Sunday 28 October 2012

Where the mind goes, the qi follows: A look at current events from an energetic view point

I was involved in a discussion the other day about how weird and chaotic the world is getting, Of a seemingly out of control quality about events, of storms and earthquakes, of politics and war, of unrest and confussion, of mixed messages and distractions. The details of that part of the conversation have slipped away from me, but that image of chaos, and the sentiment that if the world really did end on December 21st that it would be a relief, touched on a concept and idea in me I couldn't put into worlds at the time. This idea has been distilled in my soul and brought an understanding I can put into words.

There is a saying I learned in T'ai Chi Chuan that stuck with me. "Where the mind goes, the qi follows." There is also a saying in Huna. "He makau hala 'ole." "A fishhook that never fails to catch." This leads to a principle, "Energy goes where attention goes." It is no accident that these two principles, the T'ai Chi and the Huna, are essentially the same. In the Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War, Yagyū Munenori expresses a similar concept. "It is sickness to be obsessed with winning, it is sickness to be obsessed with using martial arts, and it is sickness to be obsessed with putting forth all one has learned. It is sickness to be obsessed with offense, and it is sickness to be obsessed with defense. It is also sickness to be obsessed with getting rid of sickness. To fix the mind obsessively on anything is considered sickness. Since all of these various sicknesses are in the mind, the thing is to tune the mind by getting rid of such afflictions." The concept here is that if the mind gets stuck on one thing, it can't direct the body, it can't manefest action. All its energy is tied up in that one thing.

Think about this in terms of fear. Fear is a result of being obsessed with a possible bad event or situation. When we get obsessed with this bad thing, we focus on it, are trapped in it. Our mind, our attention, is focused on that bad thing. But where our mind goes, the qi follows, where our attention goes, energy follows. by obsessing on the bad thing, we pour our energy, our mana, our qi, into that bad thing. We feed it, making it stronger.

Now think broader. Think of the shared fear of many people of the world ending on December 21st. Think of the shared fear of a complete economic collapse. Think of the shared fear of nuclear war, of terrorism, of public mass shootings, of the rise of more and more supernatural encounters as the Veil becomes thinner both from the fear and from the old barriors between belief systems crumbling. Think of the shared fear of losing your job to illegal immigrants or moving jobs overseas. Think of the shared fear of earthquakes and tsunamis and tornadoes and hurricanes. Think of the shared fear of Other in all its forms. Think of the mass hysteria, the mob mentality, the mass confusion, the mass fear. Where are minds focused? Where is attention focused? Where is the energy going? What is being fed?

Is it any wonder why things are getting stranger and stranger, why things are getting weirder and weirder? Is it any wonder the chaos and confusion and fear and obsessions are rising?

So the question is, where is your attention fixed? What is your contribution to the chaos, or to combating it?

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

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