Now, I have friends and acquaintances that are into yoga, magic, karma, energy, and the likes. The philosophical ideas that surround these I find interesting, and I enjoy investigating it, but I don't believe in any of it. Why? Because I actually believe energy and karma to be bogus. It's all bogus to me. But there is an idea in there that I find universal and fascinating, and yet very difficult to explain. So let me put it this way: it's all in our heads.
Now, that's not meant to be negative, as in all the people who believe in life forces and energy are suffering from some kind of neurosis (though, sometimes I wonder). Rather it has a positive aspect that I will get to.
A few years ago there was I girl who I had a child-like crush on, and I distinctly remember her telling me that my energy was all wrong. I eventually realized that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my energy, whatever it is. What is actually wrong is in our heads. I don't like the term "energy," so I prefer to use the term "essence." You can call it whatever you want. Some call it the "true name," others "energy," and some "chi," and a few call it "that which has no name." But I like essence.
I like essence, because it goes well with "substance" (substance and energy just don't sound right to me). There is the thing itself (substance), be it a chalice, a chunk of sulfur, a pentagram, a pyramid, or a crucifix. The pentagram is just a shape; a five point stellation of an equilateral pentagon, which happens to be embedded with the Phi ratio in a multitude of ways. It doesn't actually mean anything. Some people think it's a symbol of the devil, some a symbol of God (it was an early Christian symbol), for others it holds magical protective powers, even a magical emblem of power, and for others it is simply an intriguing mathematical graphic embedding. All of that is relative. The only power the pentagram has, or whatever it means, can only come from us, our minds. It means whatever we want it to, through whatever personal or cultural filters we choose to view it through. And the same can be said of any object, ritual, incantation, or symbol we can imagine.
That is the difference: the substance is the thing itself, irrelevant of cultural or personal meaning; the essence is whatever framework we choose to filter that thing through to precipitate meaning or power. A yogic meditative stance has no more meaning or power than sitting in front of the computer, expect that which we put into it.
So where's the optimism of all of this? What's the positive? Well, if it's all in our heads, then that means all the power and meaning in the entire world resides in our own psyches. The power and meaning of the Pyramids of Giza is not external, but internal. The essence of the thing, the substance, is not external. The essence of everything is internal. We are that essence. We are that power and meaning. Tat tvam asi, "thou art that." And that's really the logic of it all. Crystal balls are cool (I have one), but I will not see an angel speaking to me in Greek. Peering into a crystal ball (or any crystal) is not an external viewing, but an introspective experience.
What was wrong with my essence, my energy, was really a problem with her essence. To me, my essence is just fine (like I said, it's all relative). Not to get into psycho-semantics here, but she was projecting her internal problems onto me, while I was projecting my internal idealizations onto her (and what platonic relationship doesn't do this?). Again, it's all in our heads. And if you can't tell, I'm projecting some internal problems into this blog post, though I'm finding it rather cathartic.
And so, I'm going to link this back to a current problem: America. We just don't know how to be introspective. We rescue ourselves from introspection, from understanding our nature and our history (i.e. nature and nurture), by suppressing it via medication, or externally through war, corruption, money, and the occasional psychiatric therapy. We simply don't know how to sit down in silence and ask ourselves that ancient, existentialistic question, "Who are you?"
If only we could all be like Trevor Reznik from The Machinist and finally be able to say, "I know who you are." It's like a snow globe, the outside is an illusion of what is inside (our universe? Our minds?). Reznik's external conflicts were an internal conflict of himself. And might I say, it was brilliant, that Narcissistic (mythologically speaking) moment when Reznik looks in the mirror and, as the prophet said, got to know himself.
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