“If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think in terms of Energy, Frequency and Vibrations” (Nicolas Tesla). Replace the word “think” by “act” and you will get a powerful tool to use in your day-to-day life…
This gorgeous painting by Mariana Heilmann has travelled with me since more than a decade now. She uses the idea of interrelationships [between all of us] and explores how energy manifests itself from microscopic to macroscopic scales. Her drawing is a “result of sustained repetitive mark making”, “the process demands suspension of thought and a spontaneous release of energy”, so she’s able “to witness and record how continuous, random and chaotic movement tends to an order”. She combines this to the use of x-rays and cell or particle imagery and makes a fundamental matter research in various forms. (For references check her website here ).
Having received these canvasses as a gift from my mother, I would never imagine these could influence me so deeply and I believe this is not a coincidence (this often reminds me of the appealing signs and drawings in the movie “Arrival” inspired from science fiction novella “Story of your life” by Ted Chiang).
I became addicted to everything that related to spirals and circles in the art masterpieces… Starting from apparent spirals in Van Gogh’s and Monnet’s paintings or Hokusai’s Kanagava waves and ending with the Armenian eternity symbol reflected in most of Ancient temples and “Khatchkars“, I relentlessly searched for the meaning of this repetitive and yet very scalable concept.
I came up with something that closely relates to the concept of Tao (dao in Chinese signifying “the way”, “the path”, the “supreme being”), in other words the “natural order of the universe”. According to Laozi, the essence of Tao cannot be understood as a concept, but rather lived as an experience of everyday being. It is the fundamental force, energy, that creates everything, the essence of the reality and even “the original matrix of the universe before its creation”. Modern scientists refer to this as a “dark matter”.
Since this is something non-conceptual, there is no point to further describe it. Rather, let us provide with some examples of how this can be lived. Tao – or if you prefer, “Energy” (I know this is a very rough and brutal shortcut but still useful for a better contextualization) – is the reason why all randomness in our life, combined to our own “will” and “acts”, necessarily tend to an order and we may experience it through many different ways.
There are no wrong passwords
In your life path changes throughout years you may notice that most of time this occurred once you started aligning yourself to a specific mood, state of mind, topics, people, way of living, habits, etc… This is called the Resonance. Britannica defines this as a “large selective response of an object or a system that vibrates in […] phase, with an externally applied oscillatory force” (link). Carl Jung often emphasized the role of external influences over the construction of the various archetypes of our “self” (again, sorry for a rude shortcut on Jung’s theories that are more complex and much more elaborated than this).
This is to point out that our “self” acts as a hacker who enters each time different passwords into the reality matrix and obtains access to the realities that most closely correspond to the entered password. Notice, it is the reality that unlocks the functioning of a password, not the opposite. In other words, password is the frequency and vibrations we create based on our way of thinking, acting, imagining, accepting and conceiving things.
Apply here the rule of the “natural order”. Knowing the way energy behaves, you will know more or less where you are heading to. The many undertakings or thoughts that turn in your head do not necessarily conduct you to your imagined or desired reality (no password – result correlation) but rather to the reality which mostly aligns with them. Hence, you may rather forsee your trajectory than the final destination. It is still something, isn’t it? No randomness possible here. This is very close to the quantum physics theories, but we are not going to dive into it for now.
The natural trend to the wholeness
Another trend of the Tao consists in purely internal psyche phenomena.
Among other concepts, Jung also “identified the innate drive towards our own wholeness as existing a priori – as an inherited drive and a drive that is universal” (Thanks to Therese Bimka for this summary). Energy trends again.
This relates to the “way” mentioned in our previous articles about the art of making connections. We highlighted the nerve cell way of self-development: inter-relating to others, connecting to the whole rather than embracing the whole. Now we may go even further: the natural trend can lead you to a greater level of harmony shall you want so.
How? Laozi suggests being flexible, behaving as an artist: at some parts we follow the natural appeal of the energy and at some other parts we guide this move whenever required. You still need to master it of course or else you won’t be called an artist. Nevertheless, it is by connecting both the spontaneous release of energy and our perception of it, that we may achieve this and perceive harmony.
Some people assert only the release of energy matters, others say everything can be and must be controlled. We say “follow the energy and guide it in the same time”, like a “water”. Seize the subtle character of the energy and let it express itself through the channel that causes most of benefits and that harms the least.
Take example of someone waiting in a queue. The person gets bored and either opts for paying attention to something else to forget about waiting (smartphone?) or releasing its negative emotions about waiting. However, the best ever opportunity this person could seize would be – to pay attention to its emotions in fact. Choose both options. This will make the person explore a whole new world, new questioning, new understanding and new ideas, far more creativity than just playing angry birds on the smartphone…. :). Enabling such an awareness will help to better channel your emotions, plans and ideas and avoid wasting them on self-destruction or self-distraction (both lead to the same outcomes…).
Wrap up
Determine firmly your objective, then release the grasp on energy and focus rather on the flow of energy than on the outcome. This is how Tao would apply to our life-impacting situations. As a painter holding a brush and twisting it with flexibility and yet determination, you would act the same way.
I conclude these thoughts by sharing an interesting experience that sums up all the above mentioned topics.
I was having an interview with a Senior Director of a worldwide known company. He started with the usual “tell me about yourself”. I was pretty well prepared for this, but I still hated that question. He noticed I was stressed and asked, “are you nervous?”.
This is where I felt “it’s enough, let this just go its way, stop controlling everything”. I replied “Yes, of course I am. Why wouldn’t I? I don’t know you, I don’t know this place, so naturally yes, I am nervous, but this will pass away throughout our conversation”. Starting from there I felt an immediate relief of energy and each time the person tried to restrain me I always allowed him and myself some higher level of flexibility both in mind and in expression simply by directing the attention to the right channel.
Whenever the person needed to talk I let him talk, whenever the person needed concrete answers, I directed my energy flow into it. It almost became a game where I had nothing to lose but where I was more concerned by the way I was channeling myself rather than the outcome. I did not accept the position they offered but I learnt a lot from this meeting.
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