our long term race of chasing aura

you know when someone walks into a room and something in you shifts? you don’t know their name. you don’t know their story. but suddenly, your spine straightens. they haven’t even said a word, but everything in the room knows they’re here.

that’s aura.

what is this thing we call aura, and why have humans always chased it?

dressed it in gold, divinized it, aestheticized it, spiritualized it. we talk about it like a shimmer, a frequency, a force. something we can almost feel brushing against our skin, but never quite touch. in an age that promises everything on-demand, aura is what still escapes us.

a book that first taught me about aura—without ever using the word—was the alchemist by paulo coelho. it showed me that when you move toward your personal legend with honesty and heart, the universe responds. aura, in that sense, is the quiet power of someone aligned with their purpose.

a history of glow

before tiktok filters told us we had red or blue auras, saints were painted with golden haloes, and ancient egyptians carved radiant energy around their gods. the body, since time immemorial, has been a vessel of light. whether it was the divine radiance of buddhist enlightenment or the soft afterglow of a romantic muse, human beings have always associated presence with a kind of visual charge. walter benjamin, writing in the early 20th century, described the aura of a work of art as its "presence in time and space." its originality. its here-and-now. the aura, for him, was what separated the real from the reproduced. the sacred from the ordinary. the masterpiece from the mass copy. but in a world of endless copies, where everything is content and everything is scrollable, benjamin’s mourning of the aura feels eerily prophetic. aura became rare. almost extinct. and in its place: aesthetic templates, algorithmic taste, curated selfhood.

you can’t fake frequency

so what is aura, really? a spiritual frequency? an invisible glow? a kind of embodied magnetism that can’t be replicated? maybe aura is what happens when energy, intention, and authenticity align. a cumulative vibration that travels ahead of you. some people call it energy. others call it charisma. either way, it’s the same phenomenon: the way someone makes an impression before they even say a word. but even now, as we try to explain it, we already feel it slipping away. and maybe that’s the point. aura resists translation. it is the opposite of formulaic.

magnetism, marketed

we crave the aura because it feels unrepeatable. and in a world where everyone is performing versions of each other, aura feels like truth. that’s why we try to chase it, brand it, even bottle it. aura is now something you can buy. it’s in a crystal-infused spray. a meditation playlist. a filter. a digital reading. but real aura doesn’t announce itself. it doesn’t try to convince. it just is.

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the tiktok aura industrial complex

scroll through tiktok and you’ll land on someone telling you how to "boost your aura." there are tips for "main character energy," playlists to unlock your inner glow, and entire subcultures around "aura points." aura has become gamified. trendified. a new performance of self. it’s spiritual branding, made snackable. but here’s the contradiction: even though the internet commodifies aura, it also proves it’s real. because some people do go viral just by sitting still. because some creators make you stay. watch. rewatch. why? they have something that can’t be edited in.

so how do you really develop an aura?

what if your aura isn’t something you add, but something you remove? what if it’s what’s left when you’re not trying?

i’ve always believed that artists are the ones who carry the strongest and most authentic auras, not because they seek to stand out, but because they dare to be radically true to who they are. their work often comes from a place of deep feeling, of filtering the world through sensitivity and intention. so who better to speak about aura than an artist herself?

i invited duda libman, a multidisciplinary artist whose presence feels like an extension of her inner world, to share her perspective. because sometimes, to understand aura, we need to listen to someone who lives it.

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“since i was little, i always sensed that something in me attracted goodness. it wasn’t something i actively pursued, it just seemed to come naturally. later on, i realized this came from my mother. she was always a living example of someone who manifested what she desired effortlessly, simply by existing truthfully, by planting kindness without expecting anything in return. it was as if the universe was always conspiring in her favor, and, in a way, it was.

i grew up believing that if you do things with love, empathy, and genuine kindness, the return will come. simple as that. it’s not magic or a secret formula. it’s coherence, between what you feel, what you think, and what you do.

“aura is coherence,” she says. marcus aurelius might have called this alignment fidelity to the ruler within, that unwavering truthfulness to one’s own inner compass (meditations, book 4.3). to him, the good life wasn’t grandiose or loud, but marked by “a fearless truthfulness in each word and utterance,” and in the act of shrinking from nothing (book 12.2).

that taught me that aura is not something you perform. it’s something you quietly cultivate in your everyday life.

like marcus, i’ve learned that the present moment is all we truly possess. “no one can lose what is already past, nor yet what is still to come,” he wrote (book 2.14). that means our aura, our presence, can only ever live in now. it’s not a past performance or a future plan. it’s how we show up with integrity today.

my mother also showed me that visualizing what you want is a fundamental part of the process. when you see yourself in that position, when you truly believe something is yours, the universe understands. energy begins to organize itself around your intention. life starts moving to meet you. because the universe doesn’t want to test you, it wants to see you bloom. and when you live with that calm certainty that what’s meant for you is already on its way, something inside you shifts. your presence shifts.

aura, to me, has a lot to do with this: being at peace. with who you are. with the timing of things. with your own truth.

marcus wrote that the soul at peace “strikes no poses, utters no complaints, and craves neither for solitude nor for a crowd,” but lives “free from continual pursuings and avoidings” (book 7.7). there is great power in that stillness, the kind that doesn’t chase, but simply exists.

and that begins within. you are what you consume, not just what you watch or listen to, but also what you think, what you feel, what you choose to nurture inside yourself. when you fill yourself with goodness, that’s what you radiate. that becomes your energetic signature, your field of attraction. and slowly, it stops being an effort and becomes your natural state.

this reminds me of the discipline to keep one’s thoughts “pure and upright,” as if “faced with its recall,” proving that one’s thoughts were so transparent there would be no need for shame (book 4.3). that kind of inner hygiene is where true aura begins.

today, i no longer need to “feed” my manifestations. they’ve become extensions of me, reflections of what i nurture internally. filtering my thoughts, practicing kindness, choosing goodness, these have become my routine. they’ve become who i am. and maybe that’s where the aura begins: when you stop trying to appear and simply be.

to marcus, this would be aligning with “your own particular thread of the universal web” (book 5.3), not distracted by others’ paths, not contorted by performance, but devoted to living out your truth under a higher direction.

aura is coherence. it is vibration in a state of truth. and the more you cultivate that alignment between your inner and outer worlds, the more the world recognizes you as someone who is fully present. because in the end, it’s not about shining brighter than others, it’s about lighting the way with your presence and with your truth.

and ultimately, as marcus reminds us: “man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant. all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.” (book 10.10) aura is not a glow we chase. it’s the quiet truth of being exactly here, exactly now.

Duda Libman

what now?

you may not believe in talk like "everything is energy" or "vibrate higher." you can roll your eyes. but what you can’t deny is that some people enter a room and bend the air. they don’t push themselves forward, but you move toward them anyway. there’s something ancient about this. something that reminds us that humans are more than what they wear, post, or say. that maybe the thing we’re looking for isn’t attention. it’s essence. aura is not a glow. it’s a signal. it says: i know who i am. and in a world where most people are still performing, that kind of knowing is magnetic. so maybe the real race isn't toward more sparkle, but toward more soul.

your aura isn’t a filter. it’s what shines when you stop hiding.