Tonic Gold, the Mind, and Opening the Subtle Layers
By Scott Blossom

Scott Blossom is a Traditional Chinese Medical practitioner, yoga therapist, and Ayurvedic Consultant. He holds a degree in biology and has extensively studied anatomy, physiology, and Ayurveda. Scott is on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Yoga Center Teacher Training, the Integrative Yoga Therapy Teacher Training, the Kripalu Ayurvedic Training Program and Lulu Bandhas Yoga School.

If people understand that they are multi-dimensional beings, then it follows that you would want to address as many dimensions as possible when you get on the mat, or when you get anywhere. The situation is going to have a deeper impact if you are working on more than one level at a time. Something like Tonic Gold allows you to affect the subtle auric field before you even start doing whatever you are doing.

Two things come out of that. One is that it is going to help make you clearer, so that you can make skillful choices for your practice, which is a very basic form of alchemy. The other side of it is that there is magnetism towards the subtle, so that you are less likely to get trapped into identifying with only the most obvious layers. It is going to start potentially opening up vistas that are going to give you clues about your subtle spiritual nature. So that in itself, if someone takes it over a long period of time, pushes you along in a nice direction. It benefits you immediately and it benefits you in terms of opening up the layers that are where the deep yoga occurs, which is at the level of consciousness and mind.

Gold is a tonifying substance. It has a warming quality, and so in general agni—the digestive fire of the body, and the subtle fires of all the tissues, and the subtle fire of the mind—has an affinity for the resonance that gold has. Mental digestion has everything to do with understanding, comprehension, discrimination, and insight. Since gold has an affinity for agni, and since it is similar to sunlight, and it has a relationship to the inner sun, it supports that quality. It brings a kind of brightness and clarity into things.

Fire is really the name of the game when it comes to the mind. Gold feeds that if it is given in the proper quantities. It is universal. It gives light to the individual who takes it. And because this journey is to be able to see into the darkness, you need light no matter where you are.