How to “Flow”

02 Oct How to “Flow”

You may have experienced something like this: Your going to meet your friends at a restaurant. You have been fussing about what clothes to wear, the critical voice in your head didn’t like any of them. You have never been to this restaurant before, will you like the food, can you afford it? Some people you haven’t met before will be there, will you like them, will they like you.

At the restaurant you think carefully before you speak, your conscious of how loud your voice is. Your attention is divided between thinking about things you should have got done today but haven’t and what you need to do tomorrow. What’s left is focused on the conversation your friends are having. Your not having a great time.

Then something happens. You relax and start to get more and more absorbed in the conversation. Your mind no longer wanders to the past and the future. All your attention is focused on the present. Your now only aware of the conversation your having, it’s as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Your now no longer worried about how loud your voice is, your not worried about what your saying, you are being completely natural and spontaneous. Thought and action have merged into one, the past, present and future how all merged into the “deep now”. The critical voice in your head is gone, you have lost all the feelings of being self-conscious you had earlier. Everyone one at the table has stopped talking. They are now only listening to you, hanging to every word you say. Every joke, every funny gesture you make has them falling about laughing until they are begging you to stop.

Then the waiter comes over and tells you all to leave. Your shocked and wonder why, then you realise it’s late and the restaurant needs to close. Hours passed in what felt like minutes, your whole sense of time has become distorted. You go home sleep like a baby, wake up before your alarm rings full of energy, then as the day continues you go back to your normal everyday experience of life.

We think of events such as the one above in which we feel our best and perform our best as flukes. Few people know that this psychological phenomena known as “flow” is being seriously studied and that many of it’s secrets are known to us. If you combine a knowledge of it’s conditions with your meditation practice you can experience more flow in your life. It’s been at the heart of Yoga for thousands of years.

The seventh limb of Yoga as conveyed to us by Patanjali, Dhyana is the Sanskrit word for micro-flow which describes events such as the one above. The eighth and final limb is Samadi which is the full macro flow experience in which we experience a literal oneness with the universe. It is life changing and at the heart of every mystical tradition. Buddhists call it Nirvana.

I have been reading everything I can get my hands on regarding this subject from both Eastern and Western mysticism as well as all the latest science on it as it is the best explanation I have found of why I meditate or indeed why I do most things in my life. I have spent my whole life chasing flow and have only realised and understood it in the last couple of years.

Once people discover “flow” it becomes central to their lives and endows them with meaning and purpose. Understanding Flow puts happiness in your hands, your happiness is no longer at the mercy of external events. Come to the Wednesday class and I will tell you everything I know about flow and how to have more of it in your life.