7 Ways To Stop Leaking & Losing Your Spiritual Energy
Leaking Spiritual Energy:
In the yoga tradition we encounter a fascinating metaphor: it is said that the milk of a lioness is so potent that no container can hold it except for pure gold. If the golden vessel has impurities, the milk will eat through the vessel like acid at those points, and drain away. In the same way, if the practitioner has too many energy leaks then the spiritual energy (shakti) that is generated through yogic practice will simply leak away again.
Have you ever been to a yoga retreat or meditation weekend that was so inspiring and empowering that you felt sure your life was going to change radically, only to find within days or weeks of returning home that all that extra juice had seeped away, returning you to much the same default state you had before the retreat? If so, you’re not alone. This is a very common experience. Because energy leaks.
Once you know what the main energy leaks are, you can set about plugging them. If you manage to plug most of them, you will experience something astonishing: the very same yogic practices you’ve been doing all along now seem to generate much more power, energy, prāṇa. In fact, they’re not generating more, you’re just not leaking it away.
Systematically addressing these ‘leaks’ shifts the playing field of spiritual practice radically. Of course, it can take time to address them — but it’s time and effort well-spent, that repays its investment more generously than you might imagine. So, what are the most common energy leaks? The list below follows one created by Śākta-Śaiva Tantrik teacher Dharmabodhi. I offer here my own short explanation of each major energy leak.
1. Exhaustion due to overdoing/multi-tasking:
Easily the most common energy leak in today’s society, overdoing means having a plate that is too full, leaving little time for the relaxation, play, and social bonding that humans evolved with for most of their history. These are not only necessary for health, they create a body-mind container that can hold the energy generated by spiritual practice.
By contrast, an exhausted body-mind is riddled with ‘holes’ out of which that energy drains away. Your conditioned mind might be convinced that you can’t afford to do less; but really, you can’t afford not to. (And by the way, if you use stimulants [caffeine etc.] every day, you are exhausted, though you might not feel it.) As Dharmabodhi says,
“Wake up out of the dream of over-doing. Take responsibility for your runaway life. Closely examine the cultural trance of over-doing, expose it and tune into your own energies instead. Follow a simpler and more natural way of living, (which is actually) a more productive way of living.”
Oh and by the way, however proud you are of your ability to multi-task, it’s now been proven that multitasking decreases your effectiveness at all tasks (see the work of John Medina).
Most importantly, according to the yoga tradition, to be healthy and sane one needs to have at least four hours off a day, at least one full day off a week, at least one full weekend off a month, and at least three full weeks off a year. When I say ‘off’ I don’t just mean not being in the office — I mean not checking emails, not thinking about to-do lists, not accomplishing anything. Just being.
Unscheduled time, free of agenda, unless it be the ‘agenda’ to connect with yourself, your loved ones, nature, and/or art. Just look at kids who haven’t yet become addicted to glowing screens, if you can find any: they explore the world around them with wide-eyed wonder, and their creative energy flows through vivid imaginative play. We’re not meant to lose that. It’s part of our natural state. We need that creative energy, that curiosity, that wonder, to feel that life is worth living. You will slowly access more and more of it if you create time for agenda-free connection.
2. Disease of the physical body:
The second energy leak is of course intimately related to the first. When we’re overdoing, we develop dis-ease (or full blown disease) quite easily. When dis-ease has set in, it draws our attention and leaks our prāṇa (vitality or life-force).
Disease is different from being disabled; someone can be disabled or have a chronic condition without having dis-ease. It all depends on how they relate to their disability (e.g. how much they focus on it, whether they form a self-image out of it, and what mental frame they view it through).
3. Excess emotional reactivity:
This is a delicate one to discuss. As a cognitive neuroscientist recently wrote,
“The ability to regulate one’s strength of emotional response is highly adaptive: It stops us from investing too much energy into (certain) things.”
While there is no degree of emotion that is ‘too much’ in the Tantrik View, it’s important to note that some emotions are generated or amplified by believing in a mentally-constructed ‘story’ about a situation. This very common energy leak can be described as losing contact with your essence-nature, your natural Presence, through buying into a story associated with a strong emotional response, which often results in throwing your energy at someone else (usually the person you blame for your feelings).
When you speak in anger and say things you later want to retract (“I didn’t really mean that!”), that’s a good example of emotional reactivity. When you sit (or move, or dance) with your feelings, neither owning nor disowning them, but just being with them as a form of pure energy, that’s the opposite of emotional reactivity.
When your assumptions seem like indisputable facts and you’re filled with self-righteous indignation, that’s emotional reactivity. When you’re curious about where these intense emotions are coming from and can laugh at yourself in wonder, that’s the opposite. When you buy right into a disparaging comment from a peer and enter a world of hurt, plagued by repetitive painful thoughts (‘How could they?’
‘What an asshole!’ ‘I can’t believe she/he hates me!’ etc.), that’s emotional reactivity. When you keep your heart open and let yourself feel the pain in the other person and in yourself, without buying that person’s story and perhaps even seeing beauty and opportunity in the pain, that’s the opposite.
The opposite of emotional reactivity, then, is really just natural human Presence. To abide in that Presence is the goal of the path. Then strong emotions can arise without the emotional reactivity that harms you and others. Obviously, emotional reactivity deserves a whole workshop to itself. It’s intimately related with #9 below.
4. Losing contact with natural Presence through thought/fantasy/reverie:
Those who habitually dwell in the mind-world can hardly imagine how much joy and aliveness is unavailable to them. Unfortunately, that’s most of the planet. Being lost in vikalpas (fantasy/reverie/mental images) is a primary way we divorce ourselves from sweet, simple abiding in our natural state.
Here we’re talking about a) imagining possible future scenarios in which you might be happier (fantasy); b) imagining possible future scenarios in which you might suffer (anxiety); c) remembering past ‘good times’ through rose-colored glasses and wishing things could be like that again (reverie); and remembering past ‘mistakes’ and thinking about what you ‘could have’ or ‘should have’ done (regret/guilt). (See p. 138 of T.I.) These four are, in the yogic view, simply the most common forms of insanity.
Humans are simply terrible at accurately predicting how they’ll feel in any given future situation, even when they’re convinced otherwise (as Dan Gilbert has proven), and they are also terrible at remembering the past with any accuracy (what you think are accurate memories are largely expressions of your individual psychology, much like dreams woven from elements of past experiences).
A fifth version of getting lost in vikalpas is simply focusing intently on data of any kind to buffer your existential angst or distract yourself from what you and others are feeling. Someone doing a crossword puzzle or playing a challenging video game or reading all the news of the day might claim that they are more in the present moment, but they are just as much ‘in their head’ — and therefore divorced from flowing Presence — as someone lost in thoughts of possible futures or remembered pasts. Inhabiting mental worlds and imagined realities is a significant energy leak for a yogī, and one that is ubiquitous in our society.
5. Strongly held beliefs or opinions:
This is closely related to #4. It can be hard to believe this is an energy leak until you experience for yourself the influx of life-force that comes from finally, deeply admitting the truth that you really don’t know anything for sure. That just about all your strongly held beliefs and opinions are either wishful thinking or fearful thinking. That the world is far, far too complex, and the variables far too numerous, for our little brains to justifiably hold a fixed opinion about anything (apart from your own inner experience, perhaps).
Note that having beliefs/opinions is not an energy leak; it’s gripping tightly to those opinions, unyielding and hard in your attitude rather than soft and open, and being so convinced you’re right and you know how things really are (as opposed to the other guy) that is the energy leak. There’s a lot more to reality than what any one of us can see; acknowledging that helps you be softer, more open, and therefore better at connecting with others.
6. Unclear relationships / unclear boundaries:
Since the entire range of social norms pertaining to all kinds of intimate relationships is in flux in the 21st century, #6 is a pretty big one. Of course, when you’re just getting to know someone, it’s normal for the nature of the relationship to be undefined. However, hanging out too long in limbo where you’re not exactly sure what the other person wants, needs, or feels, but you’re hoping they’ll come round to your way of seeing the relationship, is a powerful prāṇa-drain.
Conversely, being clear about where you’re at but keeping the other person in limbo by not committing to a specific form of relationship with clear agreements or boundaries is also an energy leak (because using other people depletes your shakti).
Obviously, the solution is communication, but few of us know how to communicate our feelings and needs without casting them in the form of a narrative about what the other person is doing wrong (or what you’re doing wrong, for that matter).
Which doesn’t help. Ongoing clarifying dialogue (which doesn’t descend into nitpicking, pseudo-psychoanalysis, or finger-pointing) about what you want and what you’re okay with, and what your loved one wants and is okay with, is crucial to create the firm foundation for relationships that aren’t energy leaks.
Except sometimes the solution isn’t communication; sometimes you hang on to a relationship that is past it’s ‘expiration date’ out of fear or attachment. This is a huge energy leak. The solution is to let go and walk away.
7. Unconscious speech / excessive speech / gossip:
Another very common energy leak in our society, this one is difficult to shift because of huge social pressure to conform to how others around us use language. Yet excessive speech is such an energy drain that in Āyurveda it is said to lead to various forms of disease (mainly through exacerbation of vāta dosha). Have you ever noticed that masters of yoga and meditation speak less, and speak carefully? Swāmī Muktānanda once said, “The power of your words increases in direct proportion to the silence that you keep.”
Ideally, before opening a topic of conversation we ask ourselves four questions, the so-called Four Gates of Speech: 1) is it true, this thing I want to say? 2) is it necessary or helpful to speak it? 3) have I found a loving way to say it? 4) is it the right time? (It helps to remember the four key terms: true, necessary, kind, right time).
So how do you plug the energy leaks? Suggestions and leads have been given above, and these can be supplemented by your own research, your intuitive knowing, and by practicing under a qualified teacher. Specifically, the tradition of Tantrik Yoga has many tools for plugging energy leaks.
There is so much more than can be said about all of these topics than we have space for here! Below you’ll find the other seven main energy leaks, which I hope to cover in another post. Based on everything I’ve received from my teachers over 26 years, I made a list of the eight most hazardous pitfalls on the spiritual path, which when addressed are also, in my view, the eight keys to sustainable awakening. The topic of Energy Leaks constitutes just one of these eight.
Some of the others are obvious, such as distorted understanding of the student-teacher relationship, and some are not so obvious, like lack of alignment of View, Practice, and Goal, or impure motive for practice. These ‘Eight Great Pitfalls’ which can become the ‘Eight Keys to sustainable Awakening’ are discussed in more detail.
Other energy leaks include:
8. addictions 9. other habitual behavior patterns fueled by and further fueling samskāras 10. mismanagement of sexual energy 11. submitting to fatalism and disempowering use of divination tools (e.g. relying on astrology, tarot, or psychic readings more than on your innate intuitive capacity) 12. incorrect performance of spiritual practices (usually due to incorrect instruction) 13. becoming “possessed” by the energy and thought-patterns of other Realms (‘realm’ is a technical term in Tantrik psychology) 14. believing that one’s conditioned view of reality is actually the way things are (ajñāna)
IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If you succeed in plugging energy leaks but have not learned to dissolve self-images and have not become conscious of the pitfalls described in the Six Realms teachings (#13 above), then the greatly increased energy and power available to you can magnify latent harmful tendencies as well as virtues.
As Dharmabodhi so aptly put it, “Without having dissolved the core patterning of how one sees and ‘knows’ oneself to be (our self-story/concept) and how one relates, the power released through shakti sādhanā will inflate the already existing [egoic] patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting, often causing harm to the practitioner by sidetracking them with obstacles or skills/successes/powers.” This will be covered in a future post entitled “Does the Practice of Yoga Automatically Make You a Better Person?”
~ May all beings realize their freedom! ~
Pscychicmedium14
An Invitation to The Forest
~ Patrul Rinpoche
All alone, accept this invitation to depart for the quiet of the forest,
Go there to accomplish single-pointed meditation-
These delightful mountain solitudes,
Are like a family estate for serious practitioners,
And as the Enlightened One, the best of protectors himself has said,
"To rely on solitude is indeed the pinnacle of joys!"
Forests, hermitages and isolated dwelling places-These are the outer solitude of the Enlightened One's heirs.
Avoiding selfishness and faint-hearted fears-This is the bodhisattvas' internal isolation.
Keeping, therefore, to outer forms of solitude, Tame the inner afflictions through tranquillity and insight, And aspire to the supreme conduct of the disciplined ones
Possessing such good fortune one is truly the Buddhas' heir.
With its sweetly cascading mountain streams, Rocky mountain shelters ascending to heaven, And gently falling dew drops of whitest moonlight-This mountain retreat surpasses even the realm of angels..
The dance of the slender trees does not stir the passions, And sweet birdsongs bring neither attachment nor aversion,
Enveloped in non-conceptuality's gentle, cooling shade-
Such youthful companionship is surely better than a silent void!
Undisturbed by noisy chatter, that thorn in meditation's side,
Alone in this excellent place of unattended solitude, The old monkey of the mind has nowhere left to roam, And so, settling down within, finds its satisfaction.
Under the bright oppressive sunlight of busy, bustling crowds,
Our own faults and unhelpful thoughts eclipse the constellations,
But when embraced by threefold solitude's cooling nectar beams,
Such faults can easily be overcome through the proper antidotes.
When it's undisturbed by rippling thoughts of sadness, The pool-like surface of the mind is still, unmoving, And faith and compassion's reflections readily arise, In such constancy, what need is there for a companion?
If the mirror of mind is wiped clean, time and again,
And uncluttered with objects and circumstances,
Study, reflection and meditation present a clear impression,
And what is there to prevent the dawn of Dharma's light?
Hunger, thirst, cold and the like-all forms of physical affliction,
Together with sadness, fear and all such mental suffering,
Can, through the teachings, enhance the purifying path,
And, unburdened by avoidance or indulgence, adorn the mind!
The pleasures of the five senses, longed for by the foolish,
Are not to be found in solitude as they are among the devas,
But joys of Dharma in their hundreds, lauded by the wise,
Are more abundant in a lonely forest than in all of heaven.
To the bodhisattva who sees suffering as a spur to diligence
There is nothing that could conflict with Dharma practice.
Should a hundred or a thousand demonic hordes arise as foes,
How could they affect the wise for whom adversities are allies?
Savouring the fine fruit of the teacher's nectar-like instructions,
Do not chase after the hollow, husk-like words of the scholars;
Seeking the bright luminescence of the bodhisattvas' compassion,
Do not long for the flickering lights of ordinary conversation.
Like a smith skilfully taming and ornamenting the mind,
With no need for the many tools of varied fields of knowledge,
It's enough to take up the blade of renunciation and compassion,
Thereby to transform a negative character's stubborn hide.
A single nectar shower of the teacher's compassion,
Can cause the ripening crop of qualities to grow,
As the clouds of devotion amass again and again,
And there's no need to fear an untimely frost.
Love and affection are all the greater For friends, teachers and family living far away, But it's hard to feel so when they're close by,
As intimacy incites only irritation!
Faith and compassionate love, cultivated in solitude,
For the lofty, the lowly and all those in between,
Tied to enlightened action with the rope of aspiration,
Will never come undone throughout one's future lives.
Forget bliss and clarity, they're just temporary highs!
Cultivate emptiness of which compassion is the essence,
And your own and others' welfare is assured, it is said.
Even a hundred years of exertion born of expectation for reward,
Will only postpone the supreme accomplishment, we're told.
But on the path of the six paramitãs free from the seven attachments,
Even without enlightenment in this lifetime, there'll be no regret!
First you met a supremely qualified guide, Then you felt renunciation and joy for the Dharma,
And now you're meditating in woodland solitude,
O my fortunate friend, you're fortunate indeed!
I met noble masters, but failed to follow them properly,
Whatever Dharma I train in, I don't apply it to my mind,
I took to solitude, but couldn't be diligent or undistracted,
Turning into an old dog like me means remaining malign!
My friend, you've set out on the way to every happiness,
But as you tirelessly cultivate diligence and devotion,
Be ever watchful, alert for the demon of arrogant pride,
And your life will end happily too-do you understand?
Not ruining the mind with false visions of deities or demons,
But furnishing it with the treasures of jewel-like qualities,
May you follow in the footsteps of the great Bodhisattvas.
This is my prayer: Protector, please bear witness!
Even if I should die and descend into the lower realms,
There'll be a time when l'm freed through remembering the kindness of my teacher's instructions,
Then, I pray, may I continue to uphold supreme enlightened action
For as long as beings, I too still remain to dispel the misery of the world!
These sincere words, which arose like a rainbow from my mouth,
Were offered from the mountain solitude in order to dispel the sadness of a dear, likeminded friend.
May their meaning soon become apparent!
~ Patrul Rinpoche
Osho The Art of Dying
Osho,
Only one Master at a time.
I can understand and appreciate your difficulty. I am talking about too many Masters and too many paths and too many doors – and it is natural that you may start getting confused.
But you can get confused only if you cling to my words. If you don’t cling to my words I am saying the same thing again and again and again even though the words may be different and I may be using different approaches. And when I use any approach, any path, I am totally with it. Then I don’t care about anything else. Even things that I have said before, I don’t care about.
When I am talking about Hasids, I am a Hasid. And then I am totally involved in it. That’s the only way to reveal its secret to you. If I remain uninvolved, if I remain without any passion, if I am just a spectator, a professor, just explaining things to you, it won’t give you the insight that is intended, it won’t give you the vision. Then you will collect information and you will go home – you will become more knowledgeable, but not wise.
So whenever I am speaking about any Master or any path or any scripture, I am totally in it, my involvement is absolute. In those moments nothing else exists for me because I am in a passion, I am passionately in love with that teaching.
Of course, I can understand your difficulty, because when I say passionately that Hasidism is the way, you become disturbed because one day I was saying Tantra is the way, another day I was saying Zen is the way, and another day I was saying Tao is the way. So now what is the way?
When I am talking about one way, I am that way. Don’t cling to my words, listen to the wordless message. And if it hits your heart, if it sings in your heart, then you have found your way. Then forget everything I have said before or whatsoever I am going to say in future. Then you need not worry. You have found your key. Now you can open the lock.
I will go on talking because I am talking for millions. When you have found your key, enjoy whatsoever I say but don’t again and again get disturbed by it. You have found your key, now I must talk for somebody else who has not yet found his key. When you have found your peace, your silence, your bliss, you have got what you were needing, but there are many others who have not got it. I will be talking for them and I will be using all the possibilities.
For example, when I am talking on Hasidism it may hit your heart deeply and your love may arise for this path. My passion may inflame you. That’s why I speak with passion. If I speak with indifference as professors do… I am not a professor. When I am speaking on Hasidism I am a Hasid rabbi.
It is my path then that I am talking about. It is not somebody else’s path that I am describing to you, it is my path that I have traveled, that I have loved, that I have known, that I have tasted. I am talking about my own experience, and if it hits and something clicks in your heart and prayer becomes your path, then forget whatsoever I am saying, then you need not reconsider again and again.
If it has not happened then you have to consider. If it has not happened then don’t worry about it, forget all about it, I will be talking about something else, I will be opening another door. Maybe that is the door for you. But when you have found the door then don’t be worried about other doors that I will be opening because all the doors lead to the same. Don’t you be worried that you should enter this door – maybe Osho is going to open another bigger and golden door. But they are all the same.
And the door that you have fallen in love with is the golden door for you. Now there is no other door if you have fallen in love with this door. And you will find others entering from other doors but when you reach to the very center of existence, you will all be meeting there in tremendous love and brotherhood.
Somebody will be a Hasid and somebody will be a Zen monk and somebody will be a Tibetan lama and somebody will be a Sufi and somebody has come through sitting silently and somebody has come dancing – but in deep brotherhood at the centre all seekers meet.
I know it is very difficult. If you start I know it is very difficult. If you start choosing two Masters you will be in conflict. Never choose two Masters – one is enough, more than enough.
When Mulla Nasrudin was dying he called his son, told him to come close and said to him, ‘My son, I have one thing to say to you – even though I know you will not listen, because I didn’t listen to my own father when he was dying. He told me, “Nasrudin, don’t chase women too much.” But I could not resist; the temptation was too much. And I got involved with one woman, another woman….’ He married nine women – the maximum that the Koran permits.
And he said, ‘I have created a hell. I suffered much. I know you don’t listen but still I am saying it, because now I am departing and there will be no chance to say it to you. I know you will fall in love with women but at least remember one thing from your old man: My son, one at a time, one at a time. At least do that much.’
One at a time. If you fall in love with two women at a time, what does it show? It shows you have a split personality. You are schizophrenic, you are not one, you are two. If you fall in love with three women at a time then you are three. And there are people who fall in love with any woman they see. Whosoever is passing, suddenly they are in love. Every woman is their love object. They are a crowd. You can count how many persons live in you by counting how many women you fall in love with simultaneously. That’s a very beautiful way to measure how many persons live in you, a very easy criterion.
But to fall in love with one woman makes you a unity, gives you a unison, you become total. You become sane because then there is no conflict.
I have heard.
The bride and bridegroom stepped into the hotel elevator and the pretty girl operator said, ‘Hello, darling’ to the bridegroom.
Not another word was spoken until the couple alighted at their floor, when the bride exclaimed, ‘Who was that hussy?’
‘Now, don’t you begin anything,’ said the bridegroom quite worriedly. ‘I’m going to have enough trouble on my hands explaining you to her tomorrow.’
Even to fall in love with two women is dangerous – but to fall in love with two Masters is a million-fold more dangerous. Because the love of the woman may be only of the body, so the spirit goes only that far. Or at the most, the love of the woman may be of the mind, and the spirit goes only that far. But the love of the Master is of the soul and if you fall in love with two Masters your soul will be dividing, you will be totally disintegrated you will start falling in parts, you will not be able to remain together. You will simply lose all shape and all form, all integrity. And the whole point in being with a Master is to attain to integration.
Once you fall in love with a Master, remain. I am not saying that even when you are disillusioned remain with him. When you are disillusioned, he is no more your Master. Then there is no point in remaining with him. Then seek another.
But never be with two Masters in your mind simultaneously. Be decisive about it – because this decision is no ordinary decision, it is very momentous. It will decide your whole being: its quality, its future.
Osho, The Art of Dying
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Extra knowledge drops from the mystic table
“As the Holy Spirit is the creative energy in nature, the sex energy is its reflection in man, and misuse or abuse of that power must be expiated in impaired efficiency of the vehicles, in order to teach us the sanctity of the creative force.” Aleister Crowley
“Each person owns his or her body, and is responsible to the law of Consequence for any misuse resulting from the weak-willed abandonment of that body to another.” (The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception p. 471).
Author Paschal Beverly Randolph had wrote about sex and the soul in his book;
Sex is a thing of soul; most people think it but a mere matter of earthly form and physical structure. True, there are some unsexed souls; some no sex at all, and others still claiming one gender, and manifesting its exact opposite. But its laws, offices, utilities, and its deeper and diviner meanings are sealed books to all but about two in a million; yet they ought to have the attentive study of every rational human being, every aspirant to immortality beyond the grave.
Sex also holds a regenerating as well as a generating force. Our sexual fluid is what drives our creativity, passions and energy. It is a magnetic fluid that is not only composed of semen, but the true human emotional vehicle which is the solar astral body, which can be crystallised through Tantric sex. One energy acts through the human according to the sex of the human, male or female, - Thoughts of the sex nature enter the body through the sex organs; they arise and apply for entrance into the heart. If the mind grants. This is the sexual union of the souls and our spirits or astral bodies then become one. This is easier said than done since we live in a world where many people cannot muster the strength to just control and master their bodies, let alone master their souls or astral spirits.
When we have sex with someone, we literally become one with that person’s astral body.
The true astral body receives its creative energy through our sexual energy that acts like a conduit to our mental body in which is the case of a man, his penis is a type of positive conduit pole that then penetrates the negative whole of the astral body of the women. They are called enunnciators for the astral body to work through as a connecting link between the soul and the physical body.
Illuminati Sex Magic - Part I" with an eloquent quote from the Master Rosicrucian, Max Heindel; “Through passion the spirit has been crystallized into a body and only by chastity can the fetters be loosed, for heaven is the home of the virgin and only insofar as we elevate love from that of sex for sex to the standard of soul for soul can we shatter the shackles that bind us.” (Mysteries of the Great Operas, pp. 153-4)
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