Auras R Us

by Dennis Green

Over the years, I’ve had to learn to read people. As a teacher, as a journalist doing interviews, as a businessman — it was a matter of sheer survival. Not just facial expressions and body language, but also attitudes, motives and intentions. And I had the good fortune, in the early ‘80s, to take a class from a man named Donovan, who taught yoga at Mills College in Oakland, and advanced classes out of his little cottage on 41^st Street.

Donovan taught us a few positions, stretches and such things as “The Sun Exercise,” but he also spent a lot of time teaching us how to read people, how to protect ourselves from the psychic intrusions of others, how to get rid of negative energy stored in our bodies, and even how to read people’s auras. I was 40, the only man in a class of 10, and eight of the women were Mills students seeking more advanced training.

This was long before the current yoga craze, and at a time when it was still a little exotic. But I was on a tear, intent on growing some new antennae and getting my psychic house in order. I was also, I must admit, rather charmed by the company of all those attractive young women, especially when we did “therapeutic touch.” I made the sacrifice.

I got so good at the techniques that I began seeing people’s auras everywhere I went, and one week, when I was still working at Miller Freeman, I went to a Tuesday morning meeting of the Executive Committee and got the fright of my life. As we sat around the big conference table, I saw that the CEO, the VPs and publishers, to varying degrees, all had badly muddled auras.

In yoga, the aura is believed to be an energy field that emanates from the human body about 18 inches, and more vividly around the head, creating the “halo” shown in many religious paintings and sculptures of the gods, as well as the meditating Buddha. (Also imitated, enhanced or disguised by crowns, diadems, certain hairstyles and headdresses, especially the feathered headdress common in certain tribes…)

In the most psychically healthy person, the aura is very bright gold, and the more negative energy that accumulates, the more muddled, or muddied, and blackened the aura becomes. And yes, other colors are common to these stored or vibrant energy patterns: red for anger or passion, purple when a person is feeling noble and inspired by higher values, green for envy, blue for sadness, and brown in someone who is very earthy. All very simple vibration “frequencies,” and symbols universally known.

Donovan began every class by having us lie prone, practicing relaxation yoga, and letting waves of “golden sunlight” wash over us, starting at our heads and gradually pouring down the length of our bodies. We also did this exercise when we rose in the mornings at home, and before we went to bed.

In that conference room, I saw in the auras of two of the executives so much negative energy that they were almost entirely black. Hideous. Scared the beejesus out of me, because I had to work with these people all the time. But not for long. That week, I began negotiating my departure from the firm.

Sometimes it’s good to socialize, and sometimes it’s not.

So I added “Auras” to my repertoire. And I use the technique to this day, as well as the Sun Exercise, Golden Sunlight, “Cording,” Body of Glass, Out of Body and Blowing a Rose — all the many useful exercises and visualizations Donovan taught us.

But the black or muddled aura is most common to people who like to boss other people around, who work by intimidation, by “Cording” others with their intrusive will-power. In other word, bullies. More about this subject later…

©2010 Dennis Green