Whether it be in a man or a woman, the mind can be sensed as a “male energy”. In the context of this post, by “mind” I am simply referring to the thinking part of the brain. There is sense of “toughness”, rigidity and strength which is inherent to the way a mind functions, which is what I am labeling as “male energy” for the sake of reference – I am not saying it’s good or bad, it’s just the way it is. Men and women are both capable of having a strong male energy in their being when they are brain oriented. Women, in most cases, are more connected with their heart but by being influenced by the rigors of the modern day they’ve also develop patterns of being brain oriented and hence, presently, many have developed a high male energy in them – which is easily one of the reasons why a lot of relationships fail in today’s age because of a lack of “female energy” in the relationship, there is just a strong male energy component on both sides which causes an imbalance.
One can easily sense that life-energy is “female energy” – it’s akin to love/joy, playfulness and innocence, and if you don’t sense it that way, it’s mostly because you are too rooted in your brain and are trying to understand this life-energy through your “technical thinking”, instead of sensing it in your heart. Life-energy is sensitive, innocent, loving and playful, and your “heart” is made in the image of life-energy. It’s seen that the “heart” is the first organ to develop in a fetus, and its wisdom is what co-ordinates the development of the rest of the body. You can be brain-dead and still be alive, but you can’t heart-dead and be alive. The heart is the first expression of life-energy as a body, and it contains the intent of life-energy in that body (your natural expression).
In a person who becomes strongly mind-dominated, life-energy cannot express freely, because such a person lacks connection with the heart. However, the mind is needed to give security to the life-energy/heart for it to express in this physical realm, and if you don’t have a “stable” mind your heart cannot express freely either. This is the balance, between mind and heart, that is needed for a harmonious life – the heart needs a “stable” mind to feel secure enough to express itself, but not a “dominant” mind that’s too cold to allow heart’s expression or a fearful mind that’s too closed to allow the heart’s expression.
The interplay between heart and mind
The heart contains the intent of life-energy in this body, the way life-energy wants to express itself through this physical form. However, this is a physical realm and it has its challenges – there is a survival aspect that comes into play and the mind naturally stays on the guard all the time, especially as we keep growing into adults. As a child, our mind was not very developed and most of us lived our expression quite freely as the vibrant life-energy, even if our environment (filled with mind-oriented people) was not very conducive. At one point, most of us learnt to suppress our heart and became more brain-oriented in a bid to survive in this world, because we started perceiving the hardships of life and started “toughening up” to handle it, thus becoming imbalanced in “male energy” – this is true for men and women both.
For life-energy to express in this physical realm, through a physical body, it needs to be given a “wholesome” environment within, in which it can blossom. A hardened mind cannot give such an environment neither can a fearful mind give such an environment. Only a stable mind, which is not very fearful and is also not “insensitive”, can provide a conducive inner state of being for life-energy to start expressing its creativity freely. Every human being, who has provided such a conducive environment for their heart/life-energy to express itself, has been a harbinger of well-being, originality and creative abundance in this world in their own right, because life-energy is not only a strong force of creativity but is also a strong force of well-being.
It’s like the feeling a girl gets when she is with a guy who provides her a sense of security – she immediately becomes playful, innocent, loving and joy-oriented, bringing a sense of light-heartedness and cheer into any environment she is in. The same girl if she is with a guy who makes her feel insecure would go into her shell and not express her true self. Life-energy being “female energy” has this same behavior – when the mind gives it a stable/secure state of being, it starts expressing itself in all its grace, bringing a lot of playfulness and abundance into life. When the mind is insecure, anxious, struggle-oriented, or, hardened, closed and hostile, it creates a vibration that is not conducive to allowing the heart to start expressing, and hence prevents life-energy’s creative influx from coming through.
The phase of letting go of the mind momentum
In most cases, after so many years of living in a disconnected manner, the brain obviously has a lot of patterns of resistance running in it. There is also a lot of accumulation of low-vibration energy, created by mind’s fear/resistance, in the body. To make such a brain come back to “wholeness” one needs to let go of it for a while, so that its momentum can start coming down and the plethora of negative patterns running in it can lose their intensity.
By “let go” I literally mean just don’t be rooted in the brain (which includes not trying to force positive thinking) and for a while allow your awareness to just rest outside it – you can watch the brain as a detached witness but don’t buy into all its arguments, cynical thought-patterns and fears. It’s tough initially to do this, mostly because the brain has so much momentum going for it, and because you’ve been addicted to being brain-oriented (so much that you are scared of any other way of living), but if you can feel the “disconnection” in you and you want to come back into wholeness, there is no choice but to go through this small phase of discomfort of letting go of the brain till its momentum slows down. Allow yourself the time and space to go through this phase, there is nothing more quintessential than to live out your heart’s expression else you just feel disconnected all your life.
When you do start letting go of the brain, you will notice that you no longer have the energy to pursue actions that came from the place of disconnection/struggle, you also sense that you can’t sustain realities that are not really congruent with your natural expression (which you were sustaining through force and anxiety). This is how your external environment starts becoming conducive for your heart’s expression to start unfolding, for your life-stream to start manifesting the intent in which you were born, which includes aligned work (creative expression), relationship, health and life-style as an ongoing unfolding.
As your brain loses its negative momentum, it starts becoming more wholesome, there is a sense of courage, not a “violent courage” but a “peaceful courage” where you feel open to allowing life – this is the perfect environment for life-energy to start unfolding its creativity through you, allowing your heart’s intent to flower through. You will know when your brain feels stable, it’s not something you can force, it’s something that happens on its own when you “consciously” let go of being lost in its negative momentum and allow its force to ebb away, it does require a “waiting” period because it’s a lot like waiting for a car running at 100 miles/hour to slow down after you release the accelerator. The brain will keep asking “how to let go of the brain”, and if you are caught up in this question you can never let go of the brain, something in you already understands this pointer of letting go, so don’t over-analyze it.
Sen,
I am finding your posts to be a great source of support and learning; I am so grateful for that – thank you. How do you know that you are on the right path for letting go of the mind? Sometimes I think I am making good progress and other times know that I am falling back into ruminating and making myself miserable by feeding my negativity and not trusting in my life stream.
Ophelia
Ophelia, during the phase of letting go, a lot of your suppressed negativity (of the past) will come up to be released, and hence you can feel as if you are regressing, but in truth you are progressing towards cleaning out your inner space. The pointer always is to just not over-analyse this process through the mind, and just stay allowing, knowing that it will take some time before the detox comes to an end and that sometimes the intensity of the detox can be high, it does not mean you are falling back. Even when you sense that you were lost in a negative momentum, understand that it’s fine for your awareness to get pulled in by the negative momentum as it is getting released – instead of feeling bad about it, just relax and be allowing of this also.
I found your website about a month ago and read all the posts. Its a very wonderful insight. Ive practicing conscious awareness for 2 wks now. Im still lost in my mind/thoughts most of the time and feel intense negativity. When i can balance my mind and heart I can feel my breath. Usually i don’t even feel that Im breathing. It’s just like an automatic response not because im using it as a technique to slow down the mind. and I can feel the spaciousness within for just a moment. is it normal/correct to make the breath as a pointer? Im afraid i will be trapped in using it as another technique to slow down the mind.
thanks a lots, Sen.
It’s fine during these initial stages as your awareness has just started to grow. Any technique is helpful during this phase to bring some stability to your awareness – be it staying with the breath or just observing the mind or observing the heart beat. When you have some stability in your awareness you can actually start letting go more fully of the suppressed energies and your mind’s negative momentum. But it takes time for awareness to gain this stability, allow yourself to continue with practicing staying as an open awareness of your inner space.
Hi Sen,
I appreciate the sensitivity in your article about male and female energies, the analogy you have between the mind and the heart is a beautiful illustration of how we can come into balance inside our own selves on a daily basis. Thank you, once again.
Sincerely,
Priya
Sen,
One more wonderful article..!
Waned to ask you, Once we reach the stability in our awareness..Is it possible for the being to feel the innocence or excitement which we all felt during our childhood?
Sat, you don’t come to the innocence or excitement of childhood, because that was an unconscious wonderment. What you do come to is a conscious joy which is not just laced with wonderment/excitement, but has a depth to it, a wisdom, a maturity and a clarity, where you are no longer at the mercy of your mind’s pull and are no an addict to the external distractions, you enjoy physical life but from a place of inner wholeness.
How fascinating. I am female and I was just thinking today – (or was it feeling – the two are starting to integrate thanks to my inner wholeness awareness!). I was thinking and feeling how strange this ego and mind thing is for me. Because it really has always felt like something alien in me – like it’s conditioned there. That’s why I get so angry with it because until recently mine was pretty dominant, chattery and overpowering – the ego especially. It really is like someone implanted it there without my permission! It always felt un-natural, like it wasn’t really me. And a few weeks before I read your article I was pondering on the fact that as a female I felt my femininity had been lost and I was wondering where it had gone and how! And I have been in deep mourning for it. Like you say, my femininity is my innocence, my playfulness, love and joy. And it struck me that perhaps it was the patriarchal society I live in and I was wondering if all females have been conditioned into this male mind and specifically ego-oriented mind-set in order to survive in this imbalanced society and culture. No wonder relationships have become such hard work! I think it is due to male insecurity throughout recent history that men have tried to dominate and control female energy because they felt threatened by it. eg. fear of paternity uncertainty due to their need to own their children/DNA, fear of constant competition with other men to win females, fear of difference, fear of female spiritual, intuitive power, eg. burning of the witches. As the male mind became more aware, these fears intensified, so the easiest solution seemed to be to control females. They did this to begin with I am sure under the guise of protecting them and giving them security, but it moved on to complete ownership of property, land, politics, oppressing the female energy, instead of complimenting it. Increased male power just fuelled the male imbalance when men became addicted to mind/ego energy. This is because the male energy is unfortunately vulnerable to continuous fears and lacks which never end, which without female energy to balance it out becomes very destructive. Whereas female energy is more contained, creative, whole and self-fulfilling. For example it has the capacity to create life from within and does not need to find life energy outside of its own physicality. It has less natural need to penetrate, spread itself around in the constant need for external validation. Something else you said in this piece rings completely true for me. I feel overwhelming joy at the thought of a man providing me with a sense of security. I just want to wholeheartedly love and respect a man who does that, but at the same time there is this other alien part of me that feels a little guilty for wanting that. But you are right. The true authentic me goes into my shell and I do lose my joy if a man does not offer me security. That is the main thing I love about male energy. Protection and security. This feels completely natural for me and it is only recently that the male/female energies within me have stopped being at war and I am embracing my femininity more and more and feeling so much happier. Absolutely fascinating. Another of your articles has resonated with something I was thinking about just before reading it. It is incredible that at last someone seems to share my insights. What a relief. I am not alone on this planet!
Hi Sen,
I really love your teachings. They make me feel hopeful about life, and they really touch my heart.
I just wanted to ask you something. It feels that whenever I try to do allow my negative thoughts and feelings to rise, my mind suddenly goes blank. Is that supposed to happen? I close my eyes when I do it.