It’s easy to confuse the tension required for creation with the stress of resistance – the former is a natural movement whereas the latter is a resistance to this natural movement. Physical reality is created through the ebb and flow of life-energy, which means a constant movement of energy is required to keep the physical reality happening. When you look at your heart’s movement, you can get an idea of how energy is kept in circulation – the heart “relaxes” so that it becomes open to accumulate blood within it, and then it “contracts” (a strict tension) to push the blood through the arteries – without this cycle of relaxation and tension, it cannot keep life going, because then it cannot keep energy in movement. Life space as a whole is like a heart, it’s constantly relaxing, and contracting, to keep generating the movement of physical life – if it only stayed relaxed there would be no movement, and if it only stayed contracted there would again be no movement, there would be stagnation. Since your body/mind is also a life space, and is thus a “creative” force, it is also subject to this same natural movement of tension and relaxation, to keep creating realities.
We have no problem with the relaxation bit of this creation cycle, but we get very resistant to the “tension”, or contraction, bit of the creation cycle. As soon as tension is felt, we think there is something wrong, and we try to push it away. That’s why the pointer of staying as “relaxed awareness” means to be totally allowing of what arises, which includes relaxation and tension of the creation cycle – relaxed awareness does not mean that you try to avoid the natural tension that arises in the body as a part of the creation cycle, it’s just a pointer to remove your resistance to this natural tension. The problem is that we unconsciously resist this tension, and our resistance creates our suffering, and it also creates stagnation because we are preventing the harmonious cycle of creation which requires the stage of tension and relaxation happening in a sync.
The creation cycle
You will notice that as soon as a desire, confusion, question, or intention, arises, there is a tension in your body/mind, and this is natural because this tension is what “accumulates” the energy required for the manifestation of this desire/solution. Some of us try to “resist” this natural tension, and this resistance is what actually does the harm because it creates a conflict in the body towards releasing this tension. If you don’t resist this tension, it will relax on its own, automatically – just like a heart contracts and relaxes automatically. The tension accumulates the energy, and the relaxation expends the energy into creation. This cycle may be required several times before a certain reality can manifest, depending on the reality – some realities require less energy/creation cycles some require more.
A lot of us try to avoid this natural tension required for creation. This movement of avoiding the natural tension, is what creates unnatural resistance in our being. What we call as fear in many cases is purely just the tension of creation, and we try to resist this fear out of our fear of it. That’s why the pointer of don’t fear fear is of essence. Challenge and solution is like a natural cycle of life, one can’t avoid it, what is required is to be fully allowing of this natural movement instead of resisting it. In the post – Wholeness in physical life – I’ve mentioned how high and low are the natural cycles in the body/mind, and inner wholeness is about staying fully allowing of these cycles instead of trying to cling to the high all the time. The high cycle is the natural relaxation, whereas the low cycle is the natural tension, and both these cycles are needed for creation. The only problem is with the resistance that gets accumulated in our being, over the years, what I call the momentum of negativity, due to our unconscious opposition to this natural movement of creation.
The act of sex is an act of creation in that it is required for the creation of new life forms. You will notice the nature of sex is that there is “tension” and then the relaxation or release, the tension is what creates the attraction or pull towards the actual act of sex and then the release allows the creation to happen, this is how any movement of creation happens – one can’t have creation without the initial tension needed to accumulate energy. This tension is what allows for the pleasure of orgasm – in life situations, this tension is the desire and the orgasm is the manifestation/creation of this desire, so in that sense whole of life is just an act of sex. We enjoy the tension and release involved in a sexual act, but are resistant to the same movement happening in other parts of our reality – like when a problem/challenge arises and needs a solution, it just an act of creation, the problem creates the tension which accumulates the energy for the solution. If you allow the tension, it culminates into release and thus brings forth the solution.
A resistance free life
When you become open in your being to allow the tension and relaxation cycle of creation, you become resistance free towards life. A lot of misguided spirituality gets people to focus on some state of being blissed out permanently, and gets them seeking endlessly for this state which inherently is unnatural because it defies the principle of creation – it’s like saying that you want an infinite orgasm, which is just fantasy. Creation always requires energy movement through the cycle of tension and relaxation. True wholeness is not a constant blissed out state but a state of resistance-free being, which means there is no resistance towards allowing the natural movement of creation in you – the high and low cycles, or the tension and relaxation cycles.
When a problem/challenge arises, or when a question arises, in you, just allow the tension created by it to happen fully. Don’t resist this tension in any way. If you stay in this place of total allowing, the tension will ebb away into a natural relaxation, and this cycle when it happens a few times will bring forth the solution to your problem – the time required can varying depending on the number of cycles needed to generate enough energy for the solution to manifest. If you resist this “tension”, it just delays your solution or creates a disharmony in the flow of energy.
If you don’t have a lot of accumulated resistance in your body/mind, this cycle of creation, through natural tension and relaxation, doesn’t disturb your being in any way – it just keeps happening in a smooth manner. When one has a lot of accumulated resistance, there is a constant disturbance to these natural cycles, which not only creates health problems (because your cells need solution/healing all the time) but also creates stagnation in the external reality because of a lack of harmonious energy movement required for creation/manifestation. You can read the post – Releasing suppressed energy – for some insights on how to let go of the past accumulated resistance in our being.
Amazing insight, never realized it before but so evident and beautiful..Is it same contraction – tension, while having sudden situation of danger, when body and mind contracts for instant connection to solution – instinct or wisdom for acting fast, properly and automatically in order to survive, when this contraction is dramatic and so evident?
Joy, that’s right
Dear Sen ji,
I suffer from a nervous stomach, which is nothing more than stress causing me to feel nauseated and I belch/burp like crazy and feel uneasy. The doctors call it nervous stomach because physically when they check me, they do not find anything wrong with me. It is attributed to stress and tension.
I fear nervous stomach because it is painful and uneasy. After reading your article and reading our previous posts as well, I have started allowing the fear to come through. I am also fine with physical manifestation of nervous stomach. I am going to allow it to happen in my body if it comes upon me. I feel I have the correct approach. Please advise.
thanks,
Anu
Anu, this clench in the stomach starts easing up as you keep allowing the suppressed energies to be released, as you stay in this place of total allowing. You should be able to see the manifestation of better health in a few weeks time.
Sen I have a question for you.
You see I have recently opened my own business. It really is a dream come true and I feel 100 percent that this is my lives purpose.
For some reason lately all i think about is getting more clients and making sure that all the current clients are happy etc. etc.
I find myself checking my email for new clients almost every five minutes(with almost an ocd like obsession). I understand this is bad but its like i can’t get myself to detach from my business. (funny thing is that when i was detached from the business for whatever reason i seemd to get way more clients on a constant basis)
Any advice on how i can detach from checking and constantly thinking about my business?
Sen, you say that, “The problem is that we ‘unconsciously’ resist this tension, and our resistance creates our suffering, and it also creates stagnation because we are preventing the harmonious cycle of creation which requires the stage of tension and relaxation happening in a sync.” My questions is, How can we know we are resisting this or any tension, if it’s unconscious? In other words, if we are unconsciously resisting anything, wouldn’t that simply feel normal for us?
Jim, when I say you “unconsciously” resist this tension, I mean you do it reactively, because you didnot know that this tension was coming from the natural movement of life in you. With this understanding that you’ve gained now, your awareness of this natural tension will be keener and you will not resist it reactively, and would be open to allowing it.
Thanks Sen your words of wisdom always come just when I need to hear them.
Sen,
Amazing article….! hats off to your insights… Never observed so deeply to understand the fact that creation of anything there will be an initial tension followed by creation or accomplishment, ultimately every solution is in the process of ‘let go’ or ‘allowing’…
It seems like with the daily problems of life, it is the resistance to those problems and not the problems themselves that blocks manifesting what we want. Is this correct?
So if we continually release and allow whatever happens to us not to bother us, is being calm and relaxed the ideal state of mind to manifest what we want?
Thank you.
TD, a calm and relaxed mind is the natural state of being, and you sense this to be true when your mind loses its momentum of negativity. As you rightly construed, this is the ideal state of mind to manifest your natural expression (your heart’s desires being part of your natural expression).
Sen, if the tension created is from unconscious resistance to tension, whether it be from the creative cycle or from the stress of resistance, we are not aware (unconscious) we are resisting it at all. And this resistant has become habituated and feels normal is my point. And by making one aware of the tension that results from the creation cycle. Besides, even if one is aware of this creative tension, how is one to tell the difference between this natural tension and, for example, intuitive tension which is warning you against some unpleasant experience? Thanks.
Jim, the intuitive tension is a natural tension of creation, its the tension needs to generate energy towards creating an “insight” or understanding that helps you avoid an unproductive/harmful situation. The “me” force in you (or the ego force), that’s trying to figure things out, is the one that needs to let go and then what’s natural can happen naturally. Of course, this letting go feels like a loss of control to the ego, and hence it always tries to maintain center stage.
Dear Mr. Sen,
I have an off the beat question. Who are you, where do you live, what do you do ? I am no less than dazed by your understanding and how much you know. I have never heard and known any human being who has such breadth of knowledge and awarenesss. How long did it take you to get to this point.
I am not flattering you but I am very honest in my comments. My judgement tells me not to write these words because they may be taken as pure flattery and sound cheesy, but I have had this question for a while. I am still going to do this.
The operation of the universal intelligence marvels me. Help and guidance come to me who is in one corner of the globe from you who is somewhere else. Ever since i started reading your blog, nearly for a month or so now, I feel lighter and calmer. Metaphorically speaking, i feel that now i can sense the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. I wonder how am i to thank you! For now it is just by words THANK YOU expressing the sense of gratitude coming from the bottom of my heart. THANK YOU SEN.
Dear Sen,
Thank you for your great articles. I wonder how we can distinguish “tension of creation” from “effortless creation”. For me creative tension implies at least a bit unconfortability if not a struggle. I have recently finished a creative-academic project which was very important for me. Although, I received success and a title for the work I’ve done, I still don’t feel proud or satisfied. In fact, I feel tired and empty. Is this normal? This is always the case for me, I never feel satisfied after completing my creative projects, no matter how succesful it is, I always feel something is missing in my creations. It is the same for my manifestations, I somehow find it relatively easy to manifest my desires, but my dreams turn into nightmares as soon as they are materialized. Now, I feel stuck, it is like be careful what you wish for, now I don’t have any energy or courage left for manifesting new desires. Any advice?
asli, if you feeling of satisfaction or happiness is dependent on your “creations” (be it your creative work or manifestations) it will always leave you feeling disappointed mostly because all your creations are already coming from an inner sense lack, where you are looking for fulfillment through your creations. Creations are meant to be an expression of a wholeness that you already feel within yourself, they are not a venue to find wholeness. You need to bring awareness to this sense of inner lack, or a momentum of negativity (in the form of self-criticism, self-loathing, deluded sense of an expectations from the outside etc), and allow a release of these patterns by consciously letting go of your identification with them. When the momentum of this inner lack is no longer present you will sense a field of inner wholeness in you, which is not dependent on any success on the outside, and any manifestation that comes from this place of wholeness becomes an expression of this wholeness.
Sen what you are saying is that whenever for example i get afraid that i might not manifest my desire , this fear actually accumulates energy required for the manifestation of my desire? I mean the tension, fear, contraction and what not are all necessary in order to create a reality?
mary, everything has its place in a state of balance, it’s only when certain dimensions go out of balance that there is the energy of suffering (which is just intensity/momentum of emotional energy). A certain tension has a role to play in the act of creation, it’s just that in a state of imbalance there is a high momentum to this energy of tension created through over-identification or unconscious suppression. For now, you will have to allow this energy (of tension or fear) so that it can release its past momentum and come to a state of balance.
Dear Sen: How can I be sure that my wish is coming true, how can I mentally prepare myself. I don’t know if this is the right space to ask this question.
Katya,
It is fine to wish/want for things and experiences (no harm there), but to have a need in you that they must come true is when you will feel scared and anxious.
We can’t always know what will happen and what’s around the corner. As such it’s not possible to confirm that your wish is coming true. So in life we have to learn to deal with uncertainty. It is often that when we hear teachings of “create your own reality” we often want to find some easy way to use our mind and make “certain” that our joyful/lovable (etc.) reality will always come true.
Your external reality is always based upon your internal state and how in tune you are with yourself, your preferences, and state of balance or imbalance. Currently your statement of “how can I be sure that my wish is coming true” shows that you fear the possibility (and possibly the consequences) of your wish not coming true. This fear will then be the point of attraction for your reality and you just end up creating more fear based thinking about things coming true. Also, even if your wish does come true this time you will still face this fear again (and possibly more energy) on the next wish. This fear will go on until you open up into the uncertainty that maybe what you wishing for won’t come true. You can look within you and see that as long as your desired wishes “must” come true you will always fear them not coming true.
I mentioned your external reality is based on your internal state. Basically once you go through the state of allowing and are open to reality happening, you no longer fear scenarios. You still desire certain realities and experiences it’s just you no longer have the fear in you of them not occurring because you no longer are so bound to them happen. As such life is smoothly able to bring you what is truly aligned with you, without you having to try so hard and waste your mental energy (this is what Sen describes in this article as a resistance-free life in the last section of this article).