Gnosis in a Hundred PagesPage 45 of 100 · Part III

Part III · The energy

The other leaks

Anger, worry, idle talk and tension spend the same energy more slowly. Closing them keeps what you raise.

Read to me

0:00 / –:––
An hour of complaint, and both leave emptier than they came.

Page 36 showed the vessel full of holes. Now that you know how to raise the energy, it is worth closing the holes that drain it away.

The books teach that the creative energy feeds every part of you: the mind, the feelings and the body. So whatever burns your feelings burns this energy too.

Anger

It is one of the fastest. An outburst can leave you as empty as any release.

Worry

It spends the energy slowly, in loops that solve nothing.

Idle talk and complaint

They spend it through the mouth. Notice how flat you feel after an hour of gossip.

Shoulders braced against nothing, late into the evening.

Screens

They spend it through the eyes, and often feed lust and envy at the same time.

Tension

It holds energy in the body and spends it at once.

Each leak is a self from Part II, with its own habits and its own favorite hours. You already know how to catch a self. Here you catch it as a leak.

You do not need to close every hole at once. That would be one more war, and war leaks too. Choose the one leak that costs you most, and watch it for a day.

Try this

  1. Choose the one leak that costs you most: anger, worry, idle talk, screens or tension.
  2. For one day, watch for it. When it begins, stop for a breath and name it: leak.
  3. Then do one thing instead: three rounds of the breath from page 38, a short walk, or a minute of silence.
  4. Tonight, notice how much energy you have compared with yesterday.

Words on this page

Idle talk
Speech with no purpose, which the books count among the ways energy is spent.

In the old words

“Tension is a frozen leak.”

Sealing the VesselGene Hart
On the next pageWhat the kept energy builds.46. What the kept energy builds