You as a devotee have often gone to the temple with your problems and placed them at the feet of the Deity. In the unseen world of the Devaloka what actually happens is that the Deity and His many devas work with your problems by working with your aura, most especially the inner aura, by disintegrating or clearing up any congestion they find. They lighten the darker colors that were created by traveling through troubled states of mind, infusing them with rays of white and violet light from the inner sanctum. We rarely see this happening, but we can certainly feel it, and we depart the temple feeling relieved and freed from congestion and worry. Often we can hardly remember what we were upset about. ¶You can also flood your aura with rays of white and violet light, just like the Deities and devas do. If you are in a bad mood because of having just become angry with someone because you were jealous of him, there is a remedy that you can perform for yourself. Your aura is now brownish with murky dirty green, possibly accented with black and red sparks. To counteract this heaviness, just add white. Visualize white light flooding out from the center of your spine into and through your aura. Visualize violet rays flooding into your new white aura, invigorating and cutting through the darkness. ¶When you go, as pure awareness, right into the center of your spine and flood white mind substance out into your aura, the white mixes with the black, and gray appears in your aura. Immediately you experience fear, but this emotion soon passes as more white enters the aura. The gray soon disappears. As still more white enters the aura, the flaming red of anger turns to the pink shades of tolerance and compassion. The dark browns and the murky dark green of jealousy turn to the emerald green of confidence and humility. A feeling of peace and contentment comes as the new colors react back on the emotions. All this and more happens to you from within you because you deliberately moved your individual awareness deep into the center of your spine and flooded white rays of light out through your aura. It takes but a little effort on your part, a little concentration, persistence and faith in your ability to change your own mood by a positive effort of will. You, too, can do as the devas do. Try it today. ¶You have no doubt experienced difficulty in getting up in the morning. What is the remedy for this? What color would you flood your aura with to invigorate your physical body in the early morning? Flood your aura with red, of course, a nice bright red. It doesn’t take much effort to visualize the color red. You will know that you have succeeded when all of a sudden your physical vitality awakens and you feel invigorated and ready to jump up for a wonderful day. ¶All of us at one time or another experience mental laziness. What is the remedy? Simply flood your aura with yellow by visualizing yellow light all around you, and soon you will be drawn into the thinking area of the mind and be able to progressively pursue your studies. Visualizing orange strengthens your intellectual aggressiveness because red is added to the yellow. So if you want to become intellectually aggressive, a quality needed to succeed in the business world, after you have succeeded in flooding your aura with yellow light, then flood your aura with orange light and experience the change for yourself. §
If resentment and anger are not conquered in this life, all the karmas of the creation of these upsets through life condense and go to seed. In the next life, in condensed form, the colors of the inner aura of the sub of the subconscious mind remain in the mind substance of the baby, waiting for similar situations to occur, to burst out in a full array of color and take over the outer aura emotions and the conscious and subconscious mind. As the baby grows physically, the inner aura grows, too. That’s why parents often sing religious songs and bless the baby with white light, to help in harmonizing the seed karmas so they don’t awaken in all their negative power. They work to lighten the colors with white light, and the karmas are lightened. Thus, the wise Hindu parent attempts to subdue the sub of the subconscious mind reflected in the permanent aura of the child even at an early time in life. Each area of this prāṇic montage of color represents a whole conglomerate of experiences the child had in past lives but did not resolve and therefore must go through again in this life. ¶Yes! You can bless yourself as well. With little effort at all, go within yourself and become aware of the center of your spine where the white light is and let the light shine out, flooding your entire aura. As it does so, it also will neutralize the more permanent inner aura, lightening the heavier colors, if any, into shades and hues that will inspire and invigorate your future life. When the darker colors are finally gone, they are gone forever. This is indeed a blessing you can give yourself, or which the Deity can give you in the temple with the instant power of His rays. ¶You might be wondering at this time, what exactly, then, is a curse? A curse is just the opposite of a blessing. When someone becomes angry at you, or you become angry with someone, he is actually cursing you, or you him. This is because powerful vibrations of red and black, grays and muddy, brownish greens are being sent from one person to another. Truly, this hurts, and bad karma is made. ¶Our holy scriptures tell us that we must purify our intellects. What does this actually mean? It means that we must lighten up the colors that are within our subconscious and sub of the subconscious mind. When the intellect is finally purified, the outer aura shows many pastel colors in and through it. The permanent inner aura will be filled with beautiful patterns of golden yellow, blue and lavender. But once the intellect is purified, good mental maintenance must occur daily so that congested areas are not recreated out of habit. This is the great value of a regulated religious life and daily sādhana. ¶To keep the colors of our subconscious and subsubconscious refined, our religion tells us to go on a long pilgrimage once a year. This means we take our inner aura that has been building up through the year and place it at the feet of the Deity at some far-off temple. While on the pilgrimage, we are able to collect all its colors, emotions and deep feelings and leave them, along with our offering of fruit and flowers, at the God’s holy feet to be disintegrated by Him. So great are the Gods of our religion. ¶To keep the colors of our subconscious and subsubconscious refined, our religion tells us to read scripture daily, because their high-minded thoughts and concepts bring purple, lavender, pink and yellow into our aura. To keep the colors of our subconscious and subsubconscious refined, our religion tells us to perform pūjā daily to personally invoke the higher beings in the Devaloka at our own home shrine and obtain their blessings. It may interest you to know that such blessings lighten not only the aura of each one in the household but also the physical building itself. ¶To keep the colors of our subconscious and subsubconscious refined, our religion tells us to provide the essential sacraments in life for the children, so that the permanent impressions of these special combinations of color and sound are placed into the inner aura of the subsubconscious mind and added to the ones that are already there from previous saṁskāras. §
Sometimes you may experience stressful moments during your daily sādhana. They will soon pass, never to reappear, so do not be worried. What is actually happening is that the white light coming out from within you penetrates various pockets of the inner aura, and one by one they are being lightened up. However, each time the inner light penetrates one or another of these congested subsubconscious pockets of color, the memories of what created them are stirred. This brings up, to be reexperienced, the corresponding thoughts, feelings and emotions. Because they are unbidden, the stress of this intrusion is felt in the external nerve system. Be assured, it will pass. Breathe deeply and be assured it will pass. Breathe deeply and diaphragmatically and all will be well. This is a form of mild self-imposed psychic surgery, as the colors adjust to the rays of white light from deep within your spine through the grace of Lord Śiva. ¶If your child is crying uncontrollably and you can’t get to sleep, what color would you bless him with? Would you get angry and yell, “Why don’t you go to sleep! I told you, you’re disturbing your father!” Flashes of red? The child would be terrified. No, you would harmonize the child’s emotions with shades of blue and pale green. An important part of your sādhana is to familiarize yourself with the mental-emotional counterpart of each of the colors. You can familiarize yourself with the individual physical, mental and spiritual effect of each color simply by looking at one color after another and experiencing the results. Each color and the emotions it reflects are like two sides of the same coin. Learn them so well that the thought of one immediately brings the idea of the other. This knowledge is the foundation of your color sādhana. Enter into this wonderful world of color with interest and earnestness. ¶You can perform color sādhana in a number of ways. For example, study the way various colors in your immediate environment make you feel. How do you feel when you enter a room that is painted blue? White? Yellow? Another way to study color is to visualize each of the colors within your conscious mind. Place before you a piece of paper of the color you wish to visualize. Look at the paper and then close your eyes and try to see the exact same color in your mind. Then open your eyes and look at the paper again and with eyes still open turn your head away from the paper and try to see the color in your conscious mind. Literally fill your mind with the color of the paper. After you have accomplished this exercise with one color, repeat it with another, then another and then another. By using your great soul faculty of observation and through the grace of Lord Gaṇeśa, you will perceive many proofs of the significance of color. You will soon amass a stock of experiences within your subconscious mind of each color and its corresponding mental-emotional state.§
The next phase of your sādhana can begin when you have memorized the colors and their corresponding mental and emotional states and this knowledge is clearly defined in your conscious and subconscious mind. Start by giving yourself a thorough, honest, emotional and mental-maintenance examination. Begin by analyzing your fine, noble qualities and writing them on a piece of paper. Then, on the same piece of paper, note your weak, instinctive frailties. These are qualities you would like to get rid of or change to bring your nature into a more refined level of consciousness. Now, perhaps for the first time, you will be looking at yourself as a total physical, emotional, mental and spiritual being. ¶Next, decide which weakness needs attention first and begin applying what you have learned about flooding your aura with the color that will effect the changes you desire. If you are persistent in your efforts, you will be pleased with the results. Choose a failing in your character, such as jealousy. Once you’ve made up your mind to deal with jealousy and lighten the ugly, dark-brownish-green in your inner and/or outer aura, make a clear mental picture of light green and yellow and flood those colors into your aura by just a slight effort of your will. You do not have to exert much effort to do this. You need only relax and hold a clear mental picture of the desired colors. Visualize the two colors and project them out from the center of your spine into your inner and outer aura. That is all you have to do. As soon as the light green and yellow flood your aura, you will feel an immediate change in your mental and emotional state. The antagonistic feelings of jealousy will begin to fade. The opposite mental quality of understanding and the emotional quality of self-assurance will automatically be strengthened as a result. ¶Once you perfect this technique on one or two difficult traits, such as jealousy, anger or resentment, you can begin to transform other weak areas of your nature, such as shyness, lack of self-confidence or being overly critical of others. The procedure is the same. And the best time to work on the area is when you have been propelled into it by something that happens to you. Each time you feel yourself entering one of these areas of the mind, and your awareness is consumed by one of these feelings—in which case your aura has taken on its corresponding colors—simply visualize the counterbalancing color and flood it into your aura. ¶If you are overtaken by anger and resentment—blackish red with streaks of yellow—visualize light blue entering your aura and surrounding your body. The light blue will neutralize the fiery reds, and before you know it the anger and resentment are gone. Visualizing the light blue color actually drew your awareness out of certain areas of the instinctive mind into intuitive states. Instead of anger, you experience compassion and understanding. By making this part of your sādhana, you have acquired a fine new tool to cope with your instinctive-intellectual emotions and mental states. ¶There will be times, of course, when the pull of the instinctive-intellectual areas will be so strong that it will be difficult for you to visualize a counterbalancing color. So strong are the pulls of the lower nature that it may even be distasteful to think of the intellectual and superconscious colors. However, through performing this sādhana regularly, there will come a time when each time your awareness is pulled into an undesirable instinctive area, you will be able to exercise the inner nerve system of your soul body and bring the instinctive, intellectual elements of your nature under your control. §
I want to encourage you and to give you confidence to flood your aura with colors. It takes but a little of your willpower to do this. The intent itself is the thrust of awareness required. Willing consists of a mental command, leaving the rest to the natural mechanism of the mind. Therefore, let us pray to our dear Lord Gaṇeśa to help us remove the obstacles of doubt and fear. ¶If you are working through the day to bring a certain color into your aura, carry something with you or wear something of that color. The more you are aware of the color you are working with through the day, the better the results. This is because your attention will automatically take up the impression of it, and the corresponding quality will be enhanced in your character. A little practice during your half-hour sādhana period and through the day, and some positive experiences with color will soon give you the confidence you need. Patience, perseverance and earnest interest will be the keys to your success. ¶As you know, it is not uncommon for the emotions of one person to affect those around him. It is therefore important that you learn how to “charge” your aura with prāṇic energy so that the darker colors from the auras of others do not penetrate your own. If and when they do, you will experience their moods and emotions and may interpret them as your own. But actually you have simply accepted into your aura the dark reds, muddy browns and greens from their aura. You simply did not have enough prāṇa in your aura to ward off the intrusion. Such mental thought forms and undesirable colors from others’ auras are often called psychic influences. ¶To protect yourself from psychic influences, you can charge your aura with the vital prāṇa from your own prāṇic body. To do so, sit quietly, breathe deeply and mentally get in touch with your prāṇic body, first by visualizing it and secondly by feeling it. The prāṇic body of most people extends out from the physical body about one or two inches, depending on the level of vitality. Of course, the prāṇic body also completely permeates the entire physical body. As you sit quietly, breathing deeply and slowly, become intimately aware of the vitality, the prāṇa, running throughout the physical body. As you breathe in, feel the vitality of your body. Feel the magnetic energy within it. Feel its life. Then, as you breathe out, mentally and through feeling release some of this vitality, this prāṇa, this life force, and send it out into your aura. Keep sending it out on the out-breath to the aura’s outer edges all around your body, from your head to your feet. The outer edge of the human aura is about three or four feet away from the physical body. After you have charged your aura with vital prāṇa in this way about nine times, you should begin to feel a magnetic shell being built around the outer edge of your aura. ¶You will feel very secure and content as you sit within your own aura, which is charged with prāṇa from your own prāṇic body. You are protected from all kinds of psychic influences, seen and unseen. But the prāṇa within your aura will eventually wear away, and you will have to recharge it when it does. For the beginner, it only lasts an hour or two before it has to be rebuilt. When you become more advanced in this practice, it will happen almost subconsciously, or automatically, when you sense the need. Once you master this simple method of charging your aura with prāṇa, you will soon develop an immunity to undesirable thought forms and emotional colors of those around you. This is a great aid to prevent taking on the negative influences of the place we are about to visit, the person we are about to meet or the gathering we are about to enter. §
After you have quickly increased the prāṇic strength of your aura, you can easily flood it with any color you wish. Each color has its own special protective qualities, which can be chosen to counteract or balance out the particular vibrations you are or will be experiencing. Let’s take the example of protecting yourself from the auric emanations of persons who are ill, a condition you will encounter if you visit a hospital. You can easily counteract this influence by flooding your aura with colors of health and physical strength. This will not only protect you, but it will also improve the condition of those around you. How do you do this? Become aware of your spine and visualize a stream of white light in its center from the base to the top of your head. Then mentally draw from this pure white light warm red and vibrant pink. As a healing power, visualize pale green surrounding the patient, a color many modern hospitals have adopted to invoke healing. To increase your vitality even more, visualize yourself effortlessly performing some strenuous physical or athletic feat. For example, mentally go through all the motions of lifting something heavy with ease and you will soon feel the energy rising within you. ¶The aura of the successful doctor or nurse invariably shows the presence of bright reds and vivid pinks. Most successful doctors and nurses who are in contact with their patients possess the mental and emotional vibrations of strength, power and confidence. They remain cheerful and bright despite the negativity of the many around them suffering from disease and despair. The doctor’s strong aura, well protected, does not absorb the gray shades of his patients. Gray in the aura, which indicates fear, opens the individual to all kinds of negative influences. ¶If you are going to have an important intellectual discussion with someone and want to be sure to remain poised and centered, what colors should you flood your aura with? The answer: bright oranges and yellows. This will bring a new energy to enhance your intellect and protect you from being overpowered by the intellectual force of someone else. You have probably experienced times when you were overwhelmed in this way and came away from a discussion regretting having been swayed from your original perspective. This technique can help prevent this by making you mentally stronger and more agile. This is also a way to help overcome shyness. Surrounded by a vibrant aura charged with bright orange and yellow, you are a secure and confident individual, able to enter into discussion with new self-assurance. The vibrations of others tend to rebound from your aura. You are relaxed and friendly, and intelligence pours forth uninhibitedly from you. One more thought on this subject: it is also wise to hold a mental image of your head being surrounded by a golden aura of yellow light. This will create the vibration in which thoughts flow freely without interruption and perception is quickened as you speak. §
Now, perhaps most importantly, you must learn how to protect your emotional nature. The emotional nature is often the most vulnerable and easily influenced of all. You will have to admit that far too often you have been moved into action by your emotions rather than your intellect. To guard your emotions is to keep the instinctive nature harnessed under the firm reins of your intellect. The colors used to harmonize and protect the emotional nature are light blue and violet. By flooding your aura with beautiful sky blue and vivid violet, you quiet your own lower emotions and feelings and become impervious to the negative feelings and moods of those around you. With the advent of these colors, your individual awareness is transported into the more refined, uplifting realms of the subsuperconscious mind. Always remember that by flooding your aura with bright sky blue and lavender, you are automatically building an armor to protect yourself from others’ lower feelings and passions, such as anger, jealousy, hatred and lust. So, make a study of bright, clear blues and violets and select the ones that appeal to you the most. Intuitively you will know which hues are best for you. Beautiful hues of blue and violet will always be found in the auras of successful teachers, missionaries, social workers and those who work among those of lesser emotional and mental refinement than their own. ¶There is one last part of this sādhana that you should learn to make your understanding of the human aura complete, and that is the knowledge of the auric circle. The auric circle is an energy shell around the aura itself. It acts as a shelter or shield against all forms of psychic influences directed consciously or unconsciously against the individual. Unlike charging the aura with prāṇic energy through breathing, the auric circle is quickly and easily formed by making a mental image of an egg completely surrounding your aura. The shell should be visualized as a great oval of translucent white light with an opening at the top the size of your head. It is egg-shaped or oval because it fringes the aura as the shell encases an egg. It should be visualized about three to four feet in depth at the widest point, tapering to about two feet at the head and feet. ¶It takes but a little effort of the will to visualize and project this protective, translucent shell around your aura on the astral plane. Though you may not see it, you will feel its protective presence. Once you have built up the protective shell around your aura, then it needs only to be renewed from time to time. You can easily do so by extending both arms out in front of you, waist high. Then press the palms of your hands together and visualize energy flowing from your solar plexus into your hands. Once the flow of prāṇa is established, slowly part your hands while feeling the prāṇa emanating from your fingertips. This prāṇa remains in the outer shell of your aura. Move your arms out to the side and then completely around to the back of your body until the fingers and palms touch again. All the time you are doing this, keep sending the prāṇa out into the shell of your aura from your fingertips. Strengthening the protective circle around your aura in this way from time to time will be quite helpful to you in manifesting a fuller and more joyous life, because it will definitely ward off all forms of psychic attack or evil influence, no matter what the source. The auric circle surrounding a vibrant aura charged with the proper colors, fortified by sending the vital prāṇas from the prāṇic body, affords protection against the draining of physical strength by astral entities in extreme cases of astral attacks. In short, this protective, translucent white shell is a spiritual shield which filters out those influences which would be harmful or upsetting to you. Before beginning your prayers or meditations, you should always strengthen this protective shield.§