Awareness and Energy
by John Lawson © 1987, 2010
In the life of each individual, awareness is a fact which defies
analysis. It is possible to subdivide the physical world, to
analyze matter under a microscope, and to subject living tissue to
chemical reagents. It is possible, similarly, to investigate
mental processes and make inferences concerning the structure of the
human psyche. Awareness
itself, however, like life and consciousness, is a mystery. If,
for a moment, we turn our attention to our subjective awareness, we
immediately become conscious of processes and events within the field
of our
experience. These processes and events involve sensation and
feeling. We know through our direct contact with ourselves that
we are sensing, feeling creatures. The feelings that make up who
we are assert themselves as a
tension, as a pressure toward movement. If we express the
particular feeling that we are experiencing, the tension will be
discharged. We know this to be true, because we are
familiar with our own experience, with our feelings and our patterns of
behavior. All of us have feelings with which we are more or less
in touch. One of the challenges of personal growth is to bring an
awareness of our experience into clearer focus. In this regard,
we must understand
that growth of awareness on a personal level involves energetic
processes within the body.
It may be argued that important aspects of existence, such as thinking,
are relatively independent of the
physical realm and that the body is insufficient as a basis for getting
to know one's own experience. I believe that in some instances
this criticism is due to a lack of awareness of the deep bodily
processes that are at the root of our common condition as human
beings. The feelings of the heart, the rush of excitement in
love, the contentedness that accompanies the successful conclusion of a
hard day's meaningful work - all of these are sensations experienced at
a bodily level. If one enters deeply into one's bodily
sensations, one finds that the body is alive with feeling. Sexual
urges emanate from the area of the diaphragm, the abdomen, and the
genitals. Thoughtfulness is associated with the brain, and one
can literally feel one's skull as a "thinking cap" during intense
deliberation. When one feels one's feet on the ground, it is
possible to feel the roots of one's security. Feeling and
sensation on a bodily level are a deep field of experience toward which
one can focus one's attention. Such bodily sensations are a part
of one's awareness.
From the present vantage point, awareness, movement, and energy are
interrelated. We might say, following Reich, that awareness,
movement, and energy are "functionally identical." This means
that there is a quantitative factor in experience. One method,
therefore, of promoting deeper individual awareness is to increase the
energy level of the person. With regard to character structure,
this entails deepening and expanding the breathing process and reducing
patterns of chronic muscular tension that act as a kind of
straightjacket limiting the vitality of the person. If such a
process is to be effective, insight into the meaning of the
patterns of restricted functioning must be gained. A genuine
process of learning, involving growth and change, requires that one
gain awareness of one's basic manner of functioning so that one can
attain a reasonable degree of choice regarding one's behavior.
Expanding and deepening the breathing process has the effect
of raising the energy level of the person. This rise in energy
level creates a state of increased biological tension, which results
from the pressure of increased vital energy pushing against
established, limited patterns of experience and behavior.
Resolving such tension requires insight into the meaning of the
pressure that is felt and includes clarifying and working through inner
conflicts on an emotional level in order to mobilize the capacity for
authentic self-expression. On a practical level, it becomes
necessary to organize one's life in a more meaningful way. This
involves creating conditions that will permit the establishment of a
higher level of personal energy on a sustained basis. Awareness
is a key factor in this process, and each expansion in the level of
energetic functioning opens the way for a broadening and
deepening of awareness. In this sense, the process of growth and
change is dialectical. The various aspects of growth and change
form a basic unity. The stuff and substance of this
unity is identical with the energetic, pulsatory movement of life.
At the root of human awareness is the phenomenon of sensation.
Erwin Schrödinger has commented on the
irreducible nature of sensual qualities. "The world," he writes,
"is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is
convenient to regard it as existing objectively on its own. But
it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence."
[1] Schrödinger considers the possibility
that the
world is manifested by the human brain, but then he remarks upon the
seeming paradox that the human brain is part of the world which it
manifests. He then asks: "... what particular properties
distinguish these brain processes and enable them to produce the
manifestation? Can we guess which material processes have the
power, which not? Or simpler: what kind of material is directly
associated with consciousness?" [2] The dilemma that results
from trying to explain consciousness as a product of the brain, when
the
brain is known only through consciousness, is an aspect of what Schrödinger calls the "principle of
objectification." (We may add that it is an
equally tortuous undertaking to attempt to explain the brain as a
product of consciousness, since the brain is an objective material
entity, while consciousness is subjective.)
If we attempt to reduce mind to matter or matter to mind, we are truly
faced with a dilemma. Clearly, human beings can be described in
terms of mind and matter, and both mind and matter are part of
being human. The philosophical antagonism between materialism and
idealism is, to a significant degree, the result of abstracting two
different aspects of human life from the unity which they naturally
comprise. While such an abstraction is useful for certain
purposes, it cannot provide a satisfactory basis for daily
living. It may, in fact, be argued that the generalization of the
dichotomy between mind and matter on a theoretical level is reflective
of a split between body and mind in the customary experience of many
people. If this is the case, then the resolution of such an
impasse is to be sought at the level of integrating mind and body into
a concrete awareness anchored in bioenergetic processes. The
fundamental reality of pulsatory expansion and contraction of the
organism, which embodies the feeling of being alive, becomes the focus
of attention. This means that, at a deep level, the pulsatory
process of living is equated with functional energetic
processes. Since all movement is associated with energy, this is
a permissible equation.
In a fundamental sense, the phenomenon of life - like the miracle of
creation - remains a mystery. To view life in this manner does
not imply a mystical attitude. The solution of the
theoretical and practical problems of life is to be found in the
process of living. If the capacity to live has been thwarted, a
person may seek mystical answers to life's problems or
mechanistic solutions to life's challenges. Both approaches
are legitimate within their own province, but I suggest that an
alternative perspective has its place. In terms of such a
perspective, the active solution of the theoretical and practical
difficulties of life requires the deepening of our awareness and the
strengthening of our capacity to live. In D.H.
Lawrence's words: "Real knowledge comes out of the whole corpus of the
consciousness... while you live
your life, you are in some way an organic whole with all life."
[3] To separate living experience into mind and body is to split
the integrity of the person. The challenge of personal growth is
one of anchoring individual awareness at the deep level
of living functioning. In this regard, focusing on the energetic
functioning
of the person serves as a basic point of orientation and a concrete
foundation for fostering personal growth and development.
[1] Schrödinger, E. Mind and Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1959), p. 1.
[2] Schrödinger, p.1.
[3] Lawrence, D.H. Lady
Chatterley's
Lover (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 37.
Back to
Top
