Managing and Increasing Your Energy

Managing and increasing your energy. Everything that we do involves energy, personal power. The more energy that we have, the more we can accomplish, whether it’s things that you wish to accomplish physically—career-related, athletic things—or whether your goal is to enlighten your mind, to raise your awareness, to become conscious of God, of eternity, of everythingness and nothingness.

Life is wonder. Endless, ceaseless wonder. When you’re in a high state of attention, of course, you see that. Now naturally, if your energy level is low, then everything is gray, two-dimensional, boring, frustrating, unhappy.

Happy people, enlightened people, successful people, inspired people—they all share something in common. They’ve learned how to manage and increase their energy. Angry people, frustrated people, hateful people, unhappy people, dissatisfied people, people that are mean, that seek to injure others—these people all have something in common, the ineffective use of energy. They waste energy, they don’t conserve it and they don’t know how to increase it. Sometimes they steal it, but what they steal, they use up quickly. They waste it.

The study of Zen is the study of energy, power, knowledge and balance. It’s the science of energy conservation and control. In Zen, one uses energy, of course. We use energy to aid others, to see beauty, to discover love where we saw no love at all.

The universe is made up of vibrating, pulsing light. But when our attention level drops, when our energy is low, we don’t see that. Instead we see what appears to be a solid material world. Everything is stuck together. People are stuck together. They can’t change. Ideas are stuck together. They’re irrevocable. We live in structures, houses. We think that the end of the universe is as far as the telescope can see. All this has very little to do with reality. It’s a type of reality.

A patient is dying. They’re in bed in the hospital. Their sight is fading and they look around them, and they just see grayness. You walk in the room and you’re feeling great, and you don’t see grayness. The sunlight is streaming in through the window. The flowers are beautiful that are in the vase, the lilies and roses. Awareness is governed by energy.

The primary place where most people lose energy is in their inter-relationships with others. That means that you lose your energy in your interactions with the people you know best. You can also gain energy, if you interact with people in a way that’s beneficial. But in most cases, energy is lost in little games of manipulation, in little struggles of will, in the attempts to possess others, to wrap them up, to delude them, to shine them on.

It takes a lot of energy to manipulate someone and keep them on a string—or if you have a lot of energy and people seek it, they try and get to you, get into your life. They try and keep you off balance, keep you from making good decisions that will empower you, keep you from meditating well, keep you from being athletic and building your body up, being successful in your career. Because if you are successful and you meditate deeply and you have a healthy body, then your attention field will become very sharp and you’ll look around and see if anyone is in your life for ill reasons.

Oh, let’s face it, nobody’s perfect, right? We live in a world where everybody wants something. But there’s a tremendous difference between a person who uses you and a person who abuses you. A person who uses you is somebody who wants something from you. They may love you, but ultimately they want something from you, whether it’s something physical, something sexual or just the fulfillment of their own love by having someone to experience it with. And you use people also, for the same reasons. So reciprocity, a symbiotic relationship, is a relationship in which two people have worked out certain terms: “I’m using you in certain ways; you’re using me in certain ways.” That’s a balanced association. One is aiding the other or allowing usage, if you will.

An imbalanced association, though, is when one or both parties or more—if it happens to be a corporation—when one becomes abusive and takes unfair advantage, tries to block another’s enlightenment or success, causes pain to another, injures them in any possible way, shape, manner or form—physically, with energy, emotionally, occultly.

It’s necessary to do a very thorough examination of your life and to discover whether the people in your life, no matter how much you love them, are using you or abusing you. If they’re using you, no problem. You should expect that, and you should use them. Not abuse—use. Proper energy balancing occurs there—beings helping each other. But if there’s someone who’s abusing you, then you have to ask them to stop. If they won’t, you must eliminate them [from your life]. Otherwise they will keep you in a very low energy state.

Naturally, as we all know, it’s possible to take energy from someone else. Just like you can steal money from somebody’s wallet, you can take power from someone. This is usually done in close, emotional sexual relationships. In sexual contact, there is something that happens—something obviously physical and something subtle and mysterious. The doorways open between people in that deep level of intimacy, intimate contact, and it’s very possible for someone to be very abusive at that time with energy. If one party is trusting, it’s very easy at that time for the other party to format someone. That is to say, to put thoughts in their mind, to jam their consciousness or attention, to lower their energy level or to just take power from them. You can take power from somebody because a person is open on many levels.

That doesn’t necessarily have to happen; it does quite frequently, human beings being they way they are—confused, deluded and generally unawakened. So as a person who seeks to increase their energy, which is obviously the reason you got the tape, I address these remarks to you—not to the general public, who may or may not be interested in increasing their energy. You have to be very, very careful about who you have intimate contact with. You have to monitor the situation constantly. It can change.

You can be with someone who is not abusive who becomes abusive. Then you have to confront them, talk to them. Human beings need things explained to them sometimes. And then if they don’t change, they probably won’t change, so it’s time for you to change. Most energy is lost in these types of situations, or just within family structures. The only people who can really drain your power effectively are people you are very close to, you are open to, you love, or people you’re afraid of. Fear.

When you’re afraid of someone, they can gain power over you, meaning they can drop your energy level. If someone has something you want, if they can wrap you—this is what we call manipulation—they can make you think that they’ve got something that you have to get from them. They’re the exclusive source; they’re the only one who can make you happy. And of course, you can never get it yourself.

Now, people come to a teacher to learn Zen or other types of self-discovery, and in a way you go to the teacher to become happy. A teacher who just wants to keep you on a string forever, that is to say, they don’t actually teach you how to become independent and strong, but they set themselves up as a god, the god-guru concept, and you worship them and bring them offerings all the time and they tell you what to do constantly; they don’t give you challenges to develop your mind, they don’t throw you back on yourself. You know, everybody wants a teacher like that, somebody who will tell you everything, tell you what to do, how to live, how to breathe, etcetera. But a teacher like that is very abusive. Those people are actually usually taking their students’ energy.

Once in a while, a teacher may make a recommendation. But it’s usually after going through the basic Socratic method of trying to get people to figure it out themselves. A good teacher challenges your mind, your intellect and your spirit. They throw you back on yourself all the time. By that I mean they make you do things, work for things. They teach you what they have learned, and the only way to do it is to get out and do it.

It takes many, many years to become proficient in energy conservation, just as it takes many years to get a Ph.D. But it’s something that happens. You make progress. You get continually stronger. You see your attention is far different than it ever was before, if you’re applying the things that you’ve been taught. But a lot of people who are involved in self-discovery lose energy to abusive teachers, to abusive friends and to entities, non-physical beings.

Today we see all kinds of channeling going on. People go to mediums and they get in touch with these spirits that are outside of the body. And most of these spirits are pretty malevolent and unenlightened, although they often claim to be enlightened teachers who are disincarnate, not in the body. These are low-vibe beings who seek life force. They don’t have a body, but they want the experiences that a physical body provides. They want to experience sex, they want to experience food, they want to injure others. Most of them are from very low planes; they’re not very evolved, but they can mimic. And today, we see all these people channeling and trying to get in touch with beings and have them speak through them and all this sort of stuff. I mean this isn’t new. It’s been going on for thousands of years, but right now there’s a rash of it.

People think that simply by getting in touch with some being that’s outside of the body, it will answer their questions and solve their problems, the same way they think going to some guru gives them all the answers and will solve their problems. This only creates problems. It won’t help you a bit.

The person who helps you is the person who aids you in becoming independent and strong. Answering your questions won’t do that because then, the next time you need to answer your questions, you just have to go back to the channeled entity, or whatever it is, or the old guru. On the other hand, good teachers don’t answer you, they ask you questions. They make you think. They teach you methods of problem solving and analysis, of meditation and intuition.

I’m suggesting that a great deal of energy is lost in this study by people who interact with non-physical beings who want the person’s energy, and they get into their attention field. They get into your mind and your body by approaching you in the dream plane, promising you powers, playing on your desires. They get into your consciousness. And they sap your life force. It’s a game they play with you. Carried far enough, it becomes demonic possession.

A lot of energy is lost, of course, to false teachers. Wherever dependency is created, energy is lost. In self-discovery, in Zen, you need to become independent and strong. That’s the key that unlocks the door of mind, of enlightenment.

There are two sides to increasing energy and controlling it and conserving it. One is avoiding loss. The other is learning how to gain energy. Gaining energy is obviously accomplished by meditating, by right actions, right thoughts, right deeds, by studying with a real teacher—or if you don’t have a real teacher, by just studying and following the teachings—by creating happiness in your life, by never giving up and so on.

But my subject today is not so much how you increase it. I really believe that’s a natural process, and if you meditate every day that will happen. And you practice. If you follow the study of Buddhism or any type of advanced self-discovery, it will happen. The real problem is not increasing your energy. That’s pretty easy, I’m suggesting. The problem is losing it. If you stop the loss and you simply meditate, you’ll have more than enough energy, and you’ll learn to live strategically. These are things I discuss at my seminars and on other tapes. But the issue that most people don’t get—in other words, that’s the easy and fun stuff—the issue that they miss is where they lose energy.

If you plug all the holes of drainage and if you simply meditate, the rest will happen automatically for you. But if you miss where you’re losing energy, it’s a problem. Again, a given is that you’re meditating every day; studying with a teacher, if not [then] studying the teachings; learning to have more fun with your time and life and mind; going to places that make you feel good, that increase your energy; participating in activities; following careers—right actions, right career, all that sort of thing. Happy things. Increase your energy. But you need to look for points of depletion.

Now, evolved people need to spend a great deal of time either alone or in areas of low population density. People who meditate, people who are evolved, are very sensitive. And one of the greatest problems that they have is their sensitivity. It’s also their greatest boon or help. Because they’re sensitive, their consciousness is flexible. They can move quickly towards enlightenment and higher states of mind. But that sensitivity is a double-edged sword. As a sensitive person, when you put yourself around other people, you feel their desires, you feel their angers, you feel their frustrations. And you begin to believe that the thoughts, feelings, desires and frustrations in your own mind are yours.

Even at a Zen seminar, this happens. I’ll do a Zen seminar and let’s say several hundred people come. I’ll be meditating, talking about the dharma, about light, teaching strategic methods for having more fun with your life and becoming conscious, awakened. Naturally, all kinds of people come in different states of evolution, in different states of mind. And you’ll sit at a seminar, and you may feel other people’s thoughts, some of which may not be too good. You’ll pick it up. You’ll also pick up a tremendous volume of high energy as I meditate with you. When you go home, if you go home to a still place, the thoughts and impressions of those other people will drop away. But the good energy that you’ve picked up at the seminar will stay with you, and you’ll see the next morning, you’ll feel changed, enlightened, that is to say, more aware.

I’m suggesting that it’s really important that you live in a place that has good energy. Where you sleep, where you dream, where you meditate, where you spend a lot of your time is key. You want to do that in a place that is accessible to your career, and you know we live in a world of cities. You have to get in and out of the city and I think that’s a fine thing to do. There are lots of fun things to do in cities. But you need to try and get out of the city as much as possible.

If you do live in the city, it’s necessary to get out of it on weekends or whenever. You can go for hikes and walks in nature, not simply on a busy ski slope with 10,000 other people on it, but some place more solitary—cross-country skiing perhaps or walking or whatever it is—because only then will you feel the stillness. Then you’ll realize that most of the thoughts and desires you have are not yours. You’ll just see what’s you, in other words.

It’s good to take a couple days by yourself and rent a nice cabin in some nice, happy area. Stay a day or two and meditate and take walks in safe areas—areas that feel good to you—to find out who you are again, to remember.

Ideally, you would live in an area that’s not necessarily in the middle of the country, out in the woods, because you can isolate yourself there, too, and just get stuck in your own thoughts. Interaction with others is good, but in an area of low population density where you have access to both deeper country and deeper city—a place of balance.

If you thrive on the city energy, then it’s necessary, as I said, if you want to effectively increase and manage your energy, to leave the city frequently and to walk in parks, to get away from people. Again, this is addressed only to persons who really want to move into higher levels of mind. Because you’re more sensitive than you realize. Find a spot that makes you happy. Select companions who are striving for enlightenment. They’ll have their imperfections, certainly, but at least their attention is moving in the right direction. They’re accessing the right type of energy.

Preserve time for solitude.

Don’t get involved with non-physical beings. This current pastime, this rage, is dangerous. Many of these people who are channeling entities and things like this are going to become very sick, physically and mentally. Oh, it is possible to contact higher beings who are not in the body. But the being you really want to contact is you. Or go see a teacher who’s in the body, who you can tell more about. You know, these non-physical beings, it’s very hard to tell what they’re up to. You can’t see them. How can you rely on them? It’s chancy.

Emotional control is essential for attaining higher levels of mind. It’s absolutely necessary to love, of course, but to be able to control yourself. The thing that a teacher looks for in a student is the degree of self-control—not coldness—self-control that someone has. Can you control your anger? Can you control your lust? Can you control your frustrations? Can you control your jealousies? Those are the only people worthy of learning the higher teachings—by worthy, I mean that they’re the only ones capable of it. Because in order to really effectively interlock with higher spheres of mind and attention, you must have tremendous balance and control. This comes through conscious decisions to do so. You learn that it’s more fun to have control than not to.

Enlightenment doesn’t occur by accident. It’s a deliberate decision that someone makes again and again, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, lifetime after lifetime. It’s something that you grow in and develop in. When you could be sloppy, you’re not; when you could be indulgent, you’re not; when you could be sad, you laugh instead. If you fall down, you pick yourself up and begin again and again and again and again.

Be a perpetual beginner. Each day we start over, each evening, each moment.

Always be inspired. It’s that attitude of inspiration and belief that creates energy.

There are dark forces in the world that would have you believe that you can’t succeed and that you’re a failure and that you’re evil and all this nonsense. There are no bad people, there are only bad states of mind, and you dwell in them like houses and you can move out of them like you move out of houses if you so decide. To get into a nicer house, you need a little more money—that’s energy. You’ll gain that by meditating deeply, by speaking the truth, by learning to be still and by avoiding the crowd—most of the time, not all of the time.

Again, you don’t need to be a recluse and stay away from people. But you have to set aside a lot of time for stillness. That’s the only place there’s real fulfillment, and then when you turn to life and activities in the world and career management and all that stuff, you’ll be successful. You’ll have a great time because you’ll have the energy to do it all. But you can’t burn the candle on both ends. You have to recharge. You need to slow it down, and you have to find out whose thoughts are yours and whose are not.

Nature is our friend—trees, squirrels, grass, fields, meadows, oceans—without people. Hike. Walk. Stroll. Bike. Swim. When you have free time, be in a still place and feel eternity, feel God, feel nirvana. Have a great time. Just feel it, extend that mind of yours, which you sharpened with the sword of meditation, into eternity. Feel beyond this life, beyond all lifetimes. Be inspired. We live in a world where people aren’t. So what? They’re all just going to die. What do they know?

Be optimistic always. Always feel that something good is going to happen. It is, if you decide it is and you make it happen. This creates energy, this attitude— belief, sincerity, inspiration, not getting discouraged, right attitude, right mind, right conversation, having a hell of a time.

And don’t be a prude. Don’t be too strict in your observances, otherwise you’re just stuck in it. There is no letter of the law to follow in Zen. It’s a free-form experience. There’s a lot of etiquette, but there are no rules.

The etiquette is higher consciousness, sensitivity, gentleness, gracefulness, intensity, power, knowledge—feelings that you feel when I talk on these tapes.

That’s all I have to teach you are feelings—the words don’t matter that much.

But as you listen, feel the stillness of my mind, not my mind but of mind — infinite mind, endless, never beginning and never ending. Live in that stillness and revel in it. Then enter into the activities of the world, without getting overjoyed by success or totally put out by failure.

Whether they love you or hate you, it doesn’t much matter. What matters is stillness.

Energy is gained, a great deal of energy, by giving energy. Now this is a curious thing. You’d never think it. Or maybe you would. We assume in life when we take something, that we get it. You go to the bank, and you get a lot of money, and you have it. If you give money away, you don’t have it. But in the world of energy, that’s not entirely true. When we give energy, we gain energy. Now this is different than having someone manipulate you, take your energy, you know, that sort of thing. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about energy that’s freely given.

For example, right now I’m making a tape. I’m sitting here in Boston visiting the city for a few days, and I’m taking time to make a tape for you. Whoever listens to this tape—it’s for you.

And I’m projecting a tremendous amount of energy into this tape, into the awareness, to inspire you and show you that life can be much brighter and better than perhaps you realize.

Now when I do this a curious thing happens. I’m giving a lot of energy. I’m giving time. I do this when I teach. But something will come back to me unsought. I just enjoy doing this. I’m not seeking a return, but something does come back—energy—because you’re not pulling energy from a limited source, the source of your body. One pulls energy, when you give this type of energy, from infinite mind, which is endless energy. Consequently, as you give more you receive more.

Whenever you take the time to inspire someone, to aid them in their inner search, you’ll find energy will come back to you—unless, of course, you’re ego tripping or you’re trying to manipulate them or make them feel that you’re powerful and wonderful. Then it’s better not to. It’s better to keep to yourself. You’ll create very painful karmic situations for yourself. You’ll lose energy.

The inner laws on this subject are very strict. They were written a long time ago. They’re not about to change. You also have to be careful that in giving energy, you do not allow yourself to be excessively drained or used. There can be a sort of a depressive person whom you always try and inspire, and they never change, they just feed on the energy and pull you down in the process. That’s not what I mean. That’s pouring water through a sieve. None of it collects. It all goes out.

The alternative, of course, is to inspire people very selectively with sincerity and with respect.

We have the opportunity to do this constantly.

You want to increase your energy? Tremendously? Then want, inside your heart, to inspire others. You don’t have to get up on a stage and teach. Just want that, and you will find life will occasionally cause you to encounter someone whom you can inspire. And it will lift you tremendously—one of the best ways to increase your energy. Meditate. Inspire others. Spend time by yourself. Spend time away from people. Manage your career properly. Work at something that’s constructive, that doesn’t injure others, and put your full attention into it.

Self-control is completely necessary for increasing and raising your attention level. One of the places you practice that is at work. You work many, many hours. It’s the major activity of your life. Obviously, you can lose a lot of energy or gain a lot of energy from it. When you put your full attention into it and you do a good job, not just for the paycheck but because it’s part of your impeccability, then you’ll find it’ll heighten you. Oh, we all become physically tired from working, but if we work with right intent, we’re inspired. Our mind goes higher. Our level is more expansive.

Work in a place that feels good to you. Again, no place will be perfect, but select the best of that which is available. But it’s more of an attitude. In other words, if you see work as part of your Zen, the Zen of working is just to do it, not to worry about it; just to do it as well as you can do it, to feel you’d be doing it without the money. [Then] you’d be doing something, some kind of work, because work perfects you if you do it properly. It’s a chance to exercise control, restraint, discipline, creative inspiration. If you’re mindful in your work, if you put your best effort into it, then something comes back to you.

Of course, try to feel that you are beyond time and space when you meditate, when you practice zazen.

Go beyond this world, beyond time, beyond life and try to retain that feeling—not a feeling of being spaced out—but cosmic consciousness, in touch with the moment and with eternity.

Throughout the day, remind yourself that you’re moving through eternity. Be focused. Be centered. Be in the now.

Know what’s going on in the world. Read a newspaper once in a while. Be precise in your work, in your physical motion, in your movements.

But at the same time, allow your consciousness to spill over and flood into eternity, into the endless light of reality.

High talk with Zen Master Rama.

So it’s about 4:00 a.m. here in Boston. The world is still. Soon everybody will be getting up and going about their tasks.

And there’s a beautiful stillness abroad throughout the land and the universe. Feel it and enjoy it. It may not be 4:00 a.m. where you are, but it is here now, always. This moment is always.

You see, the way you increase your energy is by letting go, ultimately.

There’s something inside you that knows what it should do, and you fight it all the time.

And when you let go to that part, you become perfect. In every moment, you become perfect—different, different types of perfection.

Perfection is not a final state. It’s a state of mind. A child is perfect; it’s a perfect child. A teenager is perfect—perfect teenager. The adult is not more perfect. The child might think so, the teenager might think so, but the adult looks back and thinks that the child and the teenager are more perfect.

Perfection is a state of mind. Everything is a state of mind. There are ten thousand states of mind.

Good morning.