Ida Nadi (Moon Channel)

Qualities: subconscious, past, storage of memory
Physical expression: left sympathetic nervous system
Place on hand: whole left hand
Manifestations: emotions, existence, joy, desire
Causes of a block: lethargy, bad habits, conditioning (stuck in behavior patterns), stuck in the past, sadness, depression, suicidal, low self-esteem, lack of discipline, blind faith, guilt, fear, self-pity, slyness, day-dreaming, drugs, bad childhood,

Your energy channel (called Ida Nadi in Sanskrit), also known as the moon channel, begins at the Mooladhara Chakra (subtle body chart, 1) and travels up the left side of your body where it crosses at the Agnya Chakra (subtle body chart, 6) into the superego, the right side of the brain.
The superego is the storehouse of all your memories, habits and conditionings. Your superego is also the area of your brain that encourages moral behavior. In most of us it has to wage war on our more selfish, pleasure seeking urges in the process.

Your left energy channel expresses the passive mood and the power of desire. Desire is our prime mover, the power by which we exist and the first cause of our creating or seeking. Emotion is born out of desire which is not yet materialized. Therefore, the left is our emotional side.

Weakness in the left side leaves us prone to emotional extremism where we are thrown between elation and depression. Most of us have suffered the occasional “couch-potato-day”. Remember the lack of energy and desire you felt as you sat around, doing nothing at all? That feeling may have been caused by a problem with your left energy channel.
If it is continuous then we develop a lack of self-discipline and we become slaves to habits inculcated in us through conditioning. We become very lethargic, retreating into passivity and self-obsession.

To correct a weak left side we have to first balance it with the right side. This means activity which develops the ego and pushes the over developed superego back to the central area of the head. So we put more attention outside, on work and action. Discarding all ideas of self-destruction and self-pity, we materialise the emotional side which is attuned to our sustenance. By using the neglected right side, we bring the left into balance with the rest of the being.

The real and greatest quality of the left side is to give us joy which is beyond the duality of happiness and sorrow. The Spirit is always in joy. That joy is expressed in its purity when Kundalini enlightens the attention with the spirit.
Ideally it is felt as the innocent joy of a child. Remember when you were a young child and you’d wake up happy in the morning? The joy carried by the left energy channel feels just like that. As adults, we long for this joy though we do not often find it. It may become blocked or “bruised” by some of our life-experiences. However, it still lives within us and can be awakened through meditation so that this joy which is latent in creation starts manifesting through your left side.

Your priorities change automatically. Old habits and addictions are over and done with, given up without difficulty. A sense of security is established and all guilt and imaginary fears disappear. Everything created by nature gives a new meaning and one starts enjoying the genuine significance of every ripple they emit.