Essence is something fundamentally different, more substantial, and deeper than energy, whether it is electromagnetic, chemical, chi, prana, kundalini, shakti, libido, orgone, or whatever. However, all these energies must be experienced and freed for a person to be able to move into the realm of being, our essential and true nature. Processes and systems that use energies, like chi, kundalini, shakti, or any of the other energies, are useful for freeing the superficial layers of the organism so that the freed energies can be used for the inner work that will ultimately lead to the discovery and realization of essence. The human organism has many levels or layers of energetic functioning, some of these interpenetrating the others. Most systems focus on one particular layer and use the energies of this layer for the work of inner development. A whole system is then formulated that describes and utilizes these particular energies, their centers, and routes in the body.

Kundalini is the main energy that fuels the chakra system. It is connected with sexual energy, but it is sexual energy only when operating in the lower chakras. In the heart chakra, it is experienced as love; in the head chakras, it is experienced as light. Shakti is the same energy but in a different form, that of power. It is experienced as having more of an electrical quality than kundalini. Prana, on the other hand, is experienced as a softer kind of energy than either. It is almost like liquid air. Kundalini and shakti have a certain phosphorescent and colorful quality and hence are more flashy and dramatic. The energy of the chakra level, whether it is called kundalini, shakti, or prana, can be considered to be the energy of essence. In other words, just as essence has the aspects of will, love, consciousness, and so on, it has also the aspect of energy. When the chakra energy is pure, we realize that it is a self-existing energy. We have so far differentiated between essence and energy to emphasize the sense of beingness that is so distinct in essence but not manifested in energy.

Shakti energy is the raw energy of the emotional realm, for emotions are basically shakti with some conceptual coloration. By freeing oneself from identification with these emotions, their issues, and the concepts that underlie them, the energy is liberated and appears as the vital pure energy of shakti. This can activate the kundalini, which becomes pure vital energy that goes up through the spine activating the various chakras. Each chakra has, associated with its mode of functioning, psychological issues that must be worked through.