7 transcending the tendency to close

The foundations of spiritual growth and personal awakening are very much strengthened by the findings of Western science. Science has shown us how an underlying energy field forms into atoms, which then bind together into molecules, and ultimately manifest into the entire physical universe. The same is true inside of us. All that goes on inside also has its foundation in an underlying energy field. It is the movements in this field that create our mental and emotional patterns as well as our inner drives, urges, and instinctual reactions. Regardless of what you call this inner force field—Chi, Shakti, or Spirit—it is an underlying energy that flows in particular patterns through your inner being.

When looking at these patterns within yourself, as well as in other living species, it is not difficult to see that the most primal energy flow is the survival instinct. During eons of evolution, from the simplest of living forms to the most complex, there has always been the day-to-day struggle to protect oneself. In our highly evolved cooperative social structures, this survival instinct has gone through evolutionary changes. Many of us no longer lack food, water, clothing, or shelter; nor do we regularly face life-threatening physical danger. As a result, the protective energies have adapted toward defending the individual psychologically, rather than physiologically. We now experience the daily need to defend our self-concepts rather than our bodies. Our major struggles end up being with our own inner fears, insecurities, and destructive behavior patterns, and not with outside forces.

Nonetheless, the same impulses that make a deer run away urge you to run away. Suppose somebody raises their voice at you or talks about an uncomfortable subject. These are not physically threatening circumstances, yet your heart starts pumping a little faster. That’s exactly what happens to deer whenever they hear a sudden sound. Their hearts start pumping faster, and they either freeze or run away. In your case, however, it’s not usually the kind of fear that causes you to physically run away. It’s just a deep, personal fear demanding protection.

Since it’s not socially acceptable to run into the woods and hide like a deer, you hide inside. You withdraw, close down, and pull back behind your protective shield. What you are actually doing is closing down your energy centers. Even if you don’t know you have energy centers, you’ve been closing them since kindergarten. You know exactly how to close your heart and put up a psychological protective shield. You know exactly how to close down the centers to avoid being too receptive and sensitive to the different energies coming in and causing fear.

When you close down and protect yourself, you are pulling a shell around the part of you that is weak. This is the part that feels it needs protection even though no physical attack is taking place. You are protecting your ego, your self-concept. Although a situation may present no physical danger, it may cause you to experience disturbance, fear, insecurity, and other emotional problems. So you feel the need to protect yourself.

The problem is that the part of you that gets disturbed is way out of balance. It’s so sensitive that the slightest little thing causes it to overreact. You are living on a planet spinning around the middle of outer space, and you’re either worrying about your blemishes, the scratch on your new car, or the fact that you burped in public. It’s not healthy. If your physical body were that sensitive, you would say you were sick. But our society considers psychological sensitivities normal. Because most of us don’t have to worry about food, clothing, or shelter, we have the luxury of worrying about a spot on our pants, or laughing too loud, or saying something wrong. Because we’ve developed this hypersensitive psyche, we constantly use our energies to close around it and protect ourselves. But this process only hides the problems; it doesn’t fix them. You’re locking your illness inside yourself, and it will only get worse.

You will get to a point in your growth where you understand that if you protect yourself, you will never be free. It’s that simple. Because you’re scared, you have locked yourself within your house and pulled down all the shades. Now it’s dark and you want to feel the sunlight, but you can’t. It’s impossible. If you close and protect yourself, you are locking this scared, insecure person within your heart. You will never be free that way.

Ultimately, if you protect yourself perfectly, you will never grow. All your habits and idiosyncrasies will stay the same. Life becomes stagnant when people protect their stored issues. People say things like, “You know we don’t talk about that subject around your father. ” There are all these rules about things that are not supposed to happen outside because they could cause disturbance inside. Living like this allows for very little spontaneous joy, enthusiasm, and excitement for life. Most people just go from day to day protecting themselves and making sure nothing goes too wrong. At the end of the day, when someone asks, “How was your day? ” a normal response is, “Not too bad, ” or “I’ll survive. ” What is that telling you about their view of life? They see life as a threat. A good day means you made it through without getting hurt. The longer you live like this, the more closed you become.

If you really want to grow, you have to do the opposite. Real spiritual growth happens when there is only one of you inside. There’s not a part that’s scared and another part that’s protecting the part that’s scared. All parts are unified. Because there is no part of you that you’re not willing to see, the mind is no longer divided into the conscious and subconscious. Everything you see inside is just something you see inside. It’s not you; it’s what you see. There is simply the pure energy pouring inside of you that creates the ripples of thoughts and emotions, and there is the consciousness that’s aware of it. There is simply you watching the dance of the psyche.

In order to reach this state of awareness, you must let your entire psyche surface. Every little separated piece of it must be permitted to pass through. Right now, many fragmented parts of your psyche are held within you. If you want to be free, it all has to be equally exposed to your awareness and released. But it will never get exposed if you’re closing yourself. After all, the purpose of closing was to make sure that the sensitive parts of your psyche don’t get exposed. So you catch on that no matter how much pain the exposure creates, you are willing to pay that price for freedom. When you are no longer willing to identify with the part of you that is separating itself into a million pieces, you are ready for real growth.

Begin by seeing the tendency to protect and defend yourself. There is a very deep, innate tendency to close, especially around your soft spots. But eventually you will notice that closing creates tremendous work. Once you close, you have to make sure that what you protected doesn’t get disturbed. You then carry this task for the rest of your life. The alternative is to become conscious enough to simply watch the part of your being that is constantly trying to protect itself. You can then give yourself the ultimate gift by deciding not to do that anymore. You decide, instead, to get rid of that part.

You start by watching life and noticing the constant flow of people and situations that hit your stuff every day. How often do you find yourself trying to protect and defend that weak part of you? You feel like the world wants to get right at it. Every place you go there’s someone or something trying to disturb you, trying to get your goat. Why not let them have it? If you don’t really want it, then don’t protect it.

The reward for not protecting your psyche is liberation. You are free to walk through this world without a problem on your mind. You are just having fun experiencing whatever happens next. Because you got rid of that scared part of you, you don’t ever have to worry about getting hurt or disturbed. You no longer have to listen to “What will they think of me? ” or, “Oh God, I wish I hadn’t said that. It sounded so stupid. ” You just go about your business and put your whole being into whatever’s happening, instead of putting your whole being into your personal sensitivity.

Once you’ve made the commitment to free yourself of that scared person inside, you will notice that there is a clear decision point at which your growth takes place. Spiritual growth is about the point at which you start to feel your energy change. For instance, somebody says something, and you start to feel the energy get a little strange inside. You will actually start to feel a tightening. That is your cue that it’s time to grow. It’s not time to defend yourself, because you don’t want the part of you that you would be defending. If you don’t want it, let it go.

You will eventually get conscious enough so that the minute you see the energy start getting strange, you stop. You stop getting involved in the energy. If it normally causes you to start talking, you stop talking. You just stop, mid-sentence, because you know where it will go if you continue. The moment you see the energy getting imbalanced inside, the moment you see the heart starting to tense and get defensive, you just stop.

What exactly does it mean “to stop”? It’s something you do inside. It’s called letting go. When you let go, you are falling behind the energy that is trying to pull you into it. Your energies inside have power. They are very strong, and they draw your awareness into them. If a hammer falls on your toe, all your awareness will focus there. If there’s a sudden loud sound, again, all of your awareness will focus there. Consciousness has the tendency to focus on disturbance, and disturbed energies inside are no exception. These disturbed energies will draw your consciousness to them. But you do not have to let this happen. You really do have the ability to disengage and fall back behind them.

When the energies inside start to move, you do not have to go there. For instance, when your thoughts start, you do not have to go with them. Let’s say you’re outside taking a walk and a car drives by. Your thoughts say, “Boy, I wish I had that car. ” You could just keep on walking, but instead you start getting upset. You want a car like that, but your salary isn’t high enough. So you begin thinking about how you can get a raise or a different job. You didn’t have to do all that. It could have just been—here comes the car and there it goes, and here comes the thought and there it goes. They’re both gone together because you didn’t go with them. That is what’s called being centered.

If you aren’t centered, your consciousness is just following whatever catches its attention. You see the car drive by and you’re off doing something about it. Another day you see a boat, and then it is all about the boat, and you forget about the car. There are people like that. They don’t hold jobs very well and relationships don’t tend to work out for them. They’re just all over the place; their energy is very scattered.

You have the ability to not go with any of these thoughts. You can just sit in the seat of consciousness and let go. A thought or emotion emerges, you notice it, and it passes by because you allow it to. This technique of freeing yourself is done with the understanding that thoughts and emotions are just objects of consciousness. When you see your heart start getting anxious, you are obviously aware of this experience. But who is aware? It is the consciousness, the indwelling being, the Soul, the Self. It is the seer, the one who sees. The changes you experience in your inner energy flow are simply objects of this consciousness. If you want to be free, then every time you feel any change in the energy flow, relax behind it. Don’t fight with it, don’t try to change it, and don’t judge it. Don’t say, “Oh, I can’t believe I’m still feeling this. I promised myself I wouldn’t think about that car anymore. ” Don’t do that; you’ll just end up going with the guilt thoughts instead of the car thoughts. You have to let them all go.

But it’s not just about letting go of thoughts and emotions. It’s actually about letting go of the pull that the energy itself has on your consciousness. The disturbed energy is trying to draw your attention into it. If you use your inner willpower to not go with it, and just remain seated within, you will notice that the distinction between the consciousness and the object of consciousness is like night and day. They are totally different things. The object comes and goes, and the consciousness watches it come and go. Then the next object comes and goes while the consciousness watches it. Both objects came and went, but the consciousness didn’t go anywhere. It stays constant and simply watches all of it. The consciousness experiences the creation of thoughts and emotions, and it has the clarity to see where they came from. It sees all of this without thinking about it. It sees what’s going on inside as easily as it sees what’s going on outside. It simply watches. The Self is watching the inside energies change in accordance to both inside and outside forces. All the energies that it watches will just come and go, unless you lose your center of consciousness and go with them.

Let’s take a slow-motion look at what happens if you go with these energies. First, you start to have a thought or feeling. This feeling could be as subtle as your energy flow starting to tighten and become defensive, or it could be something much stronger. If these energies capture your consciousness and all the power of awareness gets focused on them, this power actually feeds them. Consciousness is a tremendously powerful force. When you concentrate on these thoughts and emotions, they become charged with energy and power. This is why thoughts and emotions get stronger the more attention you give them. Let’s say you feel a little jealousy or a little fear. If you focus on it, it grows in importance and demands more of your attention. Then, because your attention feeds it, it becomes infused with even more energy and draws more attention. That’s how the cycle goes. Eventually, what started as a passing thought or emotion can become the center of your entire life. If you don’t let go, it can get completely out of control.

A wise person remains centered enough to let go every time the energy shifts into a defensive mode. The moment the energy moves and you feel your consciousness start to get drawn into it, you relax and release. Letting go means falling behind the energy instead of going into it. It just takes a moment of conscious effort to decide that you’re not going there. You just let go. It’s simply a matter of taking the risk that you are better off letting go than going with the energy. When you’re free from the hold the energy has on you, you will be free to experience the joy and expansiveness that exists within you.

So you decide to use life to free yourself. You become willing to pay any price for the freedom of your soul. You will realize that the only price you have to pay is letting go of yourself. Only you can take inner freedom away from yourself, or give it to yourself. Nobody else can. It doesn’t matter what others do, unless you decide that it matters to you. Begin with small things. We tend to let ourselves get bothered by the little, meaningless things that happen every day. For example, somebody beeps at you at the stoplight. As these little things happen, you will feel your energy change. The moment you feel a change, relax your shoulders and relax the area around your heart. The moment the energy moves, you simply relax and release. Play with letting go and falling behind this sense of being bothered. Let’s say someone at work took your pencil, and you notice that every time you go to use another one, your inner energy shifts—even the slightest amount. Are you willing to release the old pencil in order to liberate yourself? This is how you make freedom a game. Instead of getting into being bothered, you get into being free. When you reach for a pencil, and you see yourself getting a little uptight, let go. Your mind might start saying, “It was a pencil today and if I let go, they’ll step all over me. It’ll be my desk tomorrow, or my house, or maybe even my husband. ” That’s how the mind talks. It’s very melodramatic. But you decide that for the cost of a pencil, you’ll go for the ride. You tell your mind, “When it’s the car, we’ll have a talk. Right now, it only costs a pencil to be free. ” Just decide that no matter what the mind says, you aren’t getting involved. You don’t fight the mind. In fact, you don’t even try to change it. You just make a game out of relaxing in the face of its melodrama. You simply learn how to release the tendency for getting drawn into the energy. The root is where the consciousness is aware of the pull of these energies.

You will see that the energy does have the power to draw you in. Even once you decide you’re not going to let this happen, it still has a tremendous power over you. It happens at work and it happens at home. It happens with your children and with your husband or wife. It happens with everything and everybody all the time. Your opportunities to grow are endless. It’s always there in front of you. Just commit to not letting the energy draw you in. When you feel the pull, like somebody pulling on your heart, you just let go. You fall behind it. You simply relax and release. And no matter how many times you’re pulled, that’s how many times you relax and release. Because the tendency to get drawn in is constant, the willingness to let go and fall behind has to be constant.

Your center of consciousness is always stronger than the energy that is pulling on it. You just have to be willing to exercise your will. But it’s not a fight or a struggle. It’s not that you are trying to stop the energies from coming up inside. There is nothing wrong with feeling the energies of fear, jealousy, or attraction. It’s not your fault that such energies exist. All the attractions, repulsions, thoughts, and feelings don’t make any difference. They don’t make you pure or impure. They are not you. You are the one who’s watching, and that one is pure consciousness. Don’t think you’d be free if you just didn’t have these kinds of feelings. It’s not true. If you can be free even though you’re having these kinds of feelings, then you’re really free—because there will always be something.

If you can learn to remain centered with the smaller things, you will see that you can also remain centered with bigger things. Over time, you will find that you can even remain centered with the really big things. The types of events that would have destroyed you in the past can come and go, leaving you perfectly centered and peaceful. You can be fine, deep inside, even in the face of a deep sense of loss. There’s nothing wrong with being peaceful and centered as long as you are releasing the energy, not suppressing it. Ultimately, even if terrible things happen, you should be able to live without emotional scars and impressions. If you don’t hold these issues inside, you can go about your life without getting psychologically damaged. No matter what events take place in life, it is always better to let go rather than to close.

There’s a place deep inside of you where the consciousness touches the energy, and the energy touches the consciousness. That’s where your work is. From that place, you let go. Once you’ve let go, every minute of every day, year after year, then that’s where you’ll live. Nothing will be able to take your seat of consciousness from you. You’ll learn to stay there. After you’ve put years and years into this process, and learned to let go no matter how deep the pain, you will achieve a great state. You will break the ultimate habit: the constant draw of the lower self. You will then be free to explore the nature and source of your true being—Pure Consciousness.

Part III
freeing yourself

Galaxies NGC 2207 and IC2163

Image credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)

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