IN THE FLOW
In the sixties and early seventies, many of us who were doing acid soon discovered what we called the flow. We learned that the way to be high when we were tripping was to be in the flow, to follow the flow of energy. We saw that the flow was the way things naturally went. We also saw that by staying in the flow, everything became simple and easy. It was an easy step from this realization to seeing that the way to stay high all the time, even in our daily lives, was to always be in the flow.
We quickly learned that if we wanted to always be in the flow, and not just on weekends, we couldn't have any artificial structure to our lives. That's why so many of us quit working on "Maggie's Farm," why so many of us quit being nine-to-fivers. If we wanted to stay in the flow, we could only have natural structure in our lives.
For example: In my own life these days there is only natural structure. When I hear one or the other of the boys hollering for mommy or daddy in the morning, I get out of bed and open all the windows to let in the day. I hook up the phone. I get the newspaper that's usually just outside our door. I help Jake out of his crib. I may ask Callahan if he has to pee. I may change Jake's diaper. I get everyone fresh water. Sometimes I help feed the "I'm hungry" boys. Aspen does better at feeding them though, so I usually try to work around her, cleaning up the house, taking out the trash, and getting ready to go out with the boys on one of our family adventures.
The rest of the day is the same, following the natural flow of the boys getting hungry again, getting tired again and ready for their afternoon naps. This, of course, is usually the only time I have time to write and to edit my magazine.
We also have a large garden plot in the community gardens here in Boulder. I keep it free of weeds and haul wood chips, straw bales, and our two boys around in the wheelbarrow, while Aspen plants and tends our tomatoes and peppers and squash and peas and carrots and greens and flowers and herbs. This is our day, seven days a week. On Mondays, when folks ask me how my weekend went, I tell them this - that every day is the same natural and flowing day of my life.
I have always known that if I lived my own creative and simple life, one that would let me be always in the flow; then the flow or, as I have learned to call it, the Tao, would provide for everything that I needed to continue on in the flow. So far, this has been true, and I see no reason to doubt the future. The Tao is always here.
The Tao has generally been translated as the Way. For example, William Martin in his book, The Parent's Tao Te Ching, says, "In this volume I have generally used the word, "Tao," to refer to the central concept underlying Lao Tzu's work. It may also be translated as, "The Way." Or, "The Way of Life." I sometimes find it helpful to think of it as, "The Way Things Naturally Work." (p. xiv.)
Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese sage, writing in his book, the Tao Te Ching, speaks of the Tao thus:
As for the Way, the Way that can be spoken is not the
constant way;
As for names, the name that can be named is not the constant
name.
The nameless is the beginning of the ten thousand things;
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Therefore, those constantly without desires, by this means
will perceive its subtlety.
Those constantly with desires, by this means will see only
that which they yearn for and seek.
Those two together merge;
They have different names yet they're called the same;
That which is even more profound than the profound -
The gateway of all subtleties.
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1, in Robert G. Henricks' Lao-Tzu Te Tao Ching, p. 53.)
Those of us who found the Tao through doing acid understood well that it is best understood as the dance of energy. It soon became obvious. That's why we called it the flow. We saw that when we flowed with the energy, especially the higher energy, our lives would become not only simple and easy but magical too.
When I began reading the Taoist texts, I saw that they too viewed the Tao as the dance of energy. Robert Henricks, in his book, Lao Tzu - Te Tao Ching, says that they not only saw the Tao as having given birth to all things, but as continuing "in some way to be present in each individual thing as an energy or power, a power that is not static but constantly on the move, inwardly pushing each thing to develop and grow in a certain way, in a way that is in accord with its true nature." (p. xix.)
Later, when I read Capra's The Tao of Physics, I came to see that modern, edge-city, quantum-relativistic physics has come to this same conclusion from its own unique viewpoint. As Capra says, these physicists picture everything "not as passive and inert, but as being in a continuous dancing and vibrating motion whose rhythmic patterns are determined by the molecular, atomic and nuclear structures." Later he adds that "modern physics has thus revealed that every sub-atomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction. (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p. 194 and 244.)
Tim Leary says it best. He says that the "Tao Te Ching deals with energy." He goes on to say that the "Tao is best translated as 'energy,' as energy process. Energy in its pure unstructured state (the E of Einstein's equation) and energy in its countless, temporary states of structure (the M of Einstein's equation.)"
He describes the Tao itself as "an ode to nuclear physics, to life, to the genetic code, to that form of transient energy structure we call 'man,' to those most static, lifeless forms of energy we call man's artifacts and symbols." He concludes by saying that "the message of the Tao Te Ching is that all is energy, all energy flows, all things are continually transforming." (Timothy Leary, Psychedelic Prayers, In his Foreword, p. 3.)
The Taoists also speak of the Tao Imprint, of the person who follows the Tao. Here is Tim's translation of part of the relevant chapter in Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, the one that Tim calls "How to Recognize the Tao Imprint."
He who returns in the flow of TAO
Brings back a mysterious penetration
So subtle
That it is misunderstood.
Here is his appearance
Hesitant like one who wades in a stream at winter
Wary as a man in ambush
Considerate as a welcome guest
Fluid like a mountain stream
Natural as uncarved wood
Floating high like a gull
Unfathomable like muddy water
How can we become still?
By moving with the stream
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 15, in Timothy Leary, Psychedelic Prayers, VI-9.)
Ursula Le Guin gives us a more complete translation of the same chapter. She calls it "Taoing." When you compare these two translations, both by wise and gifted writers, you can see just how impossible it is to translate exactly what Lao Tzu was saying, let alone what he really meant. However, the Tao Te Ching, next to the Bible, is the most published book in the world. So, whatever Lao Tzu might actually be saying, he has gotten through to a great many of us throughout the many centuries since he left. Here is Le Guin's version:
Once upon a time
people who knew the Way
were subtle, spiritual, mysterious, penetrating,
unfathomable.
Since they were inexplicable
I can only say what they seemed like:
Cautious, oh yes, as if wading through a winter river.
Alert, as if afraid of the neighbors.
Polite and quiet, like houseguests.
Elusive, like melting ice.
Blank, like uncut wood.
Empty, like valleys.
Mysterious, oh yes, they were like troubled water.
Who can by stillness, little by little
make what is troubled grow clear?
Who can by movement, little by little
make what is still grow quick?
To follow the Way
is not to need fulfillment.
Unfulfilled, one may live on
needing no renewal.
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 15, in Ursula K. Le Guin, Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, p. 20-21.)
The Taoist also understood that the person who is following the Tao must be both masculine and feminine. "There can be no true Holiness without a prior revitalization of the femininity." (Max Kalrenmark, Lao Tzu and Taoism, p.60.)
They also saw that holiness and longevity were closely related. "It is certain that the author of the Tao Te Ching considered holiness inseparable from a powerful vitality." (Kalrenmark, p. 61.) They also saw that "holiness is an illumination from within." (Kalrenmark, p. 64.) This strongly suggests that physical vitality and longevity come from within, from the inner wholeness and holiness of being and peace that one finds by following the Tao.
There is also a more mysterious side to those who focus upon the Tao. The I Ching says that "Contemplation of the divine meaning underlying the workings of the universe gives to the man who is called upon to influence others the means of producing like effects. This requires that power of inner concentration which religious contemplation develops in great men strong in faith. It enables them to apprehend the mysterious and divine laws of life, and by means of profoundest inner concentration they give expression to these laws in their own persons. Thus a hidden spiritual power emanates from them, influencing and dominating others without their being aware of how it happens." (Hexagram 20, Contemplation, the Judgment.)
This hidden spiritual power is not magic, not as Westerners would see it anyway. It is not a Gandalf casting a spell and making something happen. It is not a Harry Potter waving his wand and zapping somebody. It is not intentional. It is rather accomplished by being empty, by being a conduit for the Tao into the world. As the I Ching again says, the Taoist sage affects the world by continuing "the work of nature in the human world. Through the clarity of his nature he causes the light to spread farther and farther and to penetrate the nature of man ever more deeply." (Hexagram 30, The Clinging, Fire, the Image.)
Burton Watson, writing about Chuang Tzu, another very wise Taoist sage who lived and wrote several centuries after Lao Tzu, says that Chuang Tzu gives us another and perhaps one of the very best reasons for following the Tao: "The man who has freed himself from conventional standards of judgment can no longer be make to suffer, for he refuses to recognize poverty as any less desirable than affluence, to recognize death as any less desirable than life. He does not in any literal sense withdraw and hide from the world - to do so would show that he still passed judgment upon the world. He remains within society but refrains from acting out of the motives that lead ordinary men to struggle for wealth, fame, success, or safety. He maintains a state that Chuang Tzu refers to as wu-wei, or inaction, meaning by this term not a forced quietude, but a course of action that is not founded upon any purposeful motives of gain or striving. In such a state, all human actions become as spontaneous and mindless as those of the natural world. Man becomes one with Nature, or Heaven, as Chuang Tzu calls it, and merges himself with Tao, or the Way, the underlying unity that embraces man, Nature, and all that is in the universe." (Chuang Tzu, Basic Writings, Translated by Burton Watson, p. 6.)
Back in the sixties and early seventies, those of us using acid wisely found that our consciousnesses and our lives soon changed greatly. We watched as we began growing in many and sometimes unexpected ways from the very moment we began following the flow. For starters we stopped working on Maggie's Farm. We left the system behind - Babylon, as some of us called it. We began to take responsibility for our own lives. We felt we no longer needed government. We could govern ourselves quite well, thanks
Besides leaving the system and becoming responsible for ourselves, those of us who began following the flow in those days found our lives and our relationships becoming more and more real and much more conscious. In particular, we saw that we no longer needed those everyday masks that had been required by mainstream society, those masks that Carl Jung called the Persona. By dropping those no longer necessary aspects of our consciousness, we were able to find a new center of consciousness and being, one that was closer to wholeness of being and all that is wonderful and mysterious in life.
Also, by living closer to our centers, we became more healing for others. Many folks found their way to us, to the energy we were manifesting by following the flow. I remember Jim, a very spacey young man who was living with me and some other folks in Berkeley. He told me one of his dreams once, one in which he was following me in our backyard out of the darkness and into the light. Jim soon became a very sane and creative being just by hanging out with us. No therapy sessions, no charges for my time. Not in that world. I was having too much fun hanging out with him and the rest of our gang.
I also remember the picking boss in the orchards in Washington State. She kept talking to me about her son who had almost been killed and who had become permanently disabled when a bomb went off under his jeep in Nam. Listening to her, I wasn't getting any work done, picking apples. But then I saw that she was my work. She was hurting. She needed to talk. I could always pick apples.
Like many others following the flow, I soon found my connection with all life. Rocks have talked with me. There is a man-sized rock in the High Sierras, one who is a very old and wise being. Several times, he has helped me to trust myself, to trust the flow really. Once, when I was lost, another, smaller one told me to pick him up and then he helped me down a steep cliff one evening just as it was becoming dark. Once, an ancient and wise Juniper tree asked me why I didn't stop my inner mind chatter. "Didn't I know how much there was to hear on the wind?" Animals have befriended me, have always helped me along my way - especially Coyote.
In those days, we all became more centered in our sexual identities too. If we were men, we found our femininity. If we were women, we found our masculinity. We learned this from the Tao. We saw that we couldn't stay in the Tao if we weren't centered and whole in our being.
Centered and whole, we became spiritual beings. How could we not, when we were following the Tao and its mysterious and magical ways? Along the Way, we also learned that magic does exist - after all, there was magic all around us - but then we quickly realized that we were not the magicians, certainly not the source of the magic. The Tao was that.
Today, western civilization is falling apart. No one seems to know what to do. But what would happen if we all let go of our ego trips and began following the flow today? What if there were soon more than a few of us following the Tao?
Well, for one thing, Maggie's Farm would soon fall apart without our support. The unhealthy and unholy system called Western Civilization, the one that is based upon greed and hatred for anyone different than ourselves would soon collapse. We would be free then to follow the life that the Tao intends for each and every one of us.
Today, there is way too much emphasis upon the Yang side of things, upon the masculine, power-tripping, control trip that has carried Western Civilization to the edge of extinction, to its present impending downfall. In the world of today, there is too little emphasis upon caring and sharing, upon being real and conscious beings centered in both our masculinity and femininity. We need to change this. Perhaps then enough of us might even come to see that the world is not ours to dominate, as we long have, but to heal and to share and to celebrate our oneness with all life.
Today, there is way too little emphasis upon Spirit. There is lip service given, true, but most folks never really experience Spirit. If they did, they would probably think themselves to be crazy or possessed by devils or demons and hurry to seek help. Not many folks would listen.
Today, the world that we have created for ourselves these past several hundred years is falling apart. All of our old certainties are being shown to be limited or false. We are adrift in a sea of confusion. If only we would all trust ourselves to the flow. There will always be a Way Home if we will but follow.
Eugene Marks