There are two basic forces in the universe, which you can look up in the dictionary. One is called odic force. The other is actinic force. Odic force is magnetic force. Odic force is the force of collective energies that make things—trees, chairs, tables, houses, the physical body. Odic force is of the material world—dense and heavy. The aura around the physical body and the forces of nature which govern much of man’s life on Earth are odic force. ¶Actinic force is your pure life force coming from the central source deep within, out through the nerve system. But as soon as this pure life force begins to mingle with the astral atoms and the physical body atoms, it turns to odic force. The study of these two forces can give you a great awakening—two primal forces. ¶The sahasrāra chakra, the ājñā chakra, the viśuddha chakra—the top three, the head and throat centers—are primarily actinic force centers of rarefied inner consciousness within the superconscious itself. The anāhata chakra, the heart center, which allows us to look out into the external world and within to the internal areas, is primarily a mixture of actinic force and odic force. It’s called actinodic. It’s a mixture of these two forces. However, the lower three chakras—maṇipūra, svādhishṭhāna and mūlādhāra—are primarily odic force chakras. They are the forces that make up what we call the world. ¶The iḍā and piṅgalā forces are basically odic forces. So, therefore, when the odic force is withdrawn back into the sushumṇā, back into its actinic substance, we completely lose awareness of the external world. That is how we enter meditation, by withdrawing the odic forces. The prāṇa is the in-between. It is the actinodic force that flows in and through odic and actinic forces. It is the binder of these two forces. ¶But it’s easier to relate to the word odic and the word actinic and compare these two forces, because you can feel them through your physical body. Lift your arm. The movement of the spirit within is actinic force, and all the rest that happens is odic force, including the arm itself, the vibrations around the arm. They’re all odic force. The mixture of what is going on is actinodic force, which is the closest, in looking at it in this way, that we come to prāṇa. ¶When we are in actinic force and we are aware of it, we have harmony, we have peace in all aspects of our external life. Everything goes right and everyone sees eye to eye and finds points of agreement, one with another. There’s no argument, and there’s no confusion. However, when we become conscious in and awareness is flowing through the odic force realms, awareness actually thinks it is odic force. Then we have inharmonious conditions to live in. No one sees eye to eye, one with another. There’s argument, and there is contention. ¶Look at these chakras as vast fields of collective related and interrelated thought realms, like vast cities, and look at awareness as the traveler through these chakras. When you are flowing awareness through one of these vast energy fields of actinodic force or actinic force, with these thought or perceptive layers within it, you think a certain way as you hit each of these strata of thought. Think of it in that way. As you travel through, the nerve ganglia within the spinal cord are registering all this and bringing what you are experiencing into your immediate consciousness. You become aware of it through the nerve ganglia within the spine. ¶Through a mixture of actinic and odic force, willpower and awareness motivate the travels through these layers of the mind. When the nerve force does begin to register when you’re in a certain chakra, it begins to vibrate, and it throws off color and it throws off sound, and then, within you, you do see these disc-like wheels spinning. I have experienced that. I have seen them, and they’re just like they are represented in the picture books, but much more vivid. They have sounds—in fact, they’re quite noisy—because color and sound and energy are all the same thing in the inner realms, and that is how they have produced these images that you see in books on mysticism and occultism. However, they are greater than that. They are great energy fields in the inner man, and they flow. They are what make up people. The physical body has a connection to each one of these seven chakras, though you may not be aware of all of them—you may only be aware in one of them or two of them—and that is the way you think.§
Occasionally, a devotee will come along in meditation and have sublime inner experiences. He’s experiencing the viśuddha chakra, and he has inner light experiences. He’s just on top of the world. A month later, he meets some karmic boomerang. He doesn’t have the stamina or the discipline to hold awareness within, and he starts flowing through the second chakra, and he’s saying, “I’ve never had any experiences at all. I wonder why? (the second chakra is reason) I wonder why I don’t have some inward experiences,” and why this and why that and why something else. “I wonder why I’m even doing meditation.” He’s wondering why all the way along, and he’s quite argumentative. ¶I say, “Don’t you remember the beautiful experience that you told me about? You came all wide open.” “Oh, no, no, no.” He doesn’t remember that at all. “What experience?” he asks. “Don’t you remember? You were right here in the temple,” I say, trying to lead him gently back to his experience, “and your head turned into a sea of light. You sat there for an hour and then came and told me all about it.” Then we pretend it only happened a moment ago, and he is back within again. This happens quite regularly. Therefore, to stabilize awareness, so it does not flow through the first chakra, the fifth chakra, the third chakra, the second chakra, to stabilize awareness, what do we do? Attention, concentration, meditation. Attention, concentration, meditation. We work daily within ourselves so we stabilize, and so that willpower and awareness become one and the same great motivating force, so we travel through the areas of the mind that we want to, not propelled by the forces of karma as they boomerang back, not propelled by those forces. We have to work within daily to stabilize the breath and the body so that will and awareness become one and the same great motivating force. Then, when the patterns and stumbling blocks of the past loom before us, we have the strength to stay within and maintain the continuity of one inner unfoldment after another. ¶These magnetic forces are either passive or aggressive in their manifestation. Business advertising is one example of aggressive odic force in use. Sexual magnetism is one example of passive odic force. Our physical body is composed of a subtle balance between active and passive magnetic forces. When the aggressive odic force becomes too active, the passive forces become disturbed and illness results, generally of a mental or emotional nature. When the passive odic forces become overstimulated, physical ailments of a purely physical nature result. ¶Odic forces are colorful and are of the conscious and subconscious world. Actinic force is colorless, or very refined in color, and is the vibration of deeper consciousness. When the mind is in a disturbed state, the odic forces are out of balance with each other. The trained yoga adept knows how to open himself to the inflow of actinic force, which then quiets or appeases the odic discharge. The evolution of the adept through meditation depends on the measure of his control and use of the odic forces as he enters into the consciousness of the actinic world. Many people start on the path of Self Realization in an almost involuntary way, simply by asking the fundamental question, “Who, or what, am I?” In so doing, they turn the mind fiber in upon itself and become tuned into the substance of actinic force. ¶Everyone has his own actinic wave length or actinic ray upon which, or within which, his awareness glides in the realms of expanded consciousness. A satguru’s actinic ray is actually heard as nāda, the “eeee” sound. This mystic sound the guru hears as he tunes into his guru. His guru listens to the same sound to be one with his satguru, and on and on, back in time, which is within the “now.” To become one with, or of a similar vibration with, the actinic vibration of the satguru is synonymous to listening to the sound of the guru’s lineage. This is called the nāda-nāḍī śakti. The devotee endeavors in this meditation to listen to his guru’s nāda, not his own but that of his guru, his guru’s guru and all the others back in time. This is oneness, the oneness of a devotee merging into the satguru’s lineage. §
Each lineage has within it a nāda of a different velocity of sound, varied in pitch and depth. This is Hindu mysticism. This is the magic of Hindu oneness. This is sampradāya. This is paramparā. This is what I want you to do: in the beginning, don’t try to hear your nāda. Try instead to hear mine. You will know you are hearing my nāda, and not your own, when it is slightly louder. This is nāda-nāḍī śakti. This is your first siddhi. It will bring many good benefits into your life, smooth out the karmas, bringing you from future to future, keep you inspired and on the subtle path, strengthening your psychic protection, strengthening your personal force field and that of all the loved ones connected to you, whether they themselves hear nāda or not. ¶There is a large religious movement in India whose one and only practice is to gaze at the founder’s picture and to listen to the inner sound, which is the followers’ connection to him and thus to the Divine in all. I’m hearing the nāda now, as I speak, that of my satguru, Yogaswami; his satguru, Chellappaswami; and his satguru, Kadaitswami, and that of innumerable ṛishis, back to Tirumular and his satguru, Nandinatha, and those beyond and beyond and beyond, to the beginning of time, for there has never been a time on this planet or any of the earths the same distance from other suns in our galaxy or any of the others when our Nandinātha Sampradāya has not existed. Nāda is always present and within divine lineages of Sanātana Dharma, the eternal path, the eternal religion, the eternal truth, more advanced than modern science, but not conflicting in any way with the discoveries of science, as these good souls penetrate into Sanātana Dharma and unravel its mysteries. ¶There are advanced forms of communication and training that utilize these energy rays. Two people may be a continent apart, entirely separated from each other’s odic, conscious and subconscious force fields, and still be subject to actinic mind communication. This has been called soul communication. It is possible because in the superconscious mind, where actinic rays exist, time and space are conceptually different. ¶In the evolutionary cycle, man eventually becomes conscious of the actinic force as it flows through the odic areas of the mind. On these rays, education comes from the inside of himself out to the conscious mind. A person going through such an experience feels he has tapped a higher, intuitive resource. Psychically seen, an intellect developed in this manner, rather than through mere sensory observation, has a golden appearance. The education of the mind’s odic force field from its actinic source creates what I call the “golden yoke.” It is the yoke of liberation, because in its exercise one penetrates to the very depths of the inner being. In so doing, the inner awakening and knowledge brought forth from this superconscious realm registers on the odic force field of the conscious mind’s intellect. It is known that sages have learned languages, mathematics and all flows of knowledge in meditation. Uneducated men have become scholars by opening what Jnanaguru Yogaswami called “your own book.” ¶Now, we can lose this expanded consciousness, once it has been gained, by allowing ourselves to become identified again with the odic world. As soon as we stop making the effort to penetrate the actinic realms, the ordinary forces of attachment, fear and desire force in upon us. It then requires extra effort to balance the forces and penetrate the life-giving, light-giving regions in meditation. When this happens again, one has the experience of seeing light within the cranium—the friction of the actinic force permeating and lighting up the odic force field. ¶A guru-disciple relationship may be established on the actinic plane for years before a physical meeting and training takes place. The study and unfoldment begins when one turns within himself, creating the irrevocable “golden yoke” and attuning himself to the same actinic ray of consciousness in which the guru functions. Teachings can then be conveyed on these rays, as long as guru and disciple are in harmony. By working with this golden yoke, one’s karmic experiences are hastened, but at the same time they are encountered in a more orderly fashion. §
The force field of actinic consciousness is one which a guru has worked perhaps for many years to enter. His awareness of it is his control of it. This mechanism works in the same way a corporate executive guides the forces of his business, through knowledge of the field and experience. A guru learns control of actinic force fields just as a businessman learns to control his odic force fields. ¶The odic force and the actinic force make up this planet. The action and interaction of these two forces working together cause the life that we see on Earth. Quite often, in meditation I see the planet as completely transparent, just like a tremendous, transparent, translucent sphere. It looks light, and it is floating in a clear space, a blue space. This space is called ākāśa. I am seeing the planet in the ākāśa, vibrantly seeing the collective odic and actinic forces working within and through it. ¶Coming out of this state, one can see easily the way in which human beings are created. The woman holds the power of the odic force field. The man holds the power of the actinic force field. Between them they cause a chemicalization that brings through the soul and the physical and emotional body of a newborn child. Depending upon this chemical balance, they give birth to an old soul or a young soul. That is why it is so important for families to have a deeply religious life. What is a religious life? It is the balance of these two forces, the odic force and the actinic force. It is so important that there is an absolute harmony between the man and the woman. This guides and governs the inner currents of the children until the age of twenty-one. At that time, the inner forces dissolve from the family and are governed by their own superconscious mind. ¶I have seen this all happen from the inside. It is a vast and beautiful picture. Of course, with vast populations now covering the planet, it is happening more than ever—more births, more deaths, more forces to contend with. At this time in the evolution of this planet, the actinic forces are breaking through the odic force fields due to the planetary configurations, making this an actinic age, an age of light and great illumination, an age of contemplation. ¶The state of contemplation is not just peacefully sitting and getting all jazzed up on the inside. It is as refined an activity as penetrating subtle thoughts and feelings on the superconscious plane until all intellectual structure dissolves in the atom’s essence within superconsciousness. If you have ever had the experience of tracing a vibration of consciousness to the point where consciousness is no more, you will know how subtle is the fiber of an actinic ray. The explosion of light so commonly associated with the contemplative state is only the first breakthrough. After this, an aspirant is ready to begin the study which will give him the mastery of these subtle forces. ¶Striving in meditation for a continuing contemplative awareness, a strong actinic vehicle is built. The aura of a person who has created access to this inner world gives evidence of a higher energy source. This is what is behind the ancient myths wherein the Gods rode through the skies in golden chariots. The golden chariot is the actinic vehicle of the superconscious. A satguru must be able to control his travel on more than one actinic ray. In doing so, he is able to establish a continuity of contact in the deeper consciousness within his various disciples. It is on an actinic ray that intuitive knowledge is gained and passed along. ¶At first the odic forces seem warm and friendly, and the actinic force registers more as an emptiness or nothingness existing inside of you. But if you can find out what and where this nothingness is, you will not have to think anymore about purging the subconscious, because the actinic flow will take over the outer mind and you will find yourself lifted in love, light and perception. §
People are worried about the world’s coming to an end. Every now and then a religious sect proclaims the new coming of the end of the world. But although the Earth as we know it continues its steady progress around the Sun, the conscious mind for thousands of people has come to an end, for the simple reason that they are no longer interested in it. For them, the world of inner sounds and colors has opened its far more attractive fare. But the job of sustaining and maintaining expanded awareness is not accomplished by losing the controls over one’s powers of awareness. The actinic world is only attained and sustained by initiating definite controls over the odic world. One state of consciousness is controlled in the process of awareness moving and expanding into another state. ¶As we progress along the path, we become more and more and more sensitive. This sensitivity is a wonderful thing. It’s like graduating from being an old battery-set radio of the 1920s and ’30s to a sophisticated, solid-state television. This sensitivity that you will begin to recognize is so refined and yet so strong. You communicate with yourself through the nerve currents which extend out, around and through the physical body—physical nerve currents as well as psychic nerve currents. Before we get deeply within on the path, we’re not too sensitive. But as this sensitivity develops, we begin to see through our hands. We begin to hear feeling. We begin to see sound, and all sorts of new faculties manifest. ¶Now, this can be very distressing, because we see things that we ordinarily would not be able to see. We hear meaning in what people say that ordinarily we would be unaware of, and we can become very disappointed in life, in people or in ourselves. This may seem like falling into a bog on the path, and we don’t want to do this. We want to be sensitive, and yet we want protection, psychic protection. Our dreams become more well defined, but we don’t want to be vulnerable to negative areas of the mind, disruptive areas, experiential areas of the astral plane, while we are sleeping. Neither do we wish to be attacked on the astral plane by the mischievous beings, entities, that are on that particular side of life. ¶We need this astral protection. We need this psychic protection. The group helps the individual and the individual helps the group. The force field of a group of people on the path goes along at a certain rate of intensity which is not broken, and this gives us tremendous psychic protection. In the very same way, a positive group of people only admit into their midst other positive people. A group of businessmen have a well-managed force field, and generally only a businessman of their same caliber can come and mix with them. A group of artists has a force field, and only artists of the same caliber can get into it. Why? If they let everybody in, they wouldn’t have a force field. The business would fail. The art would go into chaos. Friendships would be destroyed because of other influences coming in and amongst the people. ¶Force fields protect and sustain not only our outer forms of expression, but deep spiritual layers as well. When we go “out” into superconsciousness, if we are sensitive and unable to protect our subconscious mind, all sorts of other types of influences can enter. We don’t want this to happen, and it’s not necessary. It is a deterrent on the path, for we then are exposed to unseemly astral influences that detract us from our quest. ¶Make friends with those who are on the path. Be with fine, positive people. Don’t be with negative, complaining people who have no relationship to what you are doing on the inside, or who are criticizing you for what you are doing. There’s the old statement, “One bad apple can turn the whole bushel rotten.” Maybe that will be reversed in the New Age; a lot of things are changing in the New Age. Maybe at some time a whole bag of good apples will make a bad apple good, but so far it hasn’t occurred. Until such a time, we have to be wary of a natural law of nature and live among others of virtuous character and conduct, others who share spiritual insights and seeking. §
Being on the path is a marvelous thing, but it is a path. There are jungles on either side, and if we wander off into the jungle, taking too many liberties, continuity of the vibration of our unfoldment will begin to wane. Suppose you are meditating regularly in the morning and at night, day after day. Perhaps they’re not long meditations, but they are regular. You are generating a certain vibration out of it. If you then stop that routine and take your awareness into feeling sorry for yourself or mentally arguing with a friend, you lose the subtle thread of superconsciousness. You’re going through an old, old pattern and it will be difficult to get back into the vibration of meditation. Your dreams at night may become nightmares. Your circle of friends may change. This is called, in a sense, spinning out into a different area of the mind. If you have not yet experienced this yet, it’s not a recommended experience on the path. And if you have experienced it, you know what I am talking about, and you know the importance of protecting yourself and your meditations. Psychic protection, to sensitive people, is extremely important. It involves every detail of life—your home, friends, clothes, diet, even your dreams. You should live in places that are clean, very clean. Paint your place. Assure yourself that the inner atmosphere is clean and unpolluted. ¶We have an outer atmosphere and we have an inner atmosphere. The inner atmosphere can become polluted, too, just like the outer atmosphere can. All sorts of influences from the astral plane can come in on the inner atmosphere, and this we don’t want. We want the inner flow of the inner atmosphere, which is within this atmosphere of air and ether, to be absolutely peaceful and sublime. How is this done? By keeping your house, your meditation room, as clean as possible. By entertaining few guests and then only people of the same caliber and nature. Guests, other than close relatives, should not stay more than three nights. Why? Because otherwise they bring too much distraction, too many other influences into the home. Finally, the whole atmosphere may be disrupted. Many families have broken up and lost their home, and children have gone homeless, simply because guests have stayed too long and worked into the inner atmosphere and brought in too many influences of a distracting and disturbing nature. This is an old, old traditional custom of hospitality that dates back many thousands of years, and these old customs are based on sound judgment. If they are understood and followed, they assure and protect our contemplative life. ¶Keep your environment positive, so that the inner feeling is always content. Keep your home shrine or meditation space radiant, so that the inner feeling there is always uplifting. As you advance along the path, the radio mechanism will become highly tuned, very positive. Being positive, it will register all types of influences. Influences that are distasteful to you will come through as strongly as influences that are really magnificent. You have to learn to shield out the static by finely tuning this mechanism. That is why you strive for mastery of sādhana, mastery of concentration, your ability to hold awareness where you want it, when you want it for as long as you want it, and mastery of your ability to experience kaīf, pure awareness aware only of itself, by taking awareness out of the entire context into just being aware. This practice of kaīf is one of the fundamental protectors from psychic or astral invasion, for when you are in that state, great clarity and willpower persist and the lower states are transcended. ¶To attain and sustain kaīf is a simple practice. You pull awareness out of the thought processes. You pull awareness out of the emotion processes. You pull awareness out of the bodily processes, and you’re just completely on that pinnacle of being aware of being aware. That’s so necessary to practice every day, even if you do it for a split second. ¶The experience of kaīf can be attained by anyone on the face of the Earth, at least for a split second, because it’s so easy to be aware of being aware. To hold that experience and to stabilize the physical and emotional elements long enough to hold that intensity for even a minute takes more practice—not too much, but consistent practice. To maintain kaīf for two minutes requires more effort, more will, more dedication to the life of sādhana. Five minutes requires more. That’s the test. §
When you meditate, you become inwardly strong. You become extremely sensitive, and sensitivity is strength. But if you are not psychologically adjusted to the things you may be hearing and seeing and the depth to which you might see, you might see things that will be disturbing to you, that will upset your nerve system. Now, it is true that if you are centered in yourself completely enough to be all spine and just a being of energy, you can go anyplace in any type of environment, inside or outside, and the environment would be better for your having been there. You would not absorb any of the distracting or negative vibrations. But until that day comes, it is better to be wise and live in a positive vibration and among people who can help stabilize the force field around you, so that your inner life goes on without interruptions—of spinning out, having to crawl back, and spinning out and then having to crawl back. Why go through all those frustrating experiences, which are inconvenient, time consuming and totally unnecessary? ¶Part of the psychic pitfall is the belief that in order to be spiritually awakened, one must also be psychically awakened, seeing auras, visions, hearing celestial music and such. We do not have to awaken the third eye. To me, that is a translation error made in the old scriptures. This third eye has never been asleep. It’s always awake. We are not aware, however, of the visual mechanism of the third eye. The artist doesn’t have to learn to see to distinguish hundreds of shades of color in a painting. He has only to learn how to be aware of his ability to see hundreds of different shades within a painting. The untrained eye cannot see such subtle variation of tones and hues, but just looks at the painting. It is the same with the third eye. It doesn’t have to be awakened. It’s always awake. As we become more and more sensitive, the third eye becomes more and more apparent to us, because we keenly observe through that faculty more than we did before. ¶If you are standing on a crowded bus and another passenger is just about to crash down on your foot with his foot, you will intuitively move it out of the way. You have often noticed that you moved your foot or some other part of your body out of the way of danger just in time. Well, your third eye wasn’t asleep then, and you didn’t see that foot coming down on you with your physical eyes. You saw it with your third eye. ¶We use this third eye all the time. When someone greets you who is apparently looking fine and you sense otherwise, thinking, “I feel he’s disturbed. I wonder what’s wrong,” you’re seeing his inner condition with your third eye. When you walk up to someone’s house and you have the feeling that nobody is home because you don’t feel vibrations coming from the house, you’re seeing this with your third eye. We see and respond to things seen with the third eye every day, whether we are fully conscious of it or not. ¶The third eye does not have to be awakened. In fact, it is harmful to consciously make efforts to see things psychically—a big sidetrack on the eternal path. We become sensitive to the use of it by using it, going along with our natural meditational practices in a regular way, morning and night, morning and night, when you awaken in the morning and just before you go to sleep at night. All sorts of wonderful things come to you. Protect yourself as you protect a precious jewel. Guard your awareness from coarse influences and you will enjoy the bliss of the natural state of the mind—pure, clear and undisturbed. §