Energy, Ego and the Spirit

Please, for the love of God, nail your attention and intention to the body in the present moment. Don't worry. When you're grounded in sensation, ego will eventually go quiet. Don't waste energy on behaviors and beliefs that offer short term benefit at long-term cost. Anything that divides the human family (so that individuals can get an elitism fix) is a tremendous drain on the part of you that's quiet and bouyed up by life alone. Everything driven by ego-energy leaves anxiety in its wake. The stimulus/ response loops of fulfilled desire are certain to create attachments if you leave no room between them. The rough part is this: if you can hear this, you can't un-hear it. Egotism is nothing but an originally-helpful cocktail of brain chemicals that's long since costed more than we can afford. To those who can accept that the Lord God has opened the ear of all flesh, serenity depends on skillful use of what energy we have available, and you and I are on the hook for ideals and behaviors that forge our present moment into tiny little unmanageable hells. [bxA]

Existence is a position of tension, to be sure: but even between the armies of Egypt and the Red Sea, Israel heard "God himself will fight for you, you have only to keep still." The same is said to you and I: existence is a hustle, but one in which it is entirely possible to rest. It is absolutely possible to sit with the isolating feelings of fear until it morphs into awe, to sit with scarcity until it becomes a celebration connecting us to others. No, not only is it possible, it is a lesson that our entire body cries out to learn--the moment is teaching us to bear our aversions, to let go of our attractions, and to give up the self that's so morbidly invested in it all. Meanwhile, the nervous system learns that labelling sensations doesn't help us accept them.

Only here and now can manageable choices be made. Neither past nor future exist. And yet you and I obsess over resentment and remorse and blame, living for a yesterday that's beyond our power to change. We grasp at possibilities, elevating our expectations until all that's inevitable is their crushing disappointment. No ideal whose fulfillment is elsewhere will net anything other than weariness and a chasing after the wind. And from St. Paul's "now is the acceptable time," to the "be here now" of bigger, more modern hippies, wisdom seems to remind us that the ego will eventually come to itself, and relax into impermanence with those who practice unthinking stillness.

When the adrenaline rush of idealism wears off, we manipulate to preserve our separateness. If you or I manipulate to get needs met, we will forever be watching for reprisal. God has created only one human race-- it's in our flaws and errors that we're like other people, and prizing ego-consciousness or group consciousness over that unity will leave us exhausted. In truth, whether the story we tell about an energy labels it "good" or "bad," whether we find other people "likable or unlikable"--those other people are here only to show us our attachments. Involving others in our drive for "desire and craving fulfillment " is a real hype--not just a bummer, but a clingy mess that makes the basic solitude of existence unbearable. If you happen to go even further and coopt others into your game of mistaken identifications--all it takes is one person with healthy boundaries, and the dreadful and real limitations of that particular game surface, quick as anything. Nothing that's a hype is ultimately effective. The game of incarnation is lawful, full of rules that usually suck. Whether we like it or not, "all hypes are temporary" seems to be one of them.

We suffer if we choose this or that. But we also suffer because life is a thing of poverty. We should never seek suffering--in fact we need to troubleshoot our tendency to worsen suffering by poking at it--but learning to peaceably lift our corner of undeserved communal darkness involves important emotional muscles that need regular exercise. Suffering does not exist so that you'll "do something about it." It is not grist for the wisdom-mill. Suffering has no logical solution. It can be a springboard into acceptance, if you're willing to operate on the level of feeling instead of thought. But the shift isn't in the anguish, it's in you.

If we can manage basic consciousness, basic respect for our limitations, and basic efforts to healthily use the Spirit's energy, the change will be this: you and I will see the body carrying us through the day long after ego is exhausted. Trusting providence will happen more automatically. We will see ourselves admitting our needs, then watching with real wonder at how, or whether they're fulfilled. Neither other people's sinfulness nor our own will surprise us--because we will have seen the part of us that overidentifies with unhealthy patterns. But we'll know there's a great deal more to us, and to others as well.

I am not, and you are not separate from God. If God is leaving our needs and desires unfulfilled (so that we'll look at our attachments, ) that may feel like he's absent. Take the time to learn to savor the unpleasantness of it. Health, though, entails asking whether we, ourselves ,are actually the ones who, by being our egos, are not fully present. Like everyone on earth, you and I "other" our own darkness. I suppose that's ok, but it's also a manipulation, bound (by design) to stop working so that we can learn to exist on the Spirit's subtler energies. We are both our darkness and the light that is in us. If we're caught up in how remarkable we are: reality will still be there when you and I are done. You are everything and nothing. So am I. Who is it that told you we're separate, that we can be anything other than everything? In the light of the Trinity within, humility is possible. When our attention shifts, so that resting in everything is more appealing than grasping, then you and I will forever be "not two."