2026: Silence, Discernment, and the Practice of Shuniya

Self, shuniya, soul, and silence: Why the new year is the time to understand this relationship and live from it.

By: Angad Kaur Khalsa

In numerology, you add up the digits of a year to find its universal number: 2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 10. And since 10 reduces further to 1 + 0 = 1, we call it a 10/1 year. Both numbers matter: the 10 and the 1 it reduces to.

The number 10 itself combines two forces: 1 and 0. The 1 represents the active self (initiative, decision-making, leadership, direction). It is also the number of the First Spiritual Body, the Soul Body. The 0 symbolizes shuniya (silence, openness, neutrality). Zero represents the natural and original state, which is consciousness itself.

This pairing presents a specific challenge for the new year: learning to act from silence rather than from noise. When your actions arise from inner silence, the soul's intelligence can guide them. When they don't, your efforts create unnecessary strain instead of yielding results.

In practical terms, this is a year that supports steadiness and clarity as life continues to unfold. The work of the year involves learning how to live without internal resistance. This means that inner chaos will quickly undermine your effectiveness in 2026. Your progress will stem from stability rather than force. Silence, in this sense, becomes your strength.

What This Looks Like: The 10th Spiritual Body

The 10th Spiritual Body is known as the Radiant Body. It appears when the self and the soul function as one, and when the positive and negative aspects of the mind no longer compete but instead complete their circuit, leading the mind to achieve neutrality. This integration allows the nervous system to remain present without becoming overwhelmed. Mentally, it brings clarity and intuition. Spiritually, it allows the intelligence of the soul to flow freely through the self.

When the Radiant Body is awakened, you stay open and meet challenges directly, remaining steady under stress. When it's unstable, confidence falters, and energy becomes inconsistent. Hesitation replaces forward movement. Situations feel heavier than they are. Fear quietly shapes your decisions, and your capacity to meet life diminishes.

This is why maintaining inner silence becomes essential in 2026. Silence allows the self and soul to stay integrated. From that silence, the Radiant Body emerges, and you meet life with clarity, courage, and steady authority.

The Internal Pattern: 2, 4, 6, 8

The numbers within 2026—2, 4, 6, and 8—each carry their own significance.

Two highlights relationships and the reality that everything exists in relation to something else. Four provides structure, foundation, and neutrality. Six brings responsibility, care, and the need for harmony. Eight is the gift number of the year, connecting the finite self to the Infinite through the Pranic Body.

The Pranic Body governs vitality, stamina, and your capacity to sustain effort without depletion. It fosters the energetic balance necessary for making thoughtful rather than impulsive decisions.

From this balance, discernment emerges. In Kundalini Yoga terms, the negative mind protects, the positive mind initiates, and the neutral mind decides. When these three aspects work in harmony, your responses become timely and appropriate. In 2026, what you consume, be it information, relationships, habits, or pace, will directly influence your stability and vitality.

This is not a year for rushing growth. Strength develops before it shows. Much of the real work happens internally, out of sight. This is a year that favors patience, preparation, and consolidation. When clarity is established first, your efforts will become efficient rather than exhausting.

The invitation of 2026 is to recognize and allow the union of self and soul, and to live from that union. When that relationship is steady, radiance naturally follows. This inner light guides quietly. It instills confidence without arrogance and steadiness without rigidity. When difficulties arise, it offers perspective. When success comes, it fosters humility.

This light is already within you. There is nowhere else to search.

Looking Back to Move Forward: An Exercise for a 10/1 Year

Universal 10/1 years mark beginnings. They reset direction and initiate cycles that often only make sense in hindsight. Before fully stepping into 2026, it can be useful to reflect on previous 10/1 years and observe what was seeded then.

Consider the years 1999, 2008, and 2017. Each was a universal 10/1 year. Without overthinking or narrating too much, simply recall:
What began?
What shifted in your identity, direction, or commitment?
What did you say yes to that altered how you lived, practiced, or served?

For me, 1999 was the year I entered Level One Teacher Training and the year I first learned about Sat Nam Rasayan®. It shaped me in ways I could not have imagined at the time. What began then became a foundation for a beautiful life, one that unfolded gradually over decades and continues to shape my life.

Often, 10/1 years do not announce their importance when they arrive. Their meaning reveals itself later, through the lives they quietly set in motion and the commitments that endure.

2026 as a Year of Gift and Commitment

2026 arrives as such a moment. For some, this may mean committing to training, practice, or contemplative study, not to add something new but to clarify the relationship with the self and allow silence to inform how life is lived.

The Aquarian Teacher KRI™ Level One Teacher Training Program offers a full initiation into the foundations, technology, and philosophy of Kundalini Yoga. It supports a deeper relationship with the self through disciplined practice, study, and reflection, establishing a stable inner ground from which life can be met consciously.

Authentic Relationships KRI™ Level Two Teacher Training brings this awareness directly into relationships. It explores how we meet ourselves and others, how patterns are recognized and released, and how responsibility, care, and consciousness can shape how life is lived.

Sat Nam Rasayan® offers direct training in silence. It teaches how to rest in awareness without interference, where resistance dissolves and consciousness itself becomes the healer. This work supports the self in learning how to remain neutral, steady, and present in relationship with all that arises.

Each of these paths supports the self by strengthening clarity, steadiness, and the capacity to live from the pure light within.

2026 offers a true gift: the opportunity to deepen your relationship with the self and to be guided by silence. What you commit to this year may quietly shape the years and decades to come.