There is a general notion that \u2018relaxation\u2019 is easy.<\/p>\n
And so it is. But. Very big but.<\/p>\n
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Think of quitting smoking. This is easy. You just have to do\u2026 nothing. Even more (or should I say \u2018less\u2019): you have to not<\/em> do<\/em> something<\/em>. Yet there are hundreds of millions of people who have the biggest difficulties with it. Most of them even die from not doing the non-doing before they are able to not do it. Makes you think, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n Not smoking for 15 minutes is really easy. \u2018Relaxing\u2019 is also really easy. But more is needed in order to become truly a non-smoker. More is needed also for deep relaxation. In comes a gap. In comes the deeper self or \u2018the subconscious\u2019.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n Mind this gap: it\u2019s your mind!<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n Ah, the subconscious\u2026 I still think of Freud when hearing the term. But Freud\u2019s inheritance is very poisonous. Actually the \u2018subconscious\u2019 that he brought was not much more than a hidden consciousness. Probably the West wasn\u2019t ready for the full Monty. The East has been much more developed in this sense\u2026 We people of the Western world still have very much to learn! A huge problem is that the East is westernizing at full speed, while the West is easternizing at the speed of a snail. Will much living wisdom be lost in this?<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n Relax! I come back to the issue of this Sticky now. If you look at relaxation as only<\/em> the not-doing of something, then you miss this point: deep relaxation is also actively doing something. A mind that is truly relaxed, is a mind at work, but it\u2019s at work more as a whole. It\u2019s progressing as a whole instead of by intensely thinking thoughts one after another. The truly relaxed mind is more like a very big cloud than like a transporter truck. Both are at work, transporting \u2018goods\u2019. The transporter truck transports some containers full of goodies. The cloud transports an enormous amount of water, the water without which life on land is not possible. Without clouds, human beings aren\u2019t possible. Yet what does the cloud do? It just floats. It doesn\u2019t appear to work hard. It just goes its natural way. Its reward? Disappearance and oblivion.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n A mind in deep relaxation is a mind at work. It cannot be not at work. True: its work is not very tiresome, in the sense that it can go on like this indefinitely. There is no transport of containers full of concepts. There are clouds passing by, full of \u2018mind-water\u2019. This is enormously important. Without it, mind becomes as dry as a desert. One can get used to this desert (as many in the West are taught to from birth) but there will never be very much life in it. It will be a useful tool for building things, then destroying these same things. It will seldom be a useful tool for living.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n The problem is that in the end the desert hates rain, because it doesn\u2019t know it anymore. And it hates the clouds too. And if you wait long enough, it starts to hate life itself.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n That\u2019s why we need true relaxation, now more than ever.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n