Das Energi: You Can Eat the Cake and Have It Also

There is a tiny book called Das Energi, by Paul Williams. At one time the book used to be an underground bestseller and I used to love reading the book – it is a book meant for repeated reading and reflection. One of the readers had this to say about the book: “Everything I had read earlier was telling me ‘how’; Das Energi was saying ‘why!’

Here are a few interesting quotations from the book.

“Participating in the energy flow is the only satisfaction there is in life.”

“Hard work is relaxing. It is easy as falling off a log. It is a pleasure to make full use of one’s body. It is a pleasure to make full use of one’s mind… It is a pleasure to be part of the energy flow. A body or mind that is seldom in full motion is a body or mind that can seldom fully rest.”

“The only way to enjoy the show, to enjoy life, is as a participant. Perhaps it’s the people who think they’re spectators who spread the idea that all pleasure must be paid for. Don’t pay for anything – life is free.”

“The first law of the economics of energy is: you get what you need.”

“We each have access to all the energy there is, all we can conceive of. Which is infinite energy, in the sense that a circle is infinite. Energy circulates like blood; at every moment blood is flowing through every cell in the body. Each cell gets what it needs. It makes demands, what it needs to. Those demands are never ignored.”

Recently when I read something by Osho in My Way: The Way of White Clouds, Das Energi came to my mind. I am giving below part of what I read in My Way. The book is a collection of questions put to Osho by a group of his disciples from abroad and his spontaneous answers to them. The questions were: How can we build up energy? How can we retain it? In what ways do we lose it? Can we gain if from outside sources?
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The first thing: you are part of an infinite energy, a wave in an infinite ocean. If you can remember this you never lose energy, because an infinite source is always available. You are just a wave, and deep down the ocean is hidden.

Continuously remember it and feel it. Moving, walking, eating, sleeping – feel you are infinite. This is what the Upanishads say; always feel you are the Brahman, the Eternal. If you can feel this more and more, you will become aware that you are not losing any energy. The source becomes available. You become a vehicle.

Then do whatsoever you want to do.

By doing, nobody loses energy. This is one of the fallacies of the human mind that if you do something, you lose energy. No. If you have this idea that doing something I am losing energy, you lose energy, not by doing, but by having the idea. Otherwise, through doing you can gain energy – if you have the idea. If you don’t have any idea, then also no energy is lost.

When people are retired they start thinking that now they have less energy so they must rest and relax more; they should not do anything, otherwise their energy is lost. And then they die sooner than they would have died. Statistics say that the life span is reduced by ten years: a person who is working may have lived to seventy; retired, he will die at sixty.

Your body is a dynamo. The more you use it, the more energy from the infinite source is supplied.

If you don’t use it there is no need for any new supply. Then by and by the supply stops. Be more active, and you will have more energy. Be less active, and you will lose much energy. Through activity energy is not lost, through activity you renew it. You use the energy, then from the source more energy becomes available.

Look at the trees. The sun rises and from the leaves of the trees water starts evaporating. The moment a leaf starts evaporating water, from the roots new water circulates, because it is a long process. The leaf releases water, then just near the leaf dryness is created. That dryness immediately sucks water from the twig; then the twig is dry, the twig sucks water from its branch. This goes on down to the roots; then the roots suck water from the earth.

If the leaves think: If we evaporate water then we will die, we will feel thirsty – then this tree is going to die. Because then new sources will not be available, then the roots will not be able to function.

You also have roots into the infinite. When you use energy you suck energy from the infinite. Your roots start working.

A very fallacious idea is in the human mind, that through activity we lose energy. No. The more active, the more energy you will have; the less active, the less energy.

And this is true of activity in all directions of life. Love more and you will have more love to give. Become a miser and think: If I love more, then my love will be dissipated, and sooner or later I will not have any love anymore, so it is better to preserve it. Then your love will die and you will not be able to love.

Love, and more love becomes available; use more and you have more. This is the law of life. You can eat the cake and have it also. Compassion, love, activity, whatsoever the dimension, the same rule applies. Whatsoever you want more of, do the same. If you want to become an infinite source of love, then go on sharing love as much as you can. Don’t be a miser; only misers lose energy.

And we are all misers, that’s why we always feel dissipated.

But the idea can be dangerous, poisonous. If you have an idea, that idea works. Mind works through hypnosis.

Energy is not something stored there. It is being created every moment. If you don’t use it, it goes stale and dead. If you don’t use it, it will make you stale and dead. Then the flow has stopped. But if you go on flowing, more and more becomes available to you.

Jesus says somewhere – one of the most foundational things – he says: If you try to cling to life, you will lose it; and if you are ready to lose it, you will have it in abundance.

Always remember and be filled with the idea that whenever you give something, from the roots more becomes available to you, more is given to you.

God is the giver, the unconditional giver.

If you are also a giver, your hands will always be empty and then God can give you more. If you are a miser, your relationship with the divine is cut. Then you live as a small wave, always afraid of losing.

Live as the ocean. Be oceanic! Never think of losing, about anything. Nothing is lost, nothing can be lost. And you are not an individual; you only appear as an individual. The whole is joined to you; you are just a face of the whole, just a way the whole has happened. Don’t be worried about it. It is never going to end. This existence is beginningless and endless.

Enjoy, celebrate, be active, and always be a giver. To be a giver so totally that you never think of retaining or holding anything is the only real prayer.

To give is to pray. To give is to love. And those who can give, they are always given more.

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