The Higher Self in Qigong

Higher self?

What's the "higher self"?

Language can be a very tricky thing.

Maybe it would be easier to ask, What's the "lower self"?

But right away, this might bring in ideas of "good" and "bad," "right" and "wrong," "superior" and "inferior." Morality. Judgment. If something's lower, it's worse. If it's higher, it's better. Right?

Maybe the lower self is the body, or its desires. Maybe it's all the things you don't want to look at – your anger and your hatred, your fears and worries. Maybe it's something to be repressed, hidden, punished, pushed down... denied, ignored, fought, and hated. This ugly body, these horrible feelings, these filthy thoughts.

And your higher self? Just the opposite! Something above and apart from that filth, something pure. Beyond. Untouched and untouchable. Perfect. Do you ever think like that?

And these two selves seem so different, one so much better than the other, that maybe you condemn one and praise the other. A lot of us feel this way, think this way, and live this way. Sometimes, we don't even realize it. For many of us, this perspective goes back a long time.

But the Qigong perspective of higher and lower selves is much, much different.

Qigong is deeply rooted in Taoism. Taoism, at its root, is a study of natural laws, of universal principles. In that way, it's a science. What Taoist scientists understood is, not only does nature operate by laws, but no matter what part of nature you look at, big or small, the same principles and laws apply. Humans are part of nature. So, what's true in nature is true in humans, and what's true in humans is true in nature. That sounds very, very simple, but like we say in Spring Forest Qigong: "The simplest is usually the most powerful."

Higher self, lower self.

Think about a tree. A tree is the meeting of heaven and earth. It has roots in the ground and branches in the sky. It lives in two worlds at once. And what about the biggest, thickest, strongest, most magnificent trees? Their roots are massive, spread far and wide, and go deep, deep underground. Without such roots, the tree has no foundation of strength on which to grow upwards. With shallow, weak roots, it will never grow high, and anything can knock it over.

Look, then, at the roots of a magnificent tree, and see that they're knobby, twisted, hard, and drab. You might think they're ugly. They sit in mud and dirt. And what is the dirt that nourishes them, really? It's excrement, dead plants, rotting animals. These smelly, filthy, sometimes repulsive things transform to become the very elixir of the tree's life.

The tree grows and grows, and draws from the dirt that feeds it, until – what? Having grown thick, strong, stable, and wide, high in the sky it opens its arms and paints the heavens with thousands of flowers. And look at the flowers of this same tree with the knobby, filth-fed roots: shapely, tender, sweet, colorful. Birds drink their nectar, women wear their fragrance, and poets sing their praises.

Without roots, no flowers. And as different as they seem, though one is high and the other is low... they're really the same thing. Humans are like this, too.

Remember that Qigong is a fruit of the tree of Taoist science. Born of an understanding of natural laws, it gives humans a way and a chance to cultivate their earthly nature to create something heavenly. Just like a tree.

Is a tree good or bad? Is it moral or immoral? No! It's simply a creation of the world and of the universe, with a certain nature and a certain potential. So are humans. As humans, we live on the earth with a body. That means we have anger and sadness, conflict and struggle, pain and heartbreak. Sometimes we're rotten. Is this good or bad?

As humans, we're also houses of the holy; in each of us is a consciousness that's a reflection and a part of the universal consciousness that creates all things. That means this earthly body that feels anger and pain and experiences loss and struggle... can also express the healing, unconditional love that's the nature of that creative universal consciousness. It can even express what's called "the miraculous."

And the beauty of it all is that the miraculous and the sublime, that unconditional love and healing, and that higher and higher levels of understanding and enlightenment are possible, not despite our lower nature, but because of it.

Because we know sickness, we cherish health. Because we suffer, we learn compassion. Knowing worry, we savor peace. William Blake called this The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; he said, "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." The excrement of the excesses of our lower nature is the food for our higher nature's flowering.

At our Healing Center, so many of the people who find their healing tell us things like, "Now I can see my cancer was a blessing." Or, "My accident was the best thing that ever happened to me." Or, "I'm so grateful for my depression now." They begin to see life as more and more beautiful. They begin to feel more and more love. They start helping other people to heal. They begin to live more harmoniously, moment by moment, wherever they go. In short... they begin to become their higher selves.

But how do we begin to compost the waste of our lower selves? How could Qigong possibly help with that? Again, the beauty and the simplicity is that the high and the low in us are not two things.

At the simplest level, we begin to practice the healing movements. Our body is fundamental. The healing movements restore a healthy, balanced flow of energy to the body while making it stronger and stronger. We learn from the Five Element Healing Movements that very specific, everyday negative emotions are directly related to very specific organ systems. When these systems are imbalanced, those negative emotions show up; when we overindulge in those emotions, we damage their corresponding organs. But as the movements strengthen our body and balance its energies, as the negative emotions fade away, what's left? A quiet body! No cries of pain from the joints and organs. No stormy emotions to disturb our inner calm. Just doing this is enough! Because our higher nature's always there, waiting to shine forth like a hidden light. It's not that it's waiting to be lit; it's waiting to be uncovered. These simple movements begin to uncover your higher self.

At the same time, practicing these Qigong movements gives us more and more time to turn our attention inward. This is like composting the waste of your lower self. As you spend time breathing deeply and gently with your eyes closed, slowly moving your arms and legs, your inner eye becomes passive witness to the dark corners of your inner world and its many piles of waste. Everyone has them. Slowly you breathe, slowly you watch. This watching is the light that transmutes your waste into wisdom. In Qigong, we know everything is energy, and energy can be transformed. Adding unconditional love to that light, our excesses become food for understanding.

The more we practice this kind of gentle, steady, dispassionate inward attention during Qigong, the more it goes on when we're not doing Qigong. It also begins to flow outward. Inward, outward. During Qigong, not during Qigong. Every moment can be transformed into wisdom. Our higher self shines brighter and brighter.

Meditation takes this deeper, further.

Then, in Spring Forest Qigong, we're always focusing on love, kindness, and forgiveness. On healing and service. This is Qigong and energy transformation, too! As the body, mind, and emotions grow more serene, love, kindness, and forgiveness become like a field of energy around us. Then, no matter who or what comes our way, it only brings us more gratitude, more joy, more happiness, more wonder and delight.

Living like this, we grow higher and higher, more and more refined, until, suddenly... everything's a shower of blessings to us. We're a shower of blessings to others!

Do you think that's impossible? Haven't you seen trees before?