Flow Over Form |

When I first heard the phrase “mind over matter” as a young child, I could not have fathomed what it truly meant nor how it would profoundly affect my life. To be fair, neither did most adults who would toss around the phrase with the same reckless abandon as if it were the aforementioned matter that did not matter.

More often than not what they were getting at would be something along the lines of “nothing is impossible if you set your mind to it”. If they were honest they would simply say “work harder”. Ironically, this crass interpretation confines the mind to the moldings of matter and ultimately brings it under the dominion of physical form; the polar opposite of the true power of the proverb.

While semantically imperfect the implications of the original idea are profound; your internal state supersedes and even creates and perpetuates your external environment. The outside, physical world, while it may appear concrete, confining, and set in stone, is actually malleable and mirage-like next to the majestic macrocosm of magic.

Whatever unlocks this wonderful world within? The internal is not moved by the mechanistic, muscular machinery of the mind, but instead by the intrinsic energy of organic impulse. It flows from inspiration of spirit; it is not pushed by the perspiration of analysis.

The cycles of this inner sanctum don’t come from the cerebellum because the thinking mind is every bit as external as the physical paradigm. Most of our notions about the way the world works are instructed or otherwise imposed by some outside authority. If we don’t see them as such and then allow them to fall away they eventually form fixed figments that are more rigid than the rockiest of ridges. The key is being able to identify which whisperings are the unwanted chatterings of the mind versus the pure inspiration of spirit.

Sometimes we experience the sparkle of synchronicity in mundane moments of magic. Something tells you you’d like to have a serene, solitary day, and suddenly all your meetings are canceled. You pop into a shop on a whim and whimsically you find just the outfit you’ve been wanting for a while. The more we trust our intuition, the more frequent these occurrences become. Bit by bit, the paradise becomes increasingly palpable and primary as the physical purgatory fades to the periphery; a phantasmal panorama.

Film and literature have given form to this feeling in “the force” in Star Wars and the powers of “the one” in The Matrix. Channeling this consciousness, Jedi Masters and Neo alike are able to effortlessly shift the shapes and structures of their surroundings, rearranging them as if on a touch screen, often with their eyes closed and their hands behind their back.

In practice, the magic of manifestation is not so immediate or instantaneous, nor does it happen in the precise way we initially envision. Yet its power is all the more extraordinary for the unexpected moment and mode in which it materializes; surprising us with a truer essence of our esperance than we could have possibly anticipated.

At a certain point, our connection to this otherworldly oasis can make the ins and outs of daily life painfully drab, dull, and dreary by comparison. It can fill us with a greater desperation to shed the straightjacket of the status quo. As we react to and rebel against our rule-based surroundings, they seem to wrench us back with even greater resistance. We are wound and bound, trapped and wrapped in a woeful web of our own creation.

Struggling with a stubborn knot with frenzied hysteria only tightens the tangle. A mechanical mind caught in the cogwheels of the concrete, ruminates and revolves in an endless cycle of mania. In these times of trials and tribulations, trapped in the tension of the material, the only trail through is to stop the spinning and transform form with the truth and tranquility of transcendence.

In the last few posts we explored how stillness leads to movement in metamorphosis, emptiness leads to fullness in a pregnant pause, darkness leads to light in winter, and hardness leads to softness in mountainscapes. Here we see how the physical and psychological constriction lead to liberation from form in all its forms.

Thus the hero emerges from the underworld, unshackled. In the revelation of newfound freedom, “mind” marries matter and form finds function in sumptuous symbiosis. Manifestation becomes primary and material secondary; yet both responding, renewing, and rejoicing, in an ever-sustaining mutualism beyond the limits of logic.