The Strength of Non-Resistance

Ancient Eastern Philosophy has taught a lot about the concept of non-resistance. This view has been deeply rooted as a cultural way of life as can be most popularly seen in the martial arts for example.

Most internal martial arts such as Tai Chi, for instance, are built on this principle of non-resistance and ‘action without action’ (Wei Wu Wei) or effortless doing. The idea behind this principle of effortless action is that when you don’t resist or work against the energies around you but actually work or flow with them, you become aligned and in equilibrium in such a way as to obtain a ‘soft and invisible power’.

The adept martial artist knows how to use the power and momentum of his opponent to overcome him with out exerting any force or power.

Non-resistance is like the nature of water. The strength of water lies in its ability to flow around obstacles and in its suppleness. Its force is soft yet powerful.

On the other hand, resistance is friction, an act of opposing, blocking or impeding something. It generally implies working against natural forces as opposed to working with them. (more…)

How to keep a clear head in moments of crisis

Photo by Josefe aka Hipnosapo

We all have those moments when we feel everything is falling apart or when suddenly too many problems seem to come our way all at the same time. They end up overwhelming us and we find it hard to tackle them all at once. Our mind gets stressed, our body gets fatigued and our problem-solving skills and creativity fails us when we need it most.

The thing to understand is that crisis is not a situation. It’s a reaction to a situation, or rather an impaired reaction to a given situation.

In moments of crisis, emotions run high and this, together with increasing stress, makes it very difficult to have a clear head. This is of course counter-productive as having murky thoughts, if not outright panic attacks, will keep you further away from functioning properly and lucidly finding the much needed solution to the problems at hand.

The solution:

So what can you do when you are in those moments of crisis? How can you keep a clear head and stay focused on finding solutions?

I suggest the following: (more…)

Developing Awareness – Part 1

photo by h.koppdelaney

Awareness is fundamental to all human activity. It is the basis of all our mental states and processes, creativity, perception, knowledge and culture. Everything starts from awareness. It is the portal between consciousness and the world around us.

Recently I have become more and more intrigued by the idea. The more I learn about it, the more I realize how it pervades everything we do and that by learning to focus it, expand it or redirect it consciously, we can transform ourselves by gigantic positive leaps. It’s the key to greater inner peace, happiness and self-mastery.  In fact there is no possible way one can walk on the path of self-mastery without learning to direct his awareness. (more…)