“What you call your body is only an envelope in which lives the subtle body. This inner body is subtle energy, the life-force which supports the physical body. All our sensitivity depends on this life-force. Paradoxically, although the subtle body resides in the physical body it radiates beyond it and encounters the surroundings. So the body in its wholeness has a much greater extension than is generally realised. As the physical body throughout life grows increasingly conditioned by striving it becomes a knot of tensions and contractions and the subtle body is paralysed in its expression. Its radiation is hindered and the physical body is isolated from its environment. When this life-force is obstructed there is a premature ageing of the physical body which manifests first as a diminution of sensitivity and energy. In the natural healthy body each cell is penetrated by life.

Our approach is therefore to bring the energy body back to its full expression as it is in infancy. In being aware of it, it comes to complete functioning. Thus, the first thing we do in our body-work is to awaken the energy body, to make it an object of awareness. This energy is felt, it is a sensation. It is this that I call body-feeling. When the sensation of energy is fully alive it brings about a modification of the physical structure. Any other attempt to alter the body comes from will, the mind, and is violence. In any movement it is the energy body, the vital body, which moves and takes the physical body with it. The emphasis in our teaching on this level is therefore not on the posture or physical structure but on this body-feeling. When the vital body is awakened, all the muscle structure is relaxed and a reorchestration of energy takes place. Each sense is no longer limited to its physical organ but expands to the whole body. In this global sensation all the senses participate. Being in expansion automatically takes you beyond the idea of being a separate entity. The body-work is one way to bring you to oneness with all beings.”