Trace the Source of Prāṇa
Prāṇa is not air, of course, yet it is contained in the air in a certain manifestation. Much prāṇa is found in the air among the trees or near the ocean. All of nature and the forces of nature are various manifestations of odic prāṇa that have taken visual shape. Plants feed on the odic prāṇa in the air. You can absorb prāṇa simply by walking through a grove of trees. The air is filled with it. Take a walk today, out into the odic force field of nature and absorb the prāṇa in the air through your breath and through the pores of your skin. You will feel the prāṇa entering into your prāṇic sheath, or vital health body, and remaining there while you exhale.
Sit quietly and use the internal method of concentration when you think on this. Each time your mind wanders, pull it firmly back to the subject of concentration. Remember, in concentration, that the process of making the mind return to the object or subject of concentration forces a flow of odic as well as actinic prāṇa through the most subtle nerve currents, causing them to grow strong, so that soon your concentration will be effortless as your subconscious responds to your conscious-mind concentration efforts, causing a new process called meditation to occur in the wonderful world of the mind.
Concentrate on the prāṇic health body flowing through and just within your physical body. Mentally go over the exercises we have done this week in proving the flow and existence of odic prāṇa to the subconscious habit mind, so that by establishing a new habit pattern, the subconscious will aid instead of barricade your natural unfoldment on the path to enlightenment. Your subconscious needs certain proofs of these inner laws to solicit full cooperation.
Mentally trace odic prāṇa to its source and cause. Does it come to an end? If so, where? Where does actinic prāṇa begin? You will soon find that odic prāṇa does come to an end, for it merges in the subconscious area of the mind into the subsuperconscious. You will find that odic prāṇa depends on the existence of actinic prāṇa for its existence. As you concentrate on the interrelated flow of odic prāṇa and ascertain the area of the inner mind where actinic prāṇa begins, you should conceptually see how you have been controlling odic prāṇa during this entire week through the use of your subsuperconscious state of mind.
You are maturing through the knowledge of the within of your Being, which you have been studying these last few months. Remember, in the wonderful world of the mind, understanding, gaining mental perspectives, finding proof, no matter how small, within ourselves—these form important controls over the mind. The art of concentration, though the basic and most fundamental control of all, is not the only control over the mind on the classical yoga path to enlightenment. Harmony is control of even deeper aspects of the mind, as are understanding and actinic love. As we expand our consciousness on the yoga path to enlightenment, we hear more, see more, feel more, know more within ourselves. This is intense. We must not fear intensity, for intensity is actinic. Your actinic Being is intensity itself, actively alive and always shining out. Man can be thought of as seven aspects of form, but the Self is beyond the mind or beyond form, for mind is form. Mind is consciousness; consciousness is form. The Self is formless. Therefore, you can contemplatively say, “I am That, I am.”