CHI, OR ENERGY OR LIFE FORCE
Chi kung
Question
Ever since 2 years ago when I was 13, I learned to control this mysterious flow of something I am not clear of. I discovered it without any instruction. I found out about it when I felt good.
It is hard to explain. I feel very inspired or encouraged. I don't know if these are the right words but I learned how to control this very easily, moving it up or down. It feels like a chill of something like energy moving up or down my body. I can choose if I want to move it down or up.
When I breathe in I can move this chill up my spine to my brain, or down from my brain to spine and legs. This feeling makes me feel slightly colder and when I activate this feeling, it stays and flows for about 10 seconds and then it subsides.
Sometimes when I am feeling relaxed, I can generate a large amount and I feel it for longer. However if I try to do it again continuously, I feel less and less each time. I am wondering what this can be.
-- James, Canada
Answer
This is chi, spelt as qi in Romanized Chinese. It is energy or life force.
What you have done is not wrong, but it is inadvisable to play around with it like you did, in case you do it wrongly it may cause you a lot of problems. It is, for example, risky to send you chi up your spine to your brain.
Nevertheless, you can enjoy its flow when you feel it. Just enjoy it and be grateful. Your energy flow is literally your flow of life. The more relaxed you are, the smoother and the more volume will be the flow. In other words, the more relaxed you are physically and mentally, the better your life will be.
When a person's energy flow is weak, he lacks vitality. When it is blocked, he becomes sick. This blockage may manifest in different symptoms, interpreted by Western medicine as various dieases, but from the chi kung perspective there is only one sickness and it is called yin-yang disharmony, and there is only one root cause, namely energy blockage.
Chi kung is the art of managing this energy, not haphazardly nor by trials and errors like what you did, but in a systematic, informed way according to the accumulated teachings of masters over many centuries.
If a person's energy flow is blocked, which results in illness, the blockage is cleared so that he recovers good health. If his energy flow is feeble, which results in weakness, it is strengthened, which brings him vitality. As he continues to practice, he attains longevity, mental clarity and spiritual joys.
I would recommend you to learn chi kung so as to enrich your life. In the past I used to tell sincere seekers to learn from a good master. Good masters are rare, and most people cannot tell what genuine chi kung is, and therefore end up learning gentle physical exercise. To save you and other sincere seekers time, now I would ask you to learn from any of our certified Shaolin Wahnam instructors. Please see our List of Instructors.
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