Chapter 7: Tension-Relaxation
For the development of the vital centre it is essential to have the right inter-action of tension and relaxation.
Modern man very rarely presents a picture of a harmonious whole held in a vital alternation between tension and relaxation. He lives in a constant alternation between hypertension and complete slackness. Even the relaxation exercises frequently practised nowadays seldom alter this. The 'autogenic'-training of J. H. Schultz, for example, is often misused, certainly against the intentions of its founder, in such a way that a person suffering from excessive tension seeks in these exercises merely a pleasant, melting sensation of complete relaxation. The actual release he finds is used and enjoyed only as compensation for his wrong tension. But inwardly it does no good at all and such practices fall into the arsenal of those methods whose fabrication and misuse are so characteristic of our welfare civilization, for they do nothing but enable people to live with impunity in their wrong attitudes and to evade the one thing that is needed: the finding of a different inner attitude (Verfassung).
When it comes to the inner way, the practice of relaxation has a completely different significance. It aims at man's liberation from the yoke of the I, leads him towards a progressively deepening awareness of the original Oneness of life and serves to strengthen that inner state which permits the Greater Life to manifest itself in our little lives. The practice of right tension and relaxation, no matter what techniques may be employed, is of value for the inner way only if the aspirant is not merely seeking physical comfort or the increase of his I-powers but wants to find that mysterious source of strength for its own sake.
Thus it becomes clear that also in regard to 'tension-relaxation' one can only see a person truly and form the right opinion about his degree of development if one regards him from two levels: the worldly and the Transcendental.
By virtue of the assured participation of man's own being in the Great Being he is, even in the midst of his worldly life, still au fond liberated; for within his being he already is what he seeks. From the Christian point of view he is God's child and liberated through Christ. From the Eastern point of view he already is the Buddha-nature, he is in his essential substance Nirvana. But because and in so far as he has an I through which he relies upon himself and which is always turned towards the world, he is, at the same time, none of these things, but is merely on the way to uncovering them in himself. The driving force of all his seeking is nothing other than what fundamentally he already is. In so far as he is not all that in his I-world-consciousness, his essential oneness with Being shows itself as divine discontent. The separation from his Being is what produces the basic tension of his life; the release of it is imperative for the integration of his I-self with his essence. The separation from Being, painfully felt by the rigid I, is the root cause of the transcendental tension throughout men's lives. Here appears the urge of Being to manifest itself in ultimate Self, and equally the necessity of the integration of the I-self with Being.
Only if, in all efforts to achieve the right inter-action of tension and relaxation, one bean in mind that man in his innermost part is already freed, can one discover the effective guiding principle for the practice of right relaxation and right tension in his quality of citizen of this world.
To the extent that life, as mirrored by the I, takes on the character of an imaginary, conceptually ordered reality, a special system of tension and relaxation arises. Not only are all the original normal life-impulses and instinctual drives converted into goals of the will, and not only does everything a man meets set up a relation of tension with his ever self-preserving I, but in addition, through the discriminating and fixing function of the I, a special system of tension is created which needs and longs for a correspondingly special kind of relaxation. But here also something quite different is involved than merely eliminating a disturbance of the reality-pattern and life-forms created by the I; for fundamentally in every Single concern of the I lies the deeper spiritual concern of the whole man -- the wish to live his life according to his Being, to complete and to fulfil himself.
Thus real success in practice consists in man's liberation from these I-conditioned, persistent wrong-tensions which keep him from contact with true Being and hinder his capacity to serve it in the world. However, only where the aspirant in right relaxation feels in himself the unfolding of Oneness and tastes the deeply moving 'quite different' with a reverent heart and accepts it as a new obligation does he show that spirit which we have described as indispensable to all real practice: the spirit of Metanoia, where the mind is permanently turned towards the Divine. That this new relation to the divine Ground of Being should permeate the the whole life is the distant goal. Its achievement is hindered by nothing so much as by those wrong-tensions belonging peculiarly to the life and suffering of the I which have become, as it were, permanently set and crystallized.
The whole life of man is shaped by psychological burdens, some fresh and urgent, others old and of long standing; by breathtaking instinctive needs and desires as well as by self-imposed, deliberate tensions belonging to his conscious life. Without these he could not live meaningfully and effectively for one moment, and they are always there entailing a mental alertness and readiness for bodily action which is constantly present, even when for the moment his attention is not directed to any particular interest or object or goal.
All three forms of tension may be habitually so overstressed and so deeply ingrained that they prevent the unfolding of life itself. Only the person who has at some time become really aware of them in himself and in others knows the extent to which modem man is distorted by psychological tensions and excessive mental activity. Only one who has struggled to make himself whole and sound knows how insidious the effects of those over-tensions are, and how difficult it is to free oneself from them once they have become ingrained.
Every tension represents a bent, an inclination of the living whole. In relaxation it can be eased and the whole then swings back into its rest position. In the harmonious whole tension and relaxation form an organic system complementing each other either simultaneously or in rhythmical alternation. Every tension bears the need for relaxation, every relaxation the need for tension. Always, therefore, behind this polarity the law of the whole is at work. It strives for accord and harmony and redresses every disturbing excess as soon as there is access to the compensating transcendental force coming from the ground of Being (Seinsgrund) -- access which is blocked when the tensions have become ingrained.
What is meant by disturbance of the right relationship of tension and relaxation? We are not concerned here with physiological conditions for they also would merely point to a disturbance affecting the whole man. It is the person who is disturbed, never his body alone. What then is the disturbance of the whole person which manifests as wrong tension? It is, as a rule, nothing but a clinging to the partial which upsets the whole. As for example, the clinging to a certain position, the obsession with a certain desire, being imprisoned by a fear, the inability to get free from certain forms of aggression, resentment or compulsion. Behind all these there usually stands, consciously or unconsciously, an I held fast by a fixation.
There are two kinds of tension arising from the ego: the immediate, fleeting ones and those which have become constitutional. The former is found in all mental processes relating to any given object, in every deliberate action and in every passing emotion. The latter is a dominating wrong tension of which the sufferer is unconscious, the result of an inveterate, egocentric relation to existence. Such a permanent compulsive tension may be the result of a trauma which has passed into the body or of an inner pressure arising from a gnawing guilt or fear, a repressed need, an inability to make contact with others. In such cases the person is always in the grip of something he cannot cope with but which yet allows him to perceive his own helplessness. Such latent tensions, kept active and alive by circumstances, are heightened to breaking point whenever a complex-laden situation arises. It is an astonishing thing to see how such tensions can be wiped out at one stroke if the sufferer simply dares to let himself drop down into his vital abdominal centre and to yield to it, especially if he can be brave enough to admit that he cannot free himself from his suffering by his own efforts. It dawns on him then that the basic reason for his rigidity and strain lies in his I.
But a man may have realized for a long time that his tensions were caused by nothing but his I and its fears for its own existence. Even so he still cannot cope with the fear nor rid himself of his I. Only by learning to relax from his deepest level will he find that in full relaxation he is free of all fear. He will realize that complete depth-relaxation is the same thing as the neutralizing of the I. But the practice of deep relaxation can be significant and efficacious only when it is carried out in full awareness of its inner meaning and not merely for the relief of bodily symptoms. Only if practised in the right frame of mind does the work even of merely muscular relaxation take on its real significance. As a by-product of such practice there will indeed be an increase of efficiency and health.
The practice of relaxation begins naturally with bodily relaxation. The aspirant fixes his mind on the letting-go of the muscles of his limbs. But this by itself does not amount to much for in this way he will not arrive at the deeper meaning of relaxation. When he is able to sink himself without resistance into his limbs, which will feel heavier and heavier, he will become aware of a qualitative change in his whole state. At this point something may occur that is inwardly meaningful. An outward sign of the change of state is a temporary inability to move. This means on the one hand, that the tension necessary for response to commands from the I has left the muscles, and further, that the I has become part of a greater whole. In this state of complete relaxation something altogether new in quality can arise. It is perceived as a special kind of warmth, a sense of boundaries removed where the aspirant exists in a hitherto unknown way, lifted into an all-embracing whole, and where at the same time in a strange way, he feels safely at home within himself. From this completely conscious yet ego-less condition he returns to ordinary consciousness with one deep breath and is once more master of his limbs. If he has been deeply aware of a peculiar condition in which he no longer belonged wholly to himself and yet esd himself in a greater sense than ever before, something of its secret power will remain alive in him. If not he will merely feel refreshed and restored physically, but nothing more -- an experience of no particular interest.
What happens in the periods when an aspirant practises relaxation can bear fruit only if during the day's activities -- walking, sitting, standing, performing all sorts of common actions -- he keeps himself in control. In the course of real practice an organ is developed which enables the aspirant to notice instantly his wrong tensions and to correct them himself. Only if constantly tested in everyday life will Hara be experienced as the right interplay of tension and relaxation.
It is characteristic of our time that people look only for ways and means of achieving right relaxation without giving much thought to what is right tension. This perfectly reflects our entanglement in a life mechanism from which the only deliverance seems to be the total dissolving of the hard, set patterns belonging to it. But this provides no way out of the vicious circle.
Relaxation serves the inner becoming only when it is confronted by something opposing it. This is not possible when relaxation culminates in soft helpless dissolution, or when -- as though it had to be that way -- the aspirant, after his relaxation exercise, immediately falls back into his wrong tensions as if nothing had happened.
Right relaxation exists only where the aspirant feels that secret root from which something strives and grows without his help, which puts him and keeps him in form. It becomes evident in the practice of diaphragm-breathing as he learns to permit full exhalation and to let inhalation come of itself. This exercise, often very difficult for the beginner, gives him a freshness which is more than a mere bodily restorative. He suddenly feels again 'in form' and what is more, in one completely different from his usual tense form. The whole secret lies in this sense of 'getting back to the right form'. Purely physical relaxation exercises aim only at a mechanical relaxation of rigidity and therefore result in most cases in more slackness, the negative compensation of which is again wrong-tension.
That ground of being (Lebensgrund) so rarely experienced by modern man, which releases him in the right way is also the well-spring of that right tension filled with vitality which allows his unique personal form to unfold. When the right personal form appears a man has achieved his essential individuality (Gestalt). And not until a man perceives his own individual form -- charged with its essence-tension and bringing a sense of obligation -- will he understand what practice really means. And just as this true form can unfold only when the aspirant has learned to abandon the ego structure causing his wrong tensions, only then can he unfold himself fully and proudly as mind and soul. But first the I, with its false rationality, and its restless heart, .must drop down into the well-spring of the Primordial Deep.
All this means that the right inter-action of relaxation and tension can come into play only when man finds his 'earth-centre' which is embodied in Hara. When he is in touch with it he will feel released and be set free for true Self-becoming. To the extent that this contact is consolidated in Hara, the waking-state-tensions necessary for normal existence in the world will be properly sustained and will become fruitful in the life sense. For one who is proficient in Hara they awaken the incentive to seek anew his contact with the healing Ground. The inter-action of wrong-tension and complete slackness will be replaced by that creative liberation from the small I which alone will allow the growth of being.