From outside, we look like a body made of flesh, bones, blood, and nerves. But as we sit quietly and close our eyes, a deeper layer of ourselves begins to appear. This layer is not visible with the eyes, but it is very real in experience. It is felt as tingling, vibration, pressure, warmth, movement, inner space, and awareness. This layer is often called the energy body. It is not a body made of atoms or particles like the physical one. It is not something you can touch with your hand or see with a microscope, but you can feel it clearly inside you—especially during deep silence or meditation. Actually it is the pure experiential body, nothing physical.
Scientists say that when brain cells fire signals, they produce small electromagnetic fields. These are natural and part of how the brain works. These fields are not just limited to the head; they spread out in patterns. Some scientists believe that this field may be linked to our conscious sense of self. From the spiritual side, many say that this field is the very bridge between soul and body. This bridge is what we feel as the energy body.
The energy body has its own structure—not of matter, but of movement and awareness. In ancient Indian understanding, this structure is described through chakras, nadis, and prana. Prana means life-force. It is not air or oxygen, but the driving power behind breath, thoughts, and emotions. Nadis are the invisible channels through which prana flows. And chakras are the subtle centers where energy collects, rotates, and transforms. These are not located on any scan or X-ray but are known by their effects. Just as nerves carry signals in the physical body, nadis carry prana in the energy body. In a nutshell, we feel a sensation both in the organ and in the brain at the same time. That’s why we perceive the sensation as being located in the organ, even though it’s processed in the brain. Normally, we don’t notice the actual transmission of the sensation from the organ to the brain. But with meditative awareness, this flow can also be perceived. This flow is called prana, and the subtle channel through which it moves is known as a nadi.
In simple words, when your breathing changes, your energy changes. When your thoughts change, your body heat, posture, and feelings change. This shows that there is a clear link between the physical and the energy layers. One affects the other instantly.
The entire setup of the energy body mirrors the cosmos. Just as the universe has galaxies, black holes, stars, and movements of energy, our inner world has chakras (like suns), nadis (like space highways), and prana (like flowing light). The same way the sky spreads in all directions, our own awareness silently fills our inner space. The outer universe and our inner structure follow the same design. This is called the micro-macro equivalence or Sharirvigyan Darshan—the science of understanding the body as a reflection of the cosmos.
Sometimes, even in normal meditation, just by thinking about the infinite sky, we begin to feel a vast peace. This shows that the deeper layers of the mind and energy body are already connected to the larger cosmos. When this connection becomes total and not just imagined—like in Nirvikalpa Samadhi—the bliss is beyond all limits. Just as Savikalpa Dhyana gives joy by visualizing the physical world, Savikalpa Samadhi brings a flood of real, living bliss. Merging fully is more joyful than standing nearby. Thinking about sunlight gives some warmth, but becoming sunlight is another thing.
Experiencing a blissful shining rod of energy in the backbone during meditation offers a profound insight—it reveals that pure energy can indeed be directly felt by the soul, not merely as a concept, but as a vivid inner reality. Ordinarily, the soul seems to be most aware of energy within the brain, where the constant dance of neural activity creates a dynamic electromagnetic field. However, with focused meditation, this perception can extend to other regions such as the spinal axis and chakras, as if the soul’s attention shifts its sensing lens from the cerebral core to the subtle network that permeates the entire body. Even great yogi Gopi Krishna used to experience his energy body in entire body system like gastrointestinal system etc. leading to his overwhelmingly tiredness. Such experiences challenge the notion that the soul is merely entangled with the physical structure. Instead, they suggest that the soul interfaces with the field—the invisible energy patterns created by the body’s bioelectric activity—rather than directly with nerves or flesh. This realization becomes even more striking during dream visitations, where one may encounter a departed being not as a solid form but as an amazingly radiant and dark together like mascara, and waveless conscious energy presence. Since the departed body no longer exists, the soul must be perceiving an energy body—a subtle electromagnetic or pranic form that carries the essence of identity. This not only validates the ancient yogic idea of the pranamaya kosha or energy sheath, but also lends credibility to emerging scientific hypotheses that suggest consciousness interacts with or arises within the electromagnetic field generated by the brain. Shifts in physical nerve activity merely alter this field, and it is this changing field that the soul likely perceives as sensation, emotion, or thought. In this light, the energy felt along the backbone—like an experientially luminous rod of awareness—is more than symbolic. It is an experiential clue that the soul’s relationship with the body is not with its dense matter but with its living vibrational field. This aligns with ancient Sharirvigyan Darshan, where the body is not seen as an isolated physical entity but as a microcosmic reflection of universal forces. The electromagnetic field within is but a thread in the greater cosmic loom—what is within the spine mirrors the current of the stars, and the soul dances in both. In essence, the electromagnetic field outside is the same as within. Nothing truly exists apart from these fields and waves. What we experience is not material, but a wave — we simply assign it a physical name and form. The shape and form of physical matter are illusions. Space itself is the field through which every wave moves — a grand, all-encompassing field. In this sense, what is God, if not the supreme or ultimate field — the mother field upon which all waves and particles, as players, dance like children at play, giving rise to creation.
Even stories hint at these truths. Like Hanuman taking the sun in his mouth—this is like the space or darkness covering the sun, as in an eclipse. Later, he throws it out, restoring light. The story shows how space itself, when taken as living and conscious in the form of monkey god, plays with light. Hanuman represents the conscious sky, the soul. Space is not empty—it is full of awareness, and that is why it can take forms and perform such cosmic plays.
So the energy body is not imagination. It is the true experience of the living, sensing self. It is connected to the brain’s electric field, but goes beyond it. It is supported by breath, thought, feeling, and deep silence. It reflects the entire design of the cosmos within. By understanding this body, one begins to see the unity of science, soul, and the universe in the simplest and most natural way.
Demystifying Kundalini 