Going With The Flow

Going With The Flow - Wu Wei

The Taoist practise of wu wei is about "doing without doing" or living your life in alignment with the flow of life - quite literally "going with the flow".

This becomes possible when we accept that:

“Everything in life has its own flow, its own pace and speed.

If we can tune into and align ourselves with it, we can achieve without undue exertion and enjoy effortless ease in all that we do. We find that we instinctively know what to do and when to do it.

This intelligence is the Tao at work within and around us. Relax into this flow and allow the Tao to direct your life.” (The Unbroken Self)

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We are brought up to believe that we get what we want in life as a result of what we do, by the actions that we take. However ...

This belief causes us to create in reverse.

The underlying reason for this is we do not understand the power of our energy. As a result of this we so often end up "chasing our tails" to make up for the impacts of our unintentional negative energy.

In the Tao Te Ching, the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tsu said:

"In the practice of the Way, every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things
until finally you arrive at non-action...
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone."

In other words doing without doing.

The issue that we all face is that we are obsessed with doing, and that inevitably involves some form of struggle. Those of us from a western influenced background are culturally conditioned to an action orientation, and thus we automatically place a great value on activity. Unfortunately, what we don't understand is that we are creating in a “reverse” fashion.

Most of our actions are out of fear, worry or doubt...

... because we truly believe that nothing will happen unless we do something. Thus, rather than going with the flow, we end up attempting to force our intentions and desires into manifestation by our actions.

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Here Is The Secret To Going With The Flow

It is not your action that makes things happen, it is your energy state.

It took me countless years to understand this dynamic of going with the flow! Years and years of working so hard, striving so hard… always pushing, pushing… yet the harder I pushed the further away seemed to be the results that I sought.

Eventually I came to understand that I needed to reduce my actions and increase my focus on managing my energetic state until I could feel the positive energy beginning to move within me. In contrast to my repeated efforts over so many years, this was not an energy based on doubt, fear, anxiety, worry or need. I learned to apply the following truth:

If you focus on the energy - the feeling - of what you do want instead of what you don't want, you will know when it is time to take action, and what action to take.

And when you do, it will be effortless. Doors open and it will seem as if the entire universe is on your side.

I once described a personal experience of this as like having a big red carpet unrolling in front of me and all I had to do was keep moving fast enough to keep up with it!

What I have learned the hard way over many, many years, and without doubt or reservation, is that we need to use the leverage of energy - the same energy that creates everything in the universe – The Energy Of Life.

You may have noticed that some people seem to lead a “charmed life” or have “the Midas touch”. It can appear as though they have an advantage over everyone else.

At the other end of the spectrum there are so many people who strive so hard and yet achieve so little for all their effort. This may not seem fair but in all of my lived and observed experience of life that really does seem to be how The Energy Of Life works.

That doesn't seem fair does it? But all the evidence seems to suggest to me that's the way the universe works.

We are culturally conditioned and brought up to believe that there is “no gain without pain” and whilst there is a truth in that, it is not the whole picture. What matters is the energetic state applied to all that effort.

Actions are necessary, but they are the last component of the creation processes.

Actions alone cannot be used effectively to initiate results, because initiation is the function of your inner energetic state of being, then follows the thought, and then the action.

So the creation of anything we apply ourselves to is through our energetic state. We live in an energetic universe held together in The Energy Of Life and it is by the exercising and management of our energetic state, by going with the flow, that we harmonise and attract experiences to ourselves.

So before you act or do anything, check in with yourself, and ask: “what is my energy state?”

What is the simplest way to tell? You can tell by how you feel. Your feelings show you your vibration/energy state.

How you feel – your energetic state - determines what you attract.

When you do it this way you will find that The Energy Of Life will provide you with a different set of circumstances for you that requires much less action.

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“The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done.”

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