Clare Rosenfield
The two kinds of energy, sentient and insentient are characterized in specific ways. Sentient has the innate quality of conscious awareness. Though consciousness itself may not be seen, wherever it exists, in all living forms of matter, you see growth. Even a tiny plant inhales and exhales, absorbs food and gives off waste, grows and decays. Sentient energy is the cause of this process. A plant, which is not watered and cared for, will wither. If you feel compassion for it and water it again, see how it smiles! See the response!
Watch a newborn leaf attached to its mother tree. As it grows, it changes in size, texture, and colour. Sometimes it starts out with pinkish veins, which mature into a mellow green; it gives off a fresh smell. Connected to the tree, it is full of the sap of life. Once it drops from the tree, it becomes dry. Its conscious indweller has departed and only insentient matter remains.
This sentient energy in plants or animals may not appear to be as evolved as ours. It may seem to be merely a dim version of what we manifest, but it is consciousness. If plants or animals did not have consciousness, they would not move or grow. The procedure of the life cycle is the same in all. When that sentient in us departs from this body, the body becomes an empty shell, dry inanimate matter.
Consciousness is the main criterion of all sentient energy, which is known as atma. Where we don't see consciousness, that is called insentient matter, or pudgala, that which fills up (pud) and empties (gala). It is existing, not living. For example, the outer forms of earth, water, fire, and air are like shells; they are insentient substances. Their atoms do not manifest awareness, but they have certain properties such as color, form, taste, odor, and tangibility.
The vibrations of insentient are measurable, belonging to a mathematically precise material world. They range from coarse to fine, of which the coarse can be observed, detected, or felt by our senses, while the fine are hard to detect. For example, billions of atoms and molecules are moving unseen in the air. Though they do not obscure our vision, they fill a whole atmosphere. At times, insentient vibrations have so much power that they may cover, influence, or change the level of a person's mental state. Alcohol, marijuana, opium and other drugs are powerful forms of such inanimate energy. Once such energy is allowed to penetrate the body, it starts working on the system and dominating the mind. Once it has gone so far as to burn the brain cells, it is difficult for atma to reassert dead cells and effect a positive change.
Assert itself it must, however, for the vibrations of sentient are not meant to remain dominated, influenced, and encased by matter. In the company of ignorance, greed, anger, or other impure matter-dominated states, sentient vibrates at a low frequency, limited by a distorted mind. Therein lies our work to refine the mind, to prepare it to be an accurate reflector and transmitter of the brilliant light of human consciousness. That is the proactive role of atma while it is in this body.
Through gradual exposure to right knowledge, through the consistent practice of meditation, atma prevails. It can change, bend, melt, evaporate, or burn away the impure vibrations, which condition negative mental states. Negativity is replaced by positivity, and eventually, the vibrations of sentient, which are immaterial and therefore immeasurable, claim their innate capacity to extend outward infinitely, embracing the entire universe of life.
Once the vibrations of atma are purified to this highest degree, they are, really speaking, radiations of pure energy. The human mind is merely a tiny portion of this mighty power. Just as the sun gives off rays of warm light and nourishes the universe, so purified atma radiates from its equanimous centre beams of universal love and nourishes life with peace and bliss.
