Sooner or later, anyone reading about tantra runs into the vocabulary: prana, nadis, chakras, kundalini. For some people it lands immediately. For others it’s the point at which the whole thing starts to feel like something they can’t take seriously.
Both reactions are reasonable. Here’s a way through that doesn’t require you to sign up to a cosmology.
Start with what’s observable
Whatever you believe about energy systems, some things are directly noticeable in your own body:
- Some areas feel dense, tight, or somehow “loud.” Others feel absent — you can’t quite locate them at all.
- Emotion has a physical address. Anxiety tends to live somewhere specific. So does grief. They’re rarely in the same place.
- Energy moves. After a good conversation, a walk, or a cry, the body’s internal landscape is measurably different.
The subtle-body vocabulary is a map for that territory. You can use the map without any commitment to what the territory is ultimately made of.
The terms, briefly
Prana is usually translated as life force, though “animating energy” is closer to how it’s used. It’s the quality that makes a body feel alive rather than merely functioning. You know the difference between a day when you’re vital and a day when you’re going through the motions — that’s the distinction prana points at.
Nadis are the channels prana is said to move through. Think of them less as anatomical structures and more as pathways of flow. When something is described as “blocked,” this is the level being referred to.
Chakras are centres where energy concentrates, traditionally located along the midline from the base of the pelvis to the crown of the head. What’s striking is how closely they map onto areas people independently report as emotionally significant — the throat when something is unspoken, the chest in grief, the belly in fear.
Kundalini describes a particular kind of powerful energetic awakening. It’s frequently over-promised and best approached with caution and support rather than pursued as a goal.
A useful way to hold it
Treat these as descriptive language for felt experience rather than as claims about physics.
When someone says the throat centre feels blocked, they’re describing something recognisable: constriction, difficulty speaking, the sense of words getting stuck. The language gives shape to something people otherwise struggle to articulate.
That’s genuinely useful, regardless of your metaphysics.
How it shows up in practice
In a session, this rarely involves discussion of chakras at all. What actually happens is more like: attention is brought to an area, you’re invited to notice what’s there, and something either softens or doesn’t. If it doesn’t, you stay with it a while longer, or you move on.
The map informs where attention goes. The work itself is entirely experiential.
If it still doesn’t land
That’s fine. You can do every practice in the tantric tradition — the breath, the slowness, the sustained attention — and simply describe your experience in whatever language makes sense to you. Nobody is checking.
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