When I meditate I feel energy in my hands

In general, energy system diagnostic techniques include these components:

1. The initial ability to perceive your subtle energy system, i.e., being able to feel vibrations and the Inner Spirit or Self .
2. Enhancing the experience of meditation and vibrations and improving sensitivity. At this stage, the practitioner is able to perceive the subtle energy system and determine whether the vibrations and connection are strong enough.
3. Developing the ability to detect “foreign” entities or some form of undesirable negativity in our physiological or subtle energy systems that are potentially harmful to our health and well-being.
4. Using meditation techniques to clear out an obstacle or impediment in the subtle system which obstructs the flow of the Kundalini energy.
5. Detecting the longer-term health of chakras and trait-related problems in the subtle energy system.

This is the first, most basic step in the practice of Sahaja meditation. Once the Kundalini energy has been awakened through the process of Self-Realization, every practitioner begins to feel the Kundalini energy flowing and piercing the 7th energy center, which is generally experienced as pulsing or pulsating feeling on the top of the head or a feeling of coolness. The hands and fingers may experience a kind of tingling sensation — the flow of the energy in the form of subtle waves. (For a visual analogy, imagine placing your hand in front of an air conditioning vent.)

This experience may manifest within a few days to a few weeks into the practice of Sahaja meditation. The length of time varies for each of us since the state of each of our chakras is different. The state of our chakras, in turn, is dependent on multiple factors; for example: our personalities, our physiological, mental and emotional makeup, our surroundings. (As you physically live in or move through environments that emit positive or negative vibrations, your subtle energy system will be impacted accordingly; for example, natural environments such as a seashore emit might positive vibrations, but a nightclub where people are drinking, doing drugs or committing crimes might emit negative vibrations.)

Practicing meditation with some regularity eventually takes nearly everyone to this basic stage of  feeling the cool energy in the form of vibrations. In the initial stages, the practice of meditation involves raising the energy each time before meditation. Typically, you’ll be able to actually feel the strands of the Kundalini energy rising, almost as if you’re carrying a small blast of cool air in your palms.

On the top of your head, you may feel a sensation similar to a low voltage current, but it’s a soothing sensation. This particular sensation can be really powerful, depending on the number of strands of Kundalini energy rising, which in turn depends on the strength of your connection to the all-pervading power. Thus, this sensation is also often a direct indication of the strength of your connection, as well as an indicator of how deep your meditation will be.

Lastly and most importantly, the thoughtless awareness experience is central to the practice of Sahaja meditation, as well as the state of your entire subtle energy system. Thoughtless awareness is a state in which your thoughts significantly decrease or even stop entirely for moments. In the beginning, you experience only moments of thoughtless awareness in between a set of thoughts. But over time, and with practice, you’re able to increase the duration of the thoughtless awareness state. The stillness of mind perceived during thoughtless awareness is extremely relaxing and soothing and will give you a strong sense of stability and inner peace. It also creates a feeling of emotional detachment and resilience, an ability to not be perturbed by anything.

At the same time, the thoughtless awareness state provides the feeling of compassion and love from within, a feeling that dissolves negative feelings and thoughts. It also becomes easier to forgive and let go and you start wondering why you were so complicated and difficult up to this point in your life. Your spirit, mind and body feels nimble, like a fit, accomplished gymnast —light-weight, yet so strong, capable and skillful that it could bend any which way you might desire. You feel agile as a personality, lighter and more joyful. As feelings of joy begin to settle in, your heart, as they say, even feels lighter.

For most people, it can take a while to feel sensations relating to the subtle energy system, ranging from a few days to, in some cases, even a few months. During this period, it is natural to doubt whether such a thing as the subtle energy system even exists, or whether it can have a real effect on your life. You may wonder if the Sahaja instructors know what they’re talking about. But rest assured that nearly 100% of the people who have tried and persisted with Sahaja meditation have eventually felt the vibrations from the subtle energy system. It seems that the Kundalini energy simply takes its own time to cleanse the subtle system and provide the necessary sensitivity to the practitioner.

Some people report a hot sensation in the hands and on the top of the head instead of a cool sensation. Typically, this only happens in the very early stages of a Sahaja practice and is due to the Kundalini energy clearing the chakras as it passes through them. The unwanted obstacles and negativity exit the body in the form of a hot breeze. All you have to do is wait patiently for the cool sensation to set in. Incidentally, people who experience the hot breeze are usually closer to actually experiencing the subtle energy components than those who feel nothing at all.

The initial awareness and perception of the subtle energy system is the first step toward becoming familiar with its various components — feeling the vibrations, sensing our chakras and energy channels, as well as experiencing thoughtless awareness consistently. In subsequent stages, the focus shifts to accurately differentiating between various experiences and sensations and fine-tuning your sensitivity to the subtle energy system, that is: You become a subtler human being. This includes being able to differentiate between good and bad vibrations, between hot and cool vibrations, between strong vibrations and feeble or mediocre vibrations.

Trying to describe anything that is subtle is always challenging, for it’s not always easy to convey the true essence of a thing. Subtle things, after all need to be perceived, experienced and understood, not just read about or talked about. Nevertheless, the following is an attempt to at least offer some clarity on different vibratory experiences in the practice of Sahaja meditation.

Vibrations are a representation of the all-pervading power of Nature. All elements in the universe have states of existence and their own intricate mechanisms of emitting vibrations, or in simplified terms: “good and bad” vibes, as we often refer to them. In general, these vibrations are subtler expressions of what we feel good or bad about, thus they may act as an authentic barometer of our feelings. In Sahaja meditation, there is a real, tangible way of detecting positive and negative vibrations once one’s subtle energy system becomes sensitive or receptive to vibrations. Positive, strong vibrations can be sensed by a strong flow of vibrations and a cool sensation, while bad, negative vibrations can be perceived as hot sensations, accompanied by stoppage of the flow of vibrations. Negative vibrations may also be experienced as a feeble flow of hot energy. These sensations can actually be felt on our hands and fingers. Since good and bad can be relative in the real world, it’s easy to question how vibrations can be so precise or absolute.

But in reality, there’s no relativity or ambiguity involved in whatever nature creates. It is always absolute. Confusion and ambiguity exists only in our interpretation and understanding of these creations. All creations of nature are created with a purpose, have very specific characteristics, functioning, and a clear-cut path of evolution. Subjectivity and relativity only enters the picture when human beings create things. Or when human beings, who themselves are creations of nature, misuse their discretion, sense of freedom and faculties to create not-so-positive things and outcomes. The laws and protocols of nature are also absolute. For example, honesty or innocence, by definition, are absolute in nature. But human beings may exhibit relativity in the manifestation of these qualities; that is, degrees of honesty or innocence.

For most, the practice of Sahaja meditation and the pursuit of spirituality in general tends to gravitate towards seeking and understanding these absolute paradigms of life and making our lives clearer, less ambiguous and completely at one with nature. In fact, being able to perceive nature’s emitted vibrations is the first step towards a clearer, higher state of existence that is unclouded by relativity and ambiguity.

Vibratory awareness can become a helpful, practical decision-making guide for Sahaja practitioners. As you move to advanced stages of the practice of Sahaja meditation, you begin to receive confirmation of good vibrations emanating from positive things and bad vibrations from negative things — again and again, often, several times each day. Over time, the distinction between good and bad becomes crystal clear and your vibrations provide you with confirmation. When we’re experiencing doubt, our vibrations can help tell us the difference between good and bad. And this detective ability can be applied to many situations and things; for example, ideas, plans, thoughts, objects and of course behaviors, actions and characteristics exhibited by others (though not the people themselves, for there’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” people in absolute terms).

Hot or cool vibrations are mostly synonymous with good or bad vibrations, but not always. Many times, feeling no vibrations at all can be an indication of bad or not-so-positive things. Cool vibrations, while generally positive, may sometimes indicate “Just Okay” versus a strong pulsing flow of cool vibrations, which indicates Extremely Positive. Over time, and with experience, a greater level of sensitivity in vibratory awareness can help us decipher exactly what nature’s vibes and energies are telling us about a particular thing.

During the Self-Realization process, the Kundalini energy is awakened and a few strands of this energy rise through the central energy channel, pierce the centers, and achieve a connection with the all-pervading energy. The Kundalini energy is composed of a large number of strands or threads of energy intertwined in a spiral fashion, like a rope. During meditation, the Sahaja technique involves raising the Kundalini energy, and strands of energy rise through the central energy channel each time.

The strength of your inner energy connection to the universal energy is directly proportional to the number of strands of energy rising and the number of obstacles in its path. The stronger the energy connection, the deeper the experience of thoughtless awareness and the stronger the vibrations. Conversely, when fewer strands of energy rise, vibrations are typically feeble.

It is almost impossible to determine why the strength of the connection varies. It can vary from one meditation session to another, on a daily basis, too. Several factors are responsible for this… the state of our energy centers, the degree of obstacles in the energy’s path, our surroundings, the strength of our attention, and most important of all, the strength of qualities associated with high quality thoughtless awareness (e.g., humility, attentional control, etc.). The qualities that improve thoughtless awareness strengthen your connection.

The Kundalini energy is a highly intelligent, dynamic and spiritual energy. It rises and moves according to subtle states and paradigms that are hard for the human intellect to comprehend. However, there’s a set of techniques and guidelines available within the Sahaja body of knowledge (including the anecdotal experience from practitioners over several decades) to help you improve the strength of your connection and accelerate your progress.

There are several issues related to our ability to perceive the subtle energy system at different locations or in different ways. Vibrations can be felt on the hands or on the top of the head. The movement of the Kundalini energy in general may be felt through any energy center. At times, vibrations may only flow through the left or right hand, which indicates that the subtle energy system is out of balance. An energy channel (e.g., left channel or right channel) that is blocked results in absence of vibrations in its respective hand (left or right).

Furthermore, the flow of vibrations can also be felt on specific fingers. At times, the vibrations can be sensed in some fingers but not in others. The mapping of fingers and regions of the hand to the individual chakras can be understood from the diagram of the subtle energy system. When vibrations are not flowing through a particular finger, it means there’s some problem with a specific chakra that needs attention. The toes experience vibrations similar to the fingers, but there’s a slightly different mapping to individual chakras for the toes.

Vibrations may also be felt at the location of the individual chakra. Likewise, obstacles can be felt in the chakra, or on the fingers or toes that are mapped to that chakra.

Beyond the sensory perception of vibrations and the flow of energy, it is possible to explicitly detect obstacles in the subtle energy system. In fact, with the passage of time, these can be consistently and easily detected and analyzed to pinpoint problems with specific chakras or channels.

An obstacle is a temporary obstruction or impediment to the flow of the Kundalini energy. Obstacles can occur in any channel or chakra. They’re felt in various ways, such as a twitching sensation in the finger or toe that corresponds to a particular chakra, or a twitching or “catch” sensation at the precise location of the chakra.  At times, the twitching can be quite intense (though not painful or disturbing) while at times, it can be mild. At other times, it can be detected by the absence of vibrations or the flow of energy through the specific finger that corresponds to the chakra. Obstacles in the energy channels can primarily be felt by the lack of energy flow either in the right hand or left hand.

A negativity is a foreign entity in the subtle energy system, very similar to how a virus or other unwanted microorganism is a foreign entity in our physiological system. A negativity has adverse effects on the subtle energy system, starting with an impact to the vibrations and quality of thoughtless awareness to sometimes deeper impacts, such as influencing our behavior negatively due to emotional imbalances or inducing a lot of unnecessary (and possibly distracting or intrusive) thoughts.

In fact, negativities or foreign entities such as actual viruses and bacteria that will lead to physiological disorder can also be detected and sensed by the subtle energy system. The beauty of being able to perceive such viruses through the subtle energy system is that it may allow you to detect this disruption well in advance of symptoms occurring.

Typically, we tend to classify disorders based on symptom clusters. Many Sahaja practitioners report being able to detect physiological disturbances and disorders well before the physical symptoms start manifesting. In many cases, they can take preventive action to eliminate the problem or significantly reduce its intensity. Two common examples include being able to detect a problem with the digestive system through the detection of an obstacle or negativity in the Nabhi or Swadishtana chakra, or being able to detect a flu or common cold by detecting a catch or negativity in the Vishuddhi chakra.

However, negativities in the subtle energy system typically can be a lot more subtle. A common example is infiltration of negativity in the left energy channel, which is involved in addictive behaviors, such as addiction to substances like alcohol, and other severe mental health problems. While science has its own explanations and diagnostics for such disorders, the subtle energy system can also help us detect and analyze these problems quite effectively.

Other types of the subtler negativities can include significant behavioral changes, as in the case of a person who suddenly becomes a shopaholic or an overly aggressive personality when he or she was not previously known to exhibit such behaviors. This may sound strange, but it’s true, and has actually been experienced by meditation practitioners over the years. You can think of it as being similar to how Spiderman, in the movie Spiderman II, gives in to negative forces, suddenly starts wearing a black suit and behaving very differently! When negative forces overcome us, they start influencing our thinking and behavior. But Sahaja meditation and the subtle energy system can really help keep these forces at bay by allowing you to detect these negative changes.

Negativities in the subtle energy system are typically experienced by a sensation of pain that sometimes feels like a pin pricking the finger. They can also be experienced as heat passing through the fingers, rather than a cool flow of vibrations.