By Kenneth Sorensen
When I woke up this morning I was more tired than usual. The fatigue was more emotional than physical. The feeling was not depressed, but compressed as if I were at the bottom of the sea and could feel the pressure of the water.
This compressed mood is not an unknown phenomenon to me. It gives me a restrained expression of feeling as if I’m moving around life like a deep-sea diver in full diving gear. My emotional excess is inhibited and makes me introverted. I can’t bear small talk and other superficial exchanges, but must reserve the energy for the absolutely necessary.
If this were the only psychological atmosphere I lived in, I would probably have dragged myself through life without the great creative surplus. But no matter how heavy I feel, I always have access to a positive and bright mood – a mind that wants to accomplish something. It is a feeling of will and I can easily see life as meaningful. It is a clear energy that pushes me to get through with everything I want to create.
In such situations there is a polarity between my emotional life and my thought life. The emotional life is often introverted and seeks to create more space and movement in the heavy atmosphere. The thought life, on the other hand, is extroverted, commanding and disciplinary and will not waste the day without accomplishing something.
In other words, they are two powerful forces pulling in different directions, and I have learned that they are not an expression of who I really am.
For almost 30 years I have had a daily meditation practice that lasts an hour or more. This has created a clear inner center where I can observe all the different forces that arise in my psychic life. Finding your center of pure consciousness , as Roberto Assagioli calls it, is one of the first and most important elements of meditation.
When we have become the watcher, the observer, or the loving witness to our psychological life, we have found that inner stable place that never goes away. This is the permanent anchor around which our psychological life arises. It is the eye of the hurricane or a hub of silence around which the wheel of life turns. Here we have a kind of freedom, a freedom to observe what is happening inside without being trapped by the illusion that «I» am «pressed». The difference between the self that experiences and that which is experienced is clear. I know that I am not my body, feelings or thoughts, but rather the inner consciousness that expresses itself through these psychological forces.
As an observer I can do something about my atmosphere, remaining passive and letting the forces of personality rule my life does not give me much freedom. I discover that I have a will, a will to choose. The will to choose is closely linked to the observer. When I take a mental step back, I can also choose which energies I want to identify with and express in my personality.
When we strengthen the loving observer, ie the ability to look at our psychological powers with an accepting and accommodating gaze, we can intervene in the inner play of the energies. We cannot work with what we do not accept. What we ignore or condemn often disappears into the unconscious basement. Acceptance is not the same as passivity, but it is the start of change.
Meditasjon is the inner consciousness laboratory where we can change the inner psychological forces. When I woke up this morning, I noticed that the oppressive atmosphere had returned. I have experienced it many times and know it well. You have explored it and learned what it needs.
It needs sun, vitality and light – and that is exactly what I intend to give it.
The mood is like a dark forest embraced by a heavy, clammy fog. Why I carry around this dark forest I have no idea, deep down – although I have my hypotheses. But the fact is that it is there and has actually done me good. It has forced me to be introverted at times, forced me to find my center, because otherwise it would have kept me stuck in its dark atmosphere. In other words, it has made me stronger and has freed the sword of discernment into an effective tool that can mentally see through the illusions of the foggy landscape.
Apollo, who pulls the sun across the sky
I currently have a strong meditative practice where I sit with my back to an imaginary gigantic sun that shines through me and into the foggy landscape. I connect with Apollo, the Greek sun god, who spontaneously appeared in my mind a few years ago and has been a strong archetypal source of solar power ever since. These archetypes are incredibly potent forces. We must remember that millions of people throughout history have had these gods as their center. They are therefore charged with a dynamic energy that can be tapped and channeled as needed.
That’s exactly what I do these mornings. I sit with the sun and Apollo at my back and am recharged and vitalized. The effect is clear. The fog gradually dissolves, sometimes almost miraculously, and the emotional heaviness disappears completely. But more often it gives me a boost, and the atmosphere becomes noticeably lighter and I get more energy for my creative projects. It gives me an Atlas-like strength to carry my burdens, not necessarily with a smile, but with a calmness that holds the course.
Miraculous is of course a poetic expression, because it is not a miracle that happens. This is a scientific process. Energy follows thought, that is to say «as a person chooses to think in his heart, so it will be».
