To understand inspiration and consciousness from a holistic perspective, you might want to consider the words of Pantanjali:
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
When I tap into inspiration and consciousness, I view it as an opportunity. It’s like a caged bird being set free. It offers a whole new world of possibilities and freedom of expression. The only problem is the intensified sense of limitation when the inspiration disappears, which is the equivalent of the bird being put back in the cage.
For most people, I think it is fair to say, there are both periods of inspiration and a lack of it. With the understanding that nothing great happens without inspiration, it’s important to be able to turn it on. For creative projects without inspiration is like swimming upstream. Progress is slow, if not impossible.
So what is the key? How to turn it on? Inspiration makes its appearance when we can transcend the limitations of the mind and tap into intuition. These limitations exist because of our mind’s programming. The programming forms our identification. The programming happens through mental impressions. And this programming goes back ages, throughout our evolutionary and reincarnation history.
Every experience is stored in the mind and this forms our identity. For instance, after a series of failures, we tend to say, “I’m a failure.” And after a series of successes we say, “I’m a success.” If we make a gigantic amount of money, we say, “I’m rich.” And when we lose it, we say, “I’m poor.” But when viewed from the vantage point of consciousness, that is not who any of us are. Those were just experiences, life situations, nothing more. Although the mind will tend to identify with them, we need to know how to disidentify. That is, we need to relinquish the false in order to inherit the truth.
But how do we get to that place above duality, above the identification with form? We do it through awareness. And this awareness comes from watching the tendencies of the mind. To watch the behavior of the mind is the awakening of consciousness. Through this awakening, we are able to control the mind, and use it as an instrument. Through the awakening of consciousness we are able to transcend the mind’s need to live in the past and the future. Then and only then can we delve into the fullness of the present moment. And that is where inspiration is born. That is when we become in-spirited. And it can only happen in the present moment. You can’t become inspired yesterday. Nor tomorrow. Only now. This is where bliss is found. This is where the life of the spirit unfolds. To the advanced aspirants, this is where spiritual illumination takes place. Spiritual perfection, when it finally comes to us, comes when we are fully alive to what is unfolding in the here and now.
To the degree that we can live in the present moment measures the intensity of inspiration available to us.
If you find that your mind likes to keep you engaged with thoughts of the past, one meditative practice you might try is to focus on your breathing. This is a way to put the focus on the aliveness of the body and get out of the head. With each breath, notice how deeply you can inhale. Notice the pulse slowing. Notice the mind slowing. This is an example off mindfulness meditation.
In my life, I feel most uninspired when I feel the most limited. My energy gets depleted. Everything I do becomes a challenge.
Sometimes this sense of limitation comes from exhaustion, or not enough rest, or being ill. Sometimes it comes from being attached to results and not getting the results I want.
This feeling of limitation is basically a sign of being disconnected from the source of being, which is unlimited. So it is always a sign for me to go within and do some inner work. And any way you want to do it is fine, from whatever spiritual tradition or no tradition. But the bottom line is the connection or reconnection to your source of being, realizing that you are in essence, that which is beyond form.
With that inner connection to your formless eternal state, inspiration and consciousness ae yours. They are inner resources you can use every day.
