When you delve into Chinese medicine, physical energy is *at a minimum* split into three categories: chi, jing, and shen. This is a MAJOR over-simplification. Quite simply, there is no way to elaborate on this adequately.
Chi is a concept that even the most well-meaning and well-studied Westerner has a hard time grasping - even professionally-trained Western acupuncturists and medical qigong practitioners.
It's impossible, so i've learned from my formal studies in Chinese Medicine, to cull out physical chi-type enegies from mental chi-type energies, although occultists very commonly make this distinction with chi v. psi type conversations. In medical applications, there is no such distinction.
Now, almost everyone who studies chi cultivation practices honestly and intently will eventually have massive spiritual and psychic pay-offs, usually without intending to do so. It is just the natural progression, observed for thousands of years. All qigong adepts have what we would term as psychic abilities; they develop them through "physical" chi cultivation. Chi is Jing which is Shen which is Spirit. They are different but the same, impossible to seprarate except when theorizing.
Energies do "feel" different, of course, and are different too. They vary in density, the techniques vary, the applications vary, some are slower, more solid, more etheric. You can use different energies for different goals, etc. There is absolutely no argument that different energies do exist, but i think it's an over-simplification to delegate chi into the physical only.
I know that some of the more advanced practitioners probably know what i mean, and maybe it's just not the appropriate forum for a higher-level discussion of what chi really is and isn't. That's the stuff of YEARS of qigong and Chinese Medicine. Maybe it us just easier to say that chi is physical, knowing that this is a half-truth.
Many experts define chi as communication between your organ systems and your environment, your body's pattern and sense of rythym, a regulatory system, and a means to communicate from energy field to energy field - from the Universe to the Earth (my very much non-expert definition, or horribly incomplete definition).
The worse thing an energy practitioner can do when experimenting with different energies is to "visualize" the energy, to make a false mental picture of what you "should" be experiencing, and have a preconcieved notion about what you "should" be feeling, what color the energy "should" be, how it "should" move, etc.
FEEL the energy. Don't judge it. Don't visualize it. You will only get a product of your mind through visualization - and your mind is a poor teacher. If you FEEL nothing, don't be hard on yourself. Intend to feel the energy (not visualize. Intend). Relaxation + Alignment + Intention = Energy Flow. Maybe a bibliography of good energy books and resources would be in order (www.energyarts.com).
A little abstract and a terribly-worded failure in shedding light on a concept that is meant to be solely experienced, not written about...
Chi is the natural energy that surrounds us, Psi is the energy that binds the universe and us (I guess).
There are an infinite number of energies, (Heat, force, electricity, light, psi, chi, etc)
Humans have mastered psi however the other energies will allow us to control other things, eg, the ability to see into ones future is psi, however the ability to move objects with only the mind is a different power again, and that is why it can't be done with psi.
Again physical force can move objects in a chaotic matter, however it can not see and is blind to anything that is not adjacent to it. And certainly can't tell the far-future. (It can tell the immediate future, eg if something drops it will fall but thats it)
Chi is energy within produced by your own body
Ki is the energy of the universe all around us which we can draw together and use.
just thought i'd mention the difference.
Quick question - (i just recently found it that it might be chi) for the past years ive been able to focus on my body to a point where i get this strange pulsating feeling - almost like when you get goosbumps, just more intense - its like a buzzing feeling allover my body - in the beginning i noticed i could guide this strange feeling around in my body and feel that part - then i tryed doing it allover my body - it was verry intense, so coulden hold the feeling for long - i dont meditate, but i do relax in other ways simelar to meditation - could someone explain what this might be, if its chi and if so - how am i able to do this?
