The Blackboard Blog #5: Build a fire inside, solve your own energy crisis

Moving  away from those nasty vices, we continue on the theme of Energy. We make the connection between energy efficiency in the accepted eco sense (buildings that don’t waste energy, cars that use less energy to achieve the same performance, etc etc) and the energy efficiency of the mind and Soul.

Build a fire inside: solve your own energy crisis

Again, back to the Ecology of the Soul. It’s a simple idea, but not so simple to achieve; eliminate waste mental energy, in other words useless thoughts, in other words, for instance, resentment, worry or anxiety. Then your real power house, the still and silent, peaceful and powerful Soul, works far more efficiently and you are more directly in touch with it as a source of ‘Clean Energy’, which is the True You.

Easy to say, you say, ha ha. A few words, and we’re deep in the heart of the universal challenge that faces all spiritual endeavour at whatever level, from a weekly yoga student to a sadhu in a loincloth in Rishikesh who does nothing else. Mind control. Highly likely that you will say: ‘Eliminate worry and anxiety? Are you kidding?’ A) because you have no concept or experience of just being able to free your mind like that, and B) because somewhere at the back of that very same mind, you kind of half-believe that worry and anxiety are necessary to get things done.

That’s why the Ecology of the Soul’s  ‘Power Seeds’ exist. You find yourself 60 seconds in your day. Come on, can’t be hard. A minute? Can you manage to get up a minute earlier? (It will take more than that of course, but we have to start somewhere.) You need to be silent and undisturbed, ready and willing to shut down from external stimuli and turn your attention inside your own awareness. You can do it on the toilet, on a train or bus, or waiting for something. You can’t do it while you’re driving, but you can do it while you’re in a traffic block, as long as you can see you won’t have to move for a whole minute, or preferably two. Then take a thought and ‘churn’ it, that is, give it your full attention, ponder it. Yes: meditate on it. Here’s your starter for ten:

<< ‘I can’t help thinking’… but you can. Your thoughts are in control of you? That’s madness. You are thinking those thoughts, right? So what is this, a runaway train? The thoughts control the thinker? The most difficult thing about controlling your own thoughts – deciding which ones to have and which ones to reject, to ‘unthink’ – is realizing and deciding you can do it. The trick is not to beat yourself up about your unruly mind, which keeps running off in another direction and jumping over fences. Don’t try and hold your thoughts down, just let them go. Gently, patiently and with love bring your attention back to your silent consciousness, the level below the thinking mind. Thinking is Doing. You are focusing on Being.  Once you are over that hurdle, the task is clear, and this in itself is a Power Seed you have just planted.>> Just focus on that for 60 seconds and see where it gets you.