Aura

[Neeranam]

Can anyone explain what the 'aura' is as Buddhists think, or as others believe?

In another thread it was said that it is different from enlightenment.

The spiritual leaders I've met have all had an amazing aura, especially the yogis in India.

Can one get more of an aura by practicing spiritual things, like meditation? Why?

Is it just a physical thing?

Has it got something to do with 'chakras'?

What about the 'soul'?

[Sheryl]

Can anyone explain what the 'aura' is as Buddhists think, or as others believe?

In another thread it was said that it is different from enlightenment.

The spiritual leaders I've met have all had an amazing aura, especially the yogis in India.

Can one get more of an aura by practicing spiritual things, like meditation? Why?

Is it just a physical thing?

Has it got something to do with 'chakras'?

What about the 'soul'?

A lot of questions packed into one!

To my understanding, what some people call "aura" would be the energy vibrations a person gives off. All living beings are continually giving off vibations of one type or another. These change from moment to moment depending on the state of mind.

Vibrations sometimes get described as "positive/negative/neutral" and also sometimes as "high/low". (I've been told by people far advanced in meditation that cats carry a higher vibration than dogs, for example...which as a cat lover I'm happy to accept as true!)

Serious meditation practice greatly improves one's ability to sense the vibrations of other beings, although even peole with no background in meditation or spirituality will pick up on very strong vibrations at a subliminal level..hence the piopular expression "bad (or good) vibes"

Practicising meditation as well as other aspects of Buddhist practise (e.g. sila and cultivation of compassion) will improve one's vibrations/aura to the extent that they are successful in purifying the mind.

As to is it "just a physical thing" -- well it is both mind and matter, it emanates from the body but its nature/quality is conditioned by the mind. Anyhow both mind and matter are ultimately composed of wavelets of energy so the distinction is a superficvial one. (To my understanding of both Buddhism and modern physics).

Chakras are more of a Hindu and perhaps tantric idea than mainstream Buddhist, but -- again to my understanding, may or may not be right -- the chakras correspond to energy centers and thus may be the location from which the vibrations that constuitute aura pass out. I have also heard from vipassana teachers that vibrations received enter through the top of the head (roughly corresponding to the highest chakra) and that people give off vibrations especially through the palms and soles of the feet (the latter being one reason for not pointing one's foot at someone), and several advanced meditators have told me they can feel this. Personally, I can feel the entry through the top of the head and the exit at my own extremities but can't tell where other's vibrations are coming from. Also, very advanced Vipassana meditators work with an "energy center" that in location corresponds to the heart chakra. So there is some connection in these ideas if not i nthe terminology used.

As for soul, a key Buddhist concept is that there isn't one, so a Buddhist take on aura/vibrations would be that they, too, are not-self and lacking a soul of permanent essence. However a Hindu take would be very different, and see the aura as reflective of the soul's level of development.

To me, this issue can easily get confusing due to semantics and different understandings of wht the term "soul" means. The Buddhist teaching of anatta literally means no atta (atman in Sanskrit) and referred to the concept of atta as understood in the hindu worldat the time of the Buddha. I find it helpful to remember that when navigating that particular issue. As I understand it, the anatta doctrine does not mean that there is no enduring substance of any sort, only that there is none that is owned by an individual person (and, of course, there is no permanet, unchanging individual person, either).

In practice, most Asian Buddhists act and behave as if there were a soul in the Hindu sense...as evidenced by the popular interpretation of reincarnation and funeral rites. But Buddhism does in fact teach otherwise. The problem I think is that the actual teaching is (1) very complicated and not easily understood and (2) less attractive to people.