Inner Work

For the week of February 25, 2019

The Role of Spiritual Energies

(Spiritual Dynamics: 8)

Everything we do involves energies. Much of that is the ordinary physical energy we take in as food and transform into various biochemicals, which collectively allow us to live and do all the things we do. Our spiritual inner life also depends on energies, a whole hierarchy of energies. The lower rungs of this hierarchy are also related to various biochemicals, such as the neurotransmitters. The higher rungs are the stuff of spiritual experience and transcend chemistry altogether.

Physically, if we do not have the right type and amount of energy, our body cannot function. Spiritually, if we do not have the right type and amount of energy, our soul cannot function.

What are some of the functions of the soul and what energies do they depend on?

Presence is a function of our soul that engages several levels of energies, as do most other soul functions. Primary among the energies of presence are the sensitive and conscious energies. The sensitive energy creates a foundation for presence based in contact with our body, mind, and heart. The more sensitive energy we have, the stronger that contact. When our whole body is saturated with sensitive energy, it gives us a stable home in the present moment. In our mind and heart, the sensitive energy enables us to be aware of our thoughts and emotions.

The conscious energy layers atop the sensitive, providing perspective and wholeness, tying together all the impressions continually conveyed by the sensitive energy, and providing a place suitable for our I, our real Self. The latter is the core of presence and unifies all the rest. That is why in presence we feel truly ourselves: whole, complete, and at home. In presence, when we notice a thought or emotion, we can go beneath it, not to see where it comes from, but rather to be where we come from, the cognizant stillness that is the conscious energy.

Peace and equanimity are two more functions of our soul, ones that come through being thoroughly immersed in the conscious energy. That energy is the boundless and timeless space beneath our thoughts and other sensory perceptions, the pure awareness embedded within eternity, a perspective that naturally bestows peace and equanimity. When we enter the timeless, we can just be.

Of the many levels of prayer, one in particular fills us with a vibrant, overflowing sense of the sacred, beyond consciousness. Perhaps with the support of some verbal or melodic repetition that helps us direct and open our heart, mind, and innermost being to the sacred, we are touched by or even enter a world of all-encompassing, effulgent light. The energy cascades down into us, enlivening our body and enlightening our inner world.

Though we may have transcended our separate self at some levels, we can seek to give it up entirely and thereby enter the true unity of love. For that, we let go more and more deeply, toward allowing the higher to enter our core, to be our core, to be who we are. We open that place in our very center, the place that we are, and offer our very self to the benevolent and loving Sacred.

For this week, please notice the role of the various spiritual energies in your own experience. Practice noticing the energies in action.

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