or inadequate answers because the adults around us have often lost contact with what we are experiencing. Part of “growing up” involves learning to view our reality primarily with our conscious mind’s value system. Our conscious mind values organization, goal-setting, and fitting into consensus reality in a way that does not stray too far from the socially accepted norms we learn to live by as we are growing up.
Our education system focuses on developing this problem-solving state of being, designed to block out anything disorganizing or disorienting. Seeing lights in the corner of the room or an energy wave coming off of a person expressing a strong emotion are the kinds of phenomena filtered out by the conscious mind’s priorities of organizing and categorizing our experience.
If we allow ourselves to return to this wider awareness we were born with and which we engage with through dreaming, we can learn about the subtle energies that surround and inform us even when we are not conscious of them.
This is not just New Age mumbo-jumbo. Quantum physics discusses the different layers of subtle light and sound waves that interact with each other regularly. The dictionary definition of physics is “the study of matter, energy, and the interaction between them.” This is exactly what energy medicine processes focus on. However, rather than use measuring devices and machines to chart the movement of sound and light, energy medicine practitioners rely on deeper perceptual capacities that allow them to reach beyond the limitations of the conscious mind.
You may have noticed as you’re falling asleep or waking up in the morning that you have ideas and thoughts that come to you “out of the blue.” This is because the grip of the conscious mind is looser as we fall asleep and wake up, and information generally blocked is more accessible. This is also true of the dream state.
Many people cannot recollect their dreams, but for those who can, the information we receive in dreams can be valuable in enhancing our everyday experience. Many famous artists, including John Lennon and Edgar Allan Poe, have drawn inspiration from dreams. Scientists, including Francis Crick and James Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA, have also received information in dreams that have given purpose to their work.
We all can expand our awareness and return to the natural openness we had when we were young. One way of developing this broader perception is by developing a meditation practice. There are many forms of meditation.
By focusing only on the breath and breaking our habit of following every thought that comes to us, we can cultivate the capacity to listen with all our senses to the subtle level of experience. This level of experience is usually blocked because of all the “noise” that is a function of the thoughts and ideas coming and going all the time in the conscious mind. In some ways, you could say meditation is a way of getting the conscious mind to rest.
A subtle stillness arises as we focus on the breath and the noise of our thoughts subsides. Within this stillness is a spaciousness where previously unnoticed experiences can become accessible. At this level, we begin to perceive the subtle expressions of light and sound that are the essence of energy medicine. Light and sound can arise and fade in the meditative state. However, if we understand that light and sound are medicines that can heal the body, mind, and spirit, we can learn to direct them into places that are out of balance. This is energy medicine.
One of the most commonly known forms of energy medicine today is a practice called Reiki. This system transmits energy through particular symbols from one person to another or from one person to a general situation. A Japanese physician named Dr. Mikao Usui developed this energy medicine in the late 1800s. He created a system of transmission that has continued until the present day.
In this transmission system, people are exposed to a particular symbol representing a field of beneficial and healing energy. The energy fields represented by the Reiki symbols are often perceived as light or sound by practitioners and recipients. Here is a report by a woman in her 40s who came for a Reiki healing session after a car accident left her with headaches that could not be explained on a physical level:
When people work with the energy in light or sound for healing, they often speak about becoming a channel for that sound or light to come through them. They perceive the energy as arising outside and flowing through them, like water through a straw. In shamanic practice, this is called “becoming a hollow bone.” As with all shamanic practices, the shaman understands they are a conduit for this universal light or sound.
In many shamanic traditions, there is the practice of listening to healing songs designed to help correct the imbalance, particularly to the person who comes for help. The sound arises from the deep silence of inner focus. In the shamanic practices found in cultures in the Amazon of South America, these songs are called “icaros.” Wherever this type of healing with sound is practiced, it is understood that the sounds of the song hold the energy of healing the person needs to recover. The use of light and sound to create change on the subtlest levels of experience is at the heart of all shamanic practice.
Interestingly, it is also at the heart of Vajrayana Buddhist practice. In the practice of tantra, which is part of the tradition, there are many esoteric principles related to energy medicine. These practices focus on the movement and direction of the subtle energy flows found in sound and light.
One area of study revolves around understanding the qualities of phenomena called “the five pure lights.” These light rays relate to the elements of fire, water, air, earth, and space and are understood to be the subtler expressions of these elements. In tantric healing, practitioners work to focus these rays into physical imbalance to create change on the elemental level.
There are other schools of energy medicine that work with rays of light as well. One of the best-known is Vedic science, out of which yoga arises. Many people in the west have now studied yoga and have been exposed to the study of the subtle bodies that underlie and infuse the physical body, a study that is fundamental to Vedic science and Ayurvedic medicine. These subtle bodies are composed of energetic phenomena called chakras and channels. The exchange of energy between the subtle bodies and the physical body is explored by Ayurvedic medicine.
The health of these subtle bodies affects the health of the physical body, and the health of the physical body affects the health of the subtle bodies. These energetic structures correspond to different parts of the physical body. For instance, the chakras are located near the endocrine glands, and a structure called the central channel lies along the spine.
When Vedic practitioners focus light or sound into the body, they focus them on these energetic structures. These structures can be perceived as the conscious mind relaxing and allowing this subtle experience to make itself known through yoga or meditation.
This core self is conceived of as Buddha Nature in Buddhist practice or the Higher Self in shamanic practice. Buddha Nature is expressed in various ways, but all of them involve a recognition of a gentle, penetrating energy that infuses a person’s experience on an energetic level. The energy system of the physical body is the place where this experience is most commonly registered, but it affects people on a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual level. This part of the self is considered wise, compassionate, non-judgmental, and, importantly, connected to the subtle expression of light and sound referred to as “ground luminosity” in Buddhist practice.
The experience of ground luminosity is attained through deep meditative states but exists even when people are not aware of it. There are schools of meditative practice, most notably Dzogchen in Tibetan Buddhism, where the cultivation of the perception of ground luminosity is the primary practice. One focus of the study is accessing awareness of ground luminosity at the heart of all physical expressions while fully engaging in the material world. The channeling of light and sound as medicine on an energetic level creates a direct path between ground luminosity and the grosser levels of material experience.
This is because the work of energy medicine — the use of sound and light — supports the therapeutic process in subtle yet profound ways.