Being and Doing

(Introduction to the Series)

Everything about us personally can be encapsulated as the domains of being, doing, and functioning: who we are, this body we inhabit, and what connects the two. They determine the quality of our life: what we can do, think, and feel. We have this physical body with all its functions, its abilities to move, think, feel, digest, heal, and the rest. Some of those functions, like digestion, blood circulation, and healing, go automatically without any intention on our part. But the overall use of our functions does depend on our choices, where to go and what to do, what issues to think about, whether to open ourselves to emotional closeness to a person, and so on. That in us which makes all our choices is our will, our doing. What connects our will to our functions, what makes our arm move when we choose to move it, is our energies, our being.

The three domains of function, being, and will utterly depend on each other. Without being and will, our body and its functions would be aimless. Without our will and functions, our being is just a mass of unused, undirected energy. Without our being and functions, our will cannot do anything.

In all three domains, there are dramatically different levels that give a broad range of qualities of action and perception. Which of the levels we operate on depends in part on factors outside our control, like our genes, our childhood situation, and accidental events. But it also depends on our choices: on our education and training, our lifestyle, and our inner work. The importance of education and training are well known. Guidance on lifestyle choices for good health and effective living is abundantly available.

But the crucial impact of spiritual inner work on our being, on our energies, on our will, on our effectiveness is not as well understood. The role of inner energies and their various qualities cannot be fully appreciated without the sustained practice that enables us to perceive, receive, concentrate, generate, blend, and stabilize those energies. This in turn depends upon and affects our will. The finer the quality of energies, the greater the efficacy of our will, while the purity of our will determines which levels of energies we can access and directly affects the quality of our emotions. All of this is interconnected within us: work on one aspect inevitably involves and affects our other aspects.

As an example, take the apparently simple action of reading these words. On the side of doing, you, your will, is choosing to read these words. On the side of function, your physical eyes are moving to scan the words, report the images to your brain, which automatically translates the images to words, and makes the words accessible as thoughts you can "hear" inwardly along with their contextual meaning. Those functional steps in your brain of course depend on neurochemical energies well-known to science. But once you decide to read, what connects that intention to the eyes and brain that read the words and report their meaning back to you? There are energies other than neurochemical involved in this.

There is the sensitive energy that makes your thoughts vivid enough to reach your awareness. There is the conscious energy which serves as the screen on which the sensitive energy of thought is displayed. The conscious energy is high enough up the scale and refined enough to be responsive to your will, so that you, your I, can receive the meaning of the thoughts. The same chain works the other way around, when you choose to read, or do anything, the conscious energy mediates to direct the sensitive energy to direct the neurochemical energies to move your eyes and translate the resulting images.

The remarkable thing is that we can, through our intentional inner work, dramatically increase the amount of sensitive and conscious energies within us, raising the level of perception and functioning of the whole of our personal system. The ramifications go well beyond having a better functioning body, mind, and heart. It opens new possibilities, new perceptions of the deeper reality, and enables us to serve our world in unexpected ways.

Meditation, prayer, presence, and other inner work directly affect our energies. They also purify and develop our will. In this inner work series on Being and Doing, we will explore the realms of energies and will, and their interactions.

For this week, please notice how your sitting meditation practice affects you. What is different in you at the end of a sitting compared to just before you sat down?

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