Personal view
With the fabric of daily reality changing its own weave at an exponentially accelerating rate these days, causing unprecedented flux at the tectonic level, affecting the actual tectonic plates of the planet, climatic conditions, financial conditions, social conditions, personal conditions and all the rest, it’s easy to get quickly spun out as we grapple with ever-increasing daily demands and thus somewhat lose the plot.
I’m (blessed to be) well enough trained in the Taoist approach to be able to bounce along quite freely and merrily most of the time, getting huge amounts done but it’s still challenging, especially at those moments when all of the eight or so projects I have running concurrently are demanding my full attention simultaneously – like a mother with many children who all need feeding at the same time. And I’m finding the most important aspect of Taoist training for me at the moment is to keep on letting go of the fruits of my labour and offering them back to the Tao. This keeps me innocent and free of grasping, which in turn keeps my energy light and flowing and my mind turning optimally.
Dealing with stress
It came crystal clear a couple of nights back, in the midst of a mad-busy week, sitting up till 4am at the studio with German producer ohm-g, and Joachim, the head of the German record company, who’d flown over to finalize the myriad arrangements for releasing the rather unusual and exotic album we’ve been making together and there we were, ohm-g and I, suddenly thrust out of the hallowed creative space and into the more prosaic commercial-practical one instead, along with all its temptations to grasp at results.
And as it was late and I was tired from all the listening to the music and talking and talking and wanting to conserve energy so I’d be able to get to sleep and wake up a few hours later to carry on with the mad workload I had and still have as it happens, I was forced to let go and surrender all thoughts of results to the Tao.
And it worked a treat. Both in terms of my own vitality and workload flow regulation and in terms of the results of the meeting.
So I wanted to share this vital aspect of my process with you, that you might also benefit and so accelerate progress in your affairs, while increasing your satisfaction at being alive and it goes as follows.
The schema
The Tao just is. It doesn’t do anything. But in its not-doing, it manages to generate universes. The generated universe is an automatic, spontaneous manifestation of the Tao’s being, expressed as flow: the Great Flow or Great Way.
It does so via the agency of the two primordial aspects: yin (contractive force) and yang (expansive force). The fusion and fission generated by their eternal dance is what gives existence its existence. These two opposing and complementary currents inform all phenomena, hence every phenomenon has a bright side and a dark side. Every situation has its positive and negative aspects.
So when, say, you’ve been working assiduously on a project of some sort and you get a breakthrough, an expansion – some good news, advancement, financial reward, status uplift or so on – you learn not to identify with or invest too much in it, because you know, that on the other side of it, its contractive or restrictive aspect will soon show up as a whole new slew of challenges and responsibilities. By the same token, you don’t identify with or invest too much in this potentially negative aspect either.
You dedicate the results and fruits of all your work to the Tao informing this whole spectacle and learn progressively more to identify with and invest only in that (the Tao). Everything else, everything manifest is merely relative: it doesn’t last but is continually transforming from the subatomic level outwards.
This doesn’t imply any nihilistic eschewal of excitement, satisfaction, joyfulness or enthusiasm about what you’re doing. To the contrary, you gain much more excitement, satisfaction, joyfulness and enthusiasm by continually letting go and offering your energy and thoughts to the Tao, because you stop taking your own life story, along with all its twists and turns, so personally.
When you take things less personally, you automatically take them less seriously.
You still remain responsible and constantly aspire to excellence in all you do because you know all you do is an act of service to the Great Way. But you divest yourself of the need to succeed in order to prove anything.
You have nothing to prove.
You’ve already proved everything necessary simply by continuing to be here.
All the rest is just dressing.
The symbols of reward
The reward is entirely in just being here and allowing yourself to relax and let go enough to enjoy it moment by moment. The things you manifest are not the rewards, they are merely symbols of reward. The fulfilment you seek will never be provided, more than momentarily, by manifesting results. Results are just the pleasant symptom of attaining the fulfilled state simply from being alive.
This takes the unhealthy element of stress associated with your work out of the equation, which leaves you freer to follow the flow, to flow with the fascination that arises naturally in your chest, which in turn elicits far better results.
When you contemplate your work, your drive the results you want and all the rest of it, success depends on the levels of agreement and cooperation you receive from others, but rather than run around like a loony trying to win people over to your cause, simply meditate on the idea of everyone in your world being manifestations of the same Tao you’re a manifestation of. Knowing the Tao in self and others and honouring it by dedicating the fruits of your labour to it, causes a natural, spontaneous resonance in everyone involved.
Dealing with obstruction
And if sometimes you meet with opposition or skulduggery of any sort this is also the Tao telling you to make a swerve and find a new trajectory. But this won’t be problematic provided you’re investing in loss as above rather than in gain.
It may initially seem counterintuitive or downright daft but it works – after 40 or so years of living by it, I can attest to it.
And the lever is…
But lest this all seems merely abstract, the direct lever for instigating and re-instigating the let-go state is your breathing. Stop holding your breath and allow it to flow freely and all the rest follows of itself.
Thus spake Supercharged, along with a wish for you to experience the delight of relief the more you let go of the personal view and adopt this transpersonal one in its place.
With love, Supercharged
The Tao just is. It doesn’t do anything. But in its not-doing, it manages to generate universes.
