Is the Unmanifested what in the East is called chi, a kind of universal
life energy?
No, it isn’t. The Unmanifested is the source of chi. Chi is the inner
energy field of your body. It is the bridge between the outer you and
the Source. It lies halfway between the manifested, the world of form,
and the Unmanifested. Chi can be likened to a river or an energy
stream. If you take the focus of your consciousness deeply into the
inner body, you are tracing the course of this river back to its Source.
Chi is movement; the Unmanifested is stillness. When you reach a
point of absolute stillness, which is nevertheless vibrant with life, you
have gone beyond the inner body and beyond chi to the Source itself:
the Unmanifested. Chi is the link between the Unmanifested and the
physical universe.
So if you take your attention deeply into the inner body, you may
reach this point, this singularity, where the world dissolves into the
Unmanifested and the Unmanifested takes on form as the energy
stream of chi, which then becomes the world. This is the point of birth
and death. When your consciousness is directed outward, mind and
world arise. When it is directed inward, it realizes its own Source and
returns home into the Unmanifested. Then, when your consciousness
comes back to the manifested world, you reassume the form identity
that you temporarily relinquished. You have a name, a past, a life
situation, a future. But in one essential respect, you are not the same
person you were before: You will have glimpsed a reality within
yourself that is not “of this world,” although it isn’t separate from it,
just as it isn’t separate from you.
Now let your spiritual practice be this: As you go about your life, don’t
give 100 percent of your attention to the external world and to your
mind. Keep some within. I have spoken about this already. Feel the
inner body even when engaged in everyday activities, especially when
engaged in relationships or when you are relating with nature. Feel
the stillness deep inside it. Keep the portal open. It is quite possible
to be conscious of the Unmanifested throughout your life. You feel it
as a deep sense of peace somewhere in the background, a stillness
that never leaves you, no matter what happens out here. You become
a bridge between the Unmanifested and the manifested, between God
and the world. This is the state of connectedness with the Source that
we call enlightenment.
Don’t get the impression that the Unmanifested is separate from the
manifested. How could it be? It is the life within every form, the inner
essence of all that exists. It pervades this world. Let me explain.