Friday, July 11, 2014

Open or Closed...

Spiritual Energy

Creating thoughts, holding onto thoughts, recalling thoughts, generating emotions, controlling emotions, and disciplining powerful inner drives, all require a tremendous expenditure of energy.”
Michael A. Singer ( The Untethered Soul)

We humans think a lot about the energy required to fuel our cars and heat our homes. We argue endlessly about the cost of fuel, the methods of extracting it from the planet, and whether nuclear power plants are the way to go. We're well versed on the benefits and the dangers, the costs and the possible future costs of our petroleum based economies. What we almost never think about is the energy inside us.

We all know about mitochondria, mostly from reading Madeleine L'Engle's fabulous Wind in the Door series, and maybe from science classes we took somewhere along the way. We know they're the “power houses” of our cells. They provide the power that enables our cells to carry out necessary functions. They didn't originate with us, but are symbiotic parasites that we now cannot live without. We've evolved together and now provide necessary functions for one another. They power our cells, but they are not the energy I'm thinking about.

But what powers our emotions? Our thoughts? What allows us to suppress thoughts, or recall them? We have swings in emotions that leave us drained and exhausted. We lose someone we love and no amount of food or rest can relieve the fatigue we feel. Until we meet someone new—then we are suddenly energized, so much so that we feel constantly elated. What a strange turn of events.

This psychic energy is with us all the time. When we don't feel it, it is because we are blocking it. We block it by closing our minds, by constricting our hearts. We “close down” literally. Our thoughts and our emotions are clamped tight and in a darkened state. This clamping down requires energy. The energy is still there, but it cannot flow, and so we feel tired, flat, deflated.

Psychic energy is called by many names: chi, shakti, qi. In the west, we think of it as spiritual energy. We can open the channels by opening our hearts, by opening our minds. The way to keep it flowing, the way to stay energized, is to stay open. Open to the possibility of newness, of change, of ideas not our own. Staying open to our emotions, whatever they are, allows them to flow through rather than be trapped. We have to make a conscious decision about staying open or closing down. It's our choice to make each and every day. How about you? Are you open today?

                                                    In the Spirit,

                                                          Jane

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