Leaping Forward By Stepping Back
By James Arthur Ray

Quantum theory tells us all matter is energy. Let’s go a step further and explore this idea: Energy is all that matters.

Most songwriters, some philosophers, and all romantics and hippies insist love matters most, but what is love but an intense connection, an emotional energy, between a person and someone or something else?

It’s also been said money makes the world go round, but we could argue wealth is merely energy of another kind. An exchange of resources, energy moving from one place to another, is the simplest explanation of commerce.

Great spiritualists knew what scientists have only recently proven: the force that moves through us, enlivening our successes, exciting our passions, soothing our souls is the same sub-microscopic force powering photons from atoms; it’s all energy in one form or another.

Consider personal power in such a light. To fully realize our divinely imagined selves, we have to collect, condense, and escalate the energy in our lives. Who we are and the results we can produce are a direct reflection of the amount of energy we have within us.

How We Experience and Expend Energy

In gross terms, energy exists on two levels: the conceptual and the practical. It is collected on the conceptual plane and expended on the practical. Eastern tradition might call the practical yang, where we focus on physical and mental activity, and call the conceptual yin, where we experience our deeply emotional and spiritual selves. In psychological terms, we can call the practical ego and the conceptual superconscious.

So many of us are laser focused on doing, doing, doing (the practical/yang/ego) that we don’t regularly focus on stepping back and being (the conceptual/yin/superconscious). When we become too focused on the so-called male forces of exertion and action and lose our harmony with the so-called female forces of receptiveness and reflection, we can destructively deplete our energy sources. We can become so hell-bent on yang that we don’t even know the shape of yin any more.

There is a time and place for massive action, but also a time and place for no action. Clearly, to sit still even for a little while takes courage, since most of our society don’t buy into this idea. Instead, they’re of the opinion that it’s perfectly okay to go, go, go on the highway of life at 80 miles an hour and never stop for gas. Extend the metaphor and it holds true: this is impossible to maintain or the vehicles (we) break down. No gas, no go.

We see people for whom the go, go, go has paid off financially, yet their emotional lives run on empty. They’ve ego-powered themselves into certain monetary results, but haven’t taken time to fill up in a long, long time. Likewise, we know those who have admirable relationships but are financially broke, those who are very “spiritual” but also sick all the time, those who have great health but no real spiritual connection. All great teachers and sages have told us repeatedly life is meant to be fulfilling and complete in all areas. Why is it, then, so many of us lack vitality (positive energy) in one or more areas of our lives?

The American energy crisis is the perfect analogy for mismanagement of our own personal energy resources.

We’re running out of energy not only in America but within our own lives.

Ultimately, I might argue, there is no energy crisis. Everything is energy. Everything! There is an age-old saying of Eastern mystics: “As is the macrocosm, so is the microcosm; as is the Cosmic mind, so is the human mind.” Any crisis, is a physical manifestation of the hearts and minds of people. Yet, as usual, we immediately begin running around looking for a quick fix and often point fingers at those with opposing opinions.

Yet the truth lies in the middle (as the Buddha so brilliantly put it), in the creative and harmonic alternative. How can we be more effective, creative and harmonized in our lives? We must stop pointing fingers and thinking there is only our way, and start realizing that unless and until we cure our myopia, we will never see the way to solving our issues, either global or personal.

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