The aura reflects our state of emotion. Change the color, change the emotion. Being open to the blessings of the Deity can change, lighten the colors and emotions. Visualize lighter colors coming out from the spine filling the aura.

Unedited Transcript:

Our talk this morning is covering the subject in the current lesson from Merging With Siva which has to do with the human aura. For anyone not familiar with the human aura, the aura is not physical, it's emotional or astral and it's part of us that resides within the upper part of our body. Reflects two things: We have an inner aura and an outer aura. The outer aura reflects our current state of emotion. It's constantly changing as our emotions change, as we react to what we're experiencing. The inner aura is fairly static, it's remnants of the past, problems from the past that we haven't resolved that are just sitting there. And they sit there as colors and shapes. The part of the aura we're looking at this morning is the outer aura. We're not looking at the inner aura.

Starting with, from the back of Merging With Siva there's some interesting material on colors in one of the resources. So we're going to research the color red. What the color red means in the aura and the different varieties of red; there are different shades of red. Because red doesn't mean the same thing, there's many different shades.

"Red represents the physical phase of mentality. That is to say, it stands for that part of the mental activities which are concerned with physical life. It is manifested by the vitality of the body, and in other hues, tints and shades, is manifested by passions, anger, physical cravings, etc.

"In this group of astral colors seen in the human aura we find strongly in evidence the clear bright red shade, similar to that of fresh, pure arterial blood as it leaves the heart, filled with pure material freshly oxygenated. This shade in the aura indicates health, life-force, vigor, etc., in pure and untainted form. The aura of a healthy, strong child shows this shade of color very plainly and strongly. Strong, pure natural emotions, such as friendship, love of companionship, love of physical exercise, healthy clean sports, are manifested by a clear, clean shade of red. When these feelings become tainted with selfishness, low motives, etc., the shade grows darker and duller. Love of low companionship, unclean sports or selfish games produce an unpleasant, muddy red shade.

"A shade of red very near to crimson is the astral color of love, but the tint and shade varies greatly according to the nature of this form of emotional feeling. A very high form of love, which seeks the good of the loved one, rather than the satisfaction of oneself, manifests as a beautiful rose tint -- one of the most pleasing of the astral tints, by the way. Descending in the scale, we find the crimson shade becoming darker and duller, until we descend to the plane of impure, sensual, coarse passion, which is manifested by an ugly, dull, muddy crimson.

"Particular series of red shades are those manifesting anger in its various forms, from the vivid scarlet flashes of anger color, arising from what may be called 'righteous indignation,' down the scale to the ugly flashes of deep, dull red, betokening rage and uncontrolled passion. The red of anger generally shows itself in flashes, or great leaping flames, often accompanied by a black background. "

That gives a sense of red. You can see it covers a wide variety of emotions not just a narrow range.

So Gurudeva's teachings on the aura are very interesting. Usually it's looked at in the cause and effect form of, we experience certain emotions and those emotions create colors in our aura. The cause is the emotion; the effect is the color in the aura. But, in Gurudeva's teachings it's also the other way. We can change the color in the aura and thereby change our emotions. Works both directions. The emotion creates the color of the aura or if we don't like that emotion, we can change the color of the aura and experience another emotion.

So Gurudeva's giving us two ways to do that. First has to do with the temple.

"You as a devotee have often gone to the temple with your problems and placed them at the feet of the Deity. In the unseen world of the Devaloka what actually happens is that the Deity and His many devas work with your problems by working with your aura by disintegrating or clearing up any congestion they find. They lighten the darker colors that were created by traveling through troubled states of mind, infusing them with rays of white and violet light from the inner sanctum. We rarely see this happening, but we can certainly feel it, and we depart the temple feeling relieved and freed from congestion and worry. Often we can hardly remember what we were upset about."

So that's what happens in the temple when we really open ourselves to the blessings of the Deity. It's not automatic. Just because someone goes to the temple this process doesn't take place. We have to be in a devotional receptive mood. We have to be open to the inflow of the blessings of Deity. And that's the purpose of the ceremony. We come into the temple and we're concerned about this and that and distracted about this and that and then we settle down. And we watch the ceremony and ideally, we would open up more and more to the blessings of the Deity. And therefore, receive them, and the blessings would change or lighten the colors in our aura which would, in turn, raise our mood, make our mood better.

Second method.

"You can also flood your aura with rays of white and violet just like the Deities and devas do. If you are in a bad mood because of having just become angry with someone because you were jealous of him, there is a remedy that you can perform for yourself. Your aura is now brownish with murky dirty green, possibly accented with black and red sparks. To counteract this heaviness, just add white. Visualize white light flooding out from the center of your spine into and through your aura. Visualize violet rays flooding into your new white aura, invigorating and cutting through the darkness.

"If you are overtaken by anger and resentment -- blackish red with streaks of yellow -- visualize light blue entering your aura and surrounding your body. Visualize light blue and project it out from the center of your spine into your inner and outer aura. The light blue will neutralize the fiery reds, and before you know it the anger, and resentment are gone. Visualizing the light blue color actually drew your awareness out of certain areas of the instinctive mind into intuitive states. Instead of anger, you experience compassion and understanding. By making this part of your sadhana, you have acquired a fine new tool to cope with your instinctive-intellectual emotions and mental states."

So, one of the beauties of Gurudeva's teachings is illustrated here. It's the combination of theory and practice. Gurudeva gives us the theory about the human aura, how it all works and the fact that emotions create the colors in the aura. Or, going the other way, the colors in the aura create the emotions. But then he gives us some practical tools. How can we apply this principle in our daily life? What do we need to do? How does it work?

So he's giving us two tools. One is the temple and one is just visualization, where we're sitting with out eyes closed, visualizing these lighter colors coming out from the spine filling the aura.

So this is two ways, two remedies, two tools for changing our emotions -- the temple and visualization -- and it really works. I know many of you have been working with this for years and it's always surprising how much of a mood change we can manifest just by working with one or both of these tools in ourselves.

Thank you very much.

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