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186 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
and it was apparently his interest in the physical which had brought him to the bioenergetic movement. When I had been interested in bioenergetics eight years earlier, I had actually attended a three-day bioenergetic workshop where he was an instructor. Now we spoke about bioenergetic theory and its relationship to yoga.
Wilhelm Reich, the movement’s founder, discovered that an individual’s posture, stance and gait reflect what he called, “body armoring”: defensive holding positions in the body aimed at stopping the free flow of energy so as to avoid reexperiencing uncomfortable feelings related to traumatic events of childhood. The body armoring, it was thought, by blocking the natural free flow of energy, inhibits one’s full immediate contact with his own self and environment.
Psychoanalysts reach these uncomfortable, defended-against, walled-off or repressed feelings with verbal techniques; bioenergetic therapists working with the body, reach these areas by increasing the flow of energy into “deadened” areas with specific exercises or by encouraging opposing postures or movements. Bioenergetic therapists are concerned with the flow of energy from head to foot and into the ground. When energy flows freely and without obstruction, one feels “grounded.” An intimate and solid contact with the ground is thought to bring with it a feeling of strength and steadiness in character.
I felt that bioenergetic theory was not as well defined or as comprehensive as that of the yogis.1 Bioenergetic theory focuses on levels of energy characteristic of lower stages of physical and psychic development. It deals with some of the coarser blocks to the flow of this energy—related to disturbances early in childhood—and with the energy itself, such as drive and emotional energy. It deals only to a limited extent with the more subtle prana or kundalini energy.
Thus bioenergetic treatment can indeed lead to more sexual and aggressive freedom and potency, but if there is no accounting for how subtle prana and kundalini activate higher ckakras, it will not lead to higher levels of consciousness. Yogis, on the other hand, understand the dynamics, organization, flow and function and of the more subtle prana and kundalini energies and their influence on higher chakras. These are the dynamics of spiritual growth and consciousness-raising.
While the bioenergetic system describes energy descending into the earth—it’s very function being to “ground” one in the real world,


































































































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