The Flow of Life

A reflection on flow as the nature of life, exploring how conscious living and awareness help us accept change, release resistance, and move more naturally with the current of life.

BY ELIZABETH DENLEY

In modern psychology, “flow” is a focused mental state in which action merges with awareness, marked by a lack of distractions and a loss of self-consciousness. While that is a lovely state, there is a deeper metaphysical understanding of “flow” that appeals to me, and it is our very nature.

The most constant thing in life is change. Energy and matter are continuously transmuted, including our own cells and ideas, which are constantly being replaced. In yogic literature, the human energy field, or pranamaya kosha, has five complementary “winds” that flow according to daily, monthly, and longer-term cycles. They move inward, upward, downward, outward, and they circulate and assimilate, driving all the energetic processes of human life. The chakras themselves form a network of interconnected, moving knots of energy, and beyond all of them is the soul, the atman, which is also defined by movement. In his book, Truth Eternal, Ram Chandra of Fatehgarh [Lalaji] describes this beautifully:

“The Sanskrit word ‘atman’ is formed of ath and ma(na)n. Ath means movement, and ma(na)n means thinking. That in which there is movement and thinking is atman. The soul itself is the causal body which is in seed form and which is a compound substance. The same thing expresses itself at the physical and mental or subtle body levels. When it wakes and enters the conscious level, movement sets in in the sense organs and organs of perception, by the movement of its flow; when it comes to the mental level (dream state) it remains thoughtful; and when it withdraws its flow (current) to the state of deep sleep, it remains absorbed in its original form and enjoys bliss…

“Action or karma is the nature, or dharma, of the physical body. Just as the formation of the body is natural, its movement also is natural, and so also the law of reward and punishment is natural. Every embodied being is called jiva, the characteristic of which is movement.

In this movement work the principles of development or growth and contemplation.

“Jiva is soul because that in which there is movement (ath) and thinking (man) is soul. This soul is Brahman. Brahman is developing and thinking creation. In Sanskrit, ‘Brahman’ is derived from bruha, to grow or to expand, and man, to think. That which moves and thinks is atman, and that which grows and thinks is Brahman.”¹

In other words, life is movement and flow, and Ram Chandra of Shahjahanpur [Babuji] says the same thing another way when he says, “The secret of life is to keep moving.” It is our nature, at the level of the soul, the heart, the mind, and the body.

Awareness is everything when it comes to being in
the flow, as Daaji has been saying so often of late. He
describes a dharmic life as one based on awareness—
the ability to witness circumstances and respond with purity,
simplicity, and clarity in the present moment.

Yet, knowing this, we still sometimes resist change and hold on to things, be they material possessions, people, places, emotions, experiences, or beliefs, including about ourselves. When we hold on to anything with the intention of maintaining the status quo, we start to accumulate heaviness and stuckness in our energy system, just as water stagnates and starts to stink when a river is dammed. The resulting knots attract more of the same, eventually hardening into tendencies, habits, and character traits. In contrast, when we let go, clear the slate, and keep moving, we live in a state of flow.

Why do we resist? Is it because we fear letting go of the structure of our lives, even when that structure no longer serves us? That very resistance becomes the cause of our suffering. We respond to change with defensiveness instead of wonder and interest, and it becomes hard work, like swimming upstream in a river instead of floating with the current toward the ocean.

Where does that fear come from? Perhaps it is fear of the unknown. In a river, we have the left and right banks for reference and security—our dualities of right and wrong, good and bad, etc. Traveling downstream or upstream is simply a choice of direction. But as the river widens and eventually reaches the ocean, the distinction of dualities blurs. The banks become further apart, and eventually they are nonexistent, and so our navigation of life has to respond to a different dimension, beyond dualities. The rulebook about right and wrong, good and bad, no longer serves us.

Perhaps it is the fear of the disapproval we may face from family, friends, and society. It is difficult to follow our hearts when we are driven by social norms. It is not that rules have no purpose, as they are surely needed in social contexts, but they must evolve in order to stay relevant. And along with those rules, we need something more dynamic, immediate, and alive; we need awareness.

Awareness is everything when it comes to being in the flow, as Daaji has been saying so often of late. He describes a dharmic life as one based on awareness—the ability to witness circumstances and respond with purity, simplicity, and clarity in the present moment. That is one aspect of being in a state of flow.

In his articles on Yogic Psychology, Daaji also refers to the great sage Patanjali’s description of avidya, or lack of awareness, in the Yoga Sutra. Patanjali lists lack of awareness as the first klesha, the core mental affliction that is the mother of all other mental complaints and imbalances, the cause of all our misery. Daaji reminds us that we can dispel avidya by purifying and expanding the canvas of consciousness upon which awareness and perception can then work as a witness. We do this through the inner practices of Heartfulness.

The tragedy at the heart of our resistance to change is that we mistake stasis for equilibrium and complacency for contentment. Life is not static and never will be, because it is movement and evolution. We may know it, but we still seem to need help to really live it.

The spiritual path is often portrayed as requiring effort and discipline to turn inward, away from the outward flow of entropy. But what if we look at it the other way around? Flowing toward the center of our being is like floating in a river toward the ocean; it requires letting go and simply accepting the events of the voyage. Swimming upstream requires effort, and that effort is the suffering and fear we experience when we resist change and hold on to outdated structures, rules, and forms. Is it difficult for a raindrop to merge into a mighty river, which then merges into the sea? No, the raindrop does not struggle as it falls into the water; it would require much more effort for it to remain separate rather than merge into the river and the sea. I think we are the same. We want to “flow” in the current of life, as that is our natural state. We make it more difficult than it needs to be because we believe it is difficult, and we suffer as a result. All that can change with a simple shift of consciousness.

Now, what happens once that raindrop disappears into the ocean? Does it stop moving? The water continues to flow in the currents, and some even evaporates and forms new raindrops, which bring life to trees and quench our thirst. Everything is in flow in this magnificent universe, and once we celebrate that process, it is so much easier to accept everything life brings our way. That is flow.
 

¹ Ram Chandra of Fatehgarh (Lalaji), Truth Eternal, 3rd ed. (Shri Ram Chandra Mission, 2018), 22–23.