FromChapter 1: What Is Chi?

We Are Made of the Life Energy Signal—Chi

Each one of us is endowed with a piece of the one original energy, the Tao. This energy, through a series of transformations, becomes our Chi.

Our body is made of dust (material), which is amassed and propelled by the invisible force and activities of Chi. When you see the physical form of a friend, you are not seeing the real her, but only the material from which she is made.

Have you had the experience of attending a funeral or wake? If you were able to gaze upon the corpse of the person you once knew, you could easily see that "they" were no longer there. The force that animated their body held the real person you knew, not the lifeless material in the casket.

Similarly, you might claim to have seen a tornado either in real life or on television. But actually, you did not "see" the tornado. What you saw was merely the debris that the tornado churned up and held together in form. The actual force we call a tornado was the invisible part you could not see that held the whirling debris together and gave it power.

Similarly, it is our Chi that holds us together, animates us, and makes us who we really are. It is our true self. It is the source of consciousness, awareness, and life. Without it, nothing lives.

While our invisible life force signal, Chi, is in orderly action, life thrives and well-being abounds. Conversely, when this signal of the life force, Chi, is in decay, becoming weak, or in the process of disintegrating, the “life” of the material body is in a chaotic state. When Chi deteriorates, suffering predominates, even leading to death.

Since this life energy signal is composed of the memory of the cosmic force, it can behave only according to the law of its nature: it is always in motion, transient, and dynamically playful. These are the same characteristics of the one universal energy from which your Chi came.

Because of its likeness and affinity to the original cosmic force, our life energy signal is capable of harmonizing with that original cosmic force. Our life energy can tune in to the signal of the original natural force and follow its direction. It can harmonize with the One-chi in order to continue, to multiply, to adjust to changes, to fine-tune itself, to adapt, and to “survive.”

Your Chi will always seek to harmonize itself and will always seek balance as best it can. It will cause you to take action that will bring harmony and balance to your life and body. The degree to which your Chi signal can maintain its integrity and clear reception of the original One-chi signal is the extent to which your Chi is able to succeed in maintaining harmony and the force of life within your body. The degree to which your Chi signal is confused, weakened, and off-balance is due to factors that muffle and block the signal from the One-chi.

The next time you feel hungry or thirsty, realize that you feel the life energy signal in motion. When you are content, or you are depressed, realize that it is only your life energy, the Chi, reacting in harmony or conflict with other forces.

Like Mother Nature, or the weather, sunny “blue-sky” days and unpredictable stormy events coexist in our life. Everything in the entire cosmos is interrelated and interconnected. Chi is constantly tuning, changing, and reacting just like the forces that govern the weather. Change is a natural part of life energy sustaining itself. The question is whether the changes in your life serve to help balance and sustain you, or whether the changes cause disharmony and distress. The condition of your Chi will determine the answer.

Because we are all made of Chi, and because our Chi flows in the same way the entire universe moves, we are an integral part of this universe—the children of this cosmic entity. The next time you watch this wonderful and amazing universe, the world we all are born into, consider yourself inside this immense cosmos—interconnected with everything—not outside or separate from it.

This is not just a comforting truth. It is a calling, a responsibility, a momentous task and opportunity. In fact, it is a matter of life and death for us to wake up to our true identity right away. We must take immediate action to correct our mistaken notions of who we are and what our relationship to nature really is. It is our mistaken notions that cause us to live in a way that weakens our Chi signal and thus our access to harmony and life.

Losing this critical connection to your true self, the Chi, causes your life energy signal to evaporate and weaken at an accelerated rate. The loss of Chi consequently causes the decline of your mental and physical condition. It is therefore a priority for those concerned with their well-being to take action to stop the further decline of their Chi. You must hasten to learn to feel, to understand, and to reconnect back to your internal Chi, the life energy, to decelerate or even to stop Chi’s evaporation.

After all, it is your life energy signal that matters most when you care about your life—not the air you breathe, the food you eat, the drugs you take, or other health-care measures—it is only your core life energy that counts. Without this core, all other efforts toward well-being are worthless. This core is the true “you.”