George Gurdjieff (1866-1949) was a Russian mystic, philosopher, and yogi that spent many years studying and teaching what has become known as The Fourth Way. Gurdjieff was obsessed with finding a way to become permanently connected to a higher power or "force" as he often called it. He said, "A new feeling must appear, the feeling of being. This is a new energy, a conscious force that needs to be present if I am not to be retaken by my automatism."
Gurdjieff found himself wavering between being "asleep," as he called it, and "awakened," living momentarily with the higher power. This wavering put him on a path to find a way to stay awake and not fall back into the sleeping state of consciousness. His cohort and long-time follower, Jeanne de Salzmann, wrote a book that consisted of her notes while traveling with him over many years throughout Russia and Turkey. In her book The Reality of Being, Gurdjieff is quoted as saying, "It is only in and through the body that energy can act. In order to feel these vibrations, I must come to a real stillness of the body, a state without any tension where the thought is simply a witness."
Once the mind is still, the body will follow. In both qigong and yoga, energy can be felt when both body and mind are quiet. It begins as a tingling in the fingers and progresses into the arms. If you are really still, very calm and totally aware you might feel the flow of something throughout the whole body. That something might be, could be, energy. In qigong it is called "qi" (che) and in yoga it is called "prana."
Qi and prana are said to be the ever present and infinite energy of the universe; of which everything, everywhere is composed. But yet, these qigong and yoga practices, like modern-day science, don't say exactly what that energy is. Science refers to it as some kind of subatomic particle and esoteric mystics and philosophers call it a "force."
Next, we will take a deeper look into this mysterious force called "energy." Hope to see you on the next post.
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