I have a very busy mind.
This is an advantage for many aspects of my life; being an idea generator keeps me from ever becoming bored, and I have gained a truly astounding number of skills due to my ability to learn.
However, while reading a book titled Leaving the Body, about Astral Projection, I came across an innocent passage that threw my entire worldview into disarray.
You are more than your ability to process thoughts. You are also a center of energy.
Of course, the light bulb labeled ‘Eureka’ said inside my head. My status as an energy nexus is possibly more important to my livelihood, my enjoyment of life, and my abilities as a magician, than is my ability to think many variegated things.
I enjoy thinking. It is one of the things I am best at. However, it also interfered with very necessary aspects of my being that do not need to employ thought.
This morning, as I sat down to meditate (which I grudgingly force myself to do for under five minutes each day) I had a series of thoughts come into my mind, unbidden, as usual. My favored technique has been to observe the thoughts as they come into my mind, and allow them to slide away as I return to neutrality.
I cannot keep this up for very long, because I begin to grow restless. My need for accomplishment and experiment drives me to move on to a ritual, an affirmation, a place to direct my formidable will.
But what I am neglecting is my formidable energy. I am a powerful being, and so long as I continue to ignore the needs of my energy body, I am going to continue thwarting it.
Yesterday I did not meditate in the morning, or spend any time at my rituals at all. The effect was apparent throughout the day. Calming my thoughts was so difficult as to become impossible; this is easy enough to focus into productive work on a work day, but on a Sunday, I had no outlet for these rampaging musings. At the end of the evening, I sat with my glass of wine and a book, and read recreationally for the first time in ages. While perusing Leaving the Body, I tried some of the breathing exercises that yogis have used to achieve OBE (Out of Body Experiences). But I could not devote my attention fully to this experience without simultaneously continuing to read.
My mind is my hungry ghost. It is insatiable. Continually wanting to consume more new information, it is relentless in its need to find new material to interact with, consider, digest, and assimilate. If alone, I cannot even eat without reading.
Since my Kundalini awakening, I have had energy rampaging through my body. Instead of developing myself as an energetic being, I have dedicated myself wholly to the mind, neglecting the very explosiveness that I could use to focus to my purposes.
What, then, should I do? I fear I cannot entirely leave the pleasures of the mind, especially while my career and livelihood involve working on the computer and on the internet. But I can reserve sections of my week to build myself as an energetic being, and work on those exercises that would help me to grow in this area.
First, then, a compilation of exercises is in order. My mind will be satisfied first before I can move into the simplest, purest answer; only after I have exhausted every angle of speculation will my eager mind let a subject rest, so that I may contemplate it in neutrality.