[Sharing Lights]

Understanding the Aura

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov



Everything that has existence – human beings, animals, plants, and even stones – emits particles, produces emanations, and it is this fluidic atmosphere that surrounds objects and beings which we call the aura.

The aura, therefore, is a kind of halo which is invisible except to clairvoyants. Indeed, many people do not even realize it exists, although subconsciously they sometimes sense its presence.

An invisible skin
In human beings the aura can be compared to the skin, which has three basic functions: it protects the physical body, gives it sensitivity, and provides a medium of exchange with the outside world. The aura fulfils the same functions and can therefore be said to be the skin of the soul.

It envelops and protects the soul, gives it sensitivity, and as a medium for cosmic currents, it makes an exchange possible with all other creatures, even the stars.

All the cosmic, planetary, and zodiacal influences that are poured out into space ultimately reach us, and it is the quality of our aura – its sensitivity, purity, and colour – that determines whether or not we receive certain currents and energies.

Negative currents cannot reach those who possess a powerful and luminous aura, because before reaching them they come up against their aura, and it is the aura that rejects them.

The aura functions like customs officers at the border: it lets nothing through without checking. Most of the time, it acts without our consciousness, but it can also warn us.

So we can distinguish different functions of the aura, but in reality they are all interlinked – the functions of sensitivity, protection, and exchange are all in action at the same time.

Now what are the factors at play in the formation of the aura?

Exactly the same as those needed in the formation of the skin. There are skins that are coarse, rough, and dry and others that are supple, fine, and soft.

Anyone, or almost anyone, is capable of judging the quality of someone's skin at a glance. And what does the quality depend on? On the entire organism, on whether it functions properly at the physiological level as well as the psychic level.

Human beings form their own skin, and in the same way they form their own aura, which is the emanation of their different bodies, from the physical to the most subtle, each one of them contributing its own particular qualities.

The etheric body forms an aura that penetrates that of the physical body, and the aura of the physical and etheric bodies combined reveals a person's health. The astral and mental bodies, through their activity or inertia, their qualities or defects, add other emanations, other colours to this initial aura, and thus reveal the nature of a person's feelings and thoughts.

And if the causal, buddhic, and atmic bodies are awakened, they add even more luminous colours and more powerful vibrations. It is the emanations of these three higher bodies that form the body of glory to which Saint Paul refers in his Epistles.

The body of glory, like the aura, is an emanation that flows from human beings, but whereas the aura reflects a person's defects as well as his qualities, the body of glory is the expression of the most intense spiritual life.

As I have said before, everything that exists possesses an aura.

Minerals, metals, and crystals project certain forces which form a kind of small coloured magnetic field around them. In plants the etheric body adds its vitality, its need to grow, thus making the aura more intense, more alive than that of minerals. In animals the aura is even richer, for animals already have an astral body, the body of desires and emotions.

Generally speaking they have not yet begun to develop their mental body – except for some, such as dogs, horses, elephants, monkeys, and dolphins, in which biologists discern the beginnings of mental faculties. Although these faculties are still rudimentary, through contact with human beings, the mental body of animals begins to develop, because human beings contribute a great deal to their evolution by looking after them, loving them, and caring for them.

As for human beings, they are currently developing their mental body in a phenomenal way, and even though they do not always do so in the best way, those who know how to direct and control their thought strengthen their aura enormously.

to be continued