That which cannot be seen is called invisible.
That which cannot be heard is called inaudible.
That which cannot be held is called intangible.
These three cannot be defined;
therefore, they are merge as one.Each of these three is subtle for description.
By intuition you can see it,
hear it,
and feel it.
Then the unseen,
unheard,
and untouched
are present as one.Its rising brings no dawn,
its setting no darkness;
it goes on and on,unnameable,
returning into nothingness.Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You cannot know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.Discovering how things have always been
brings one into harmony with the Way.~ Wayne Dyer version
The spiritual energy of live events
This verse inspired me to constantly notice the invisible energy in the things that surround me.
During the Easter period I attended the Stawell Gift – a world-famous professional footrace that is the richest and oldest short running race in the world.
In my 43 years I’ve never missed a Stawell Gift. In the early years my parents took me, and in later years I continued to go, firstly because my friends would come back for it, and now because my daughter loves going.
One thing I love about the Stawell Gift (and all live sporting events) is the atmosphere.
And as I thought about the 14th Verse of the Tao Te Ching, I realised that the thing I call ‘atmosphere’ is an invisible energy.
Sure, some types of atmosphere come from cheering crowds and other audible and visual cues, but most of what we call atmosphere is invisible, inaudible and intangible.
I realised that this atmosphere – this invisible energy – is what has led me to my love of live events such as rock concerts, musicals and sporting events.
There’s something very special that occurs when a large group of people meet for a single event and focus their attention on that event.
I think it may be the closest we can get in human form to the experience of all being one source energy.
What do I mean? I’m finding it hard to put into words, so I’ll try to use use some examples.
The Stawell Gift is a 3-day athletics carnival, culminating in the final of the Stawell Gift on Easter Monday afternoon. The race is worth $40,000 to the winner (the women’s Gift has only recently earned the matching $40,000 price tag).
As I sat awaiting the Gift final last week, I marveled at how a crowd of thousands, spread around a large oval, could all go silent without anyone telling them to.
In a mix of anticipation, respect for the runners, and reverence for the history of the event itself, tens of 1000s of people suddenly stop talking and it’s like we are all one.
In those few moments before the starter’s gun goes off, there is this beautiful collective silence. I only realised the other day that this moment of pure energy is what has kept me coming back to this event many years after the social side of it has died away for me.
I’ve always talked of the ‘buzz’ and atmosphere that I love about live events, that can’t be replicated by watching on TV, but I had never considered that it is the feeling of oneness that is so alluring and attractive about these events.
It doesn’t always have to be a silent atmosphere to give me that feeling of deep connection and oneness though.
The silence like at the Stawell Gift is rare. Much of the time at sporting or musical events, the oneness and connection are felt while a lot of noise is being made.
I’ve been privileged enough to attend many Australian Football League (AFL) grand finals at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) – the superbowl of Australia – and that roar that goes up before the first ball is bounced (and after the silence of the national anthem) is an energy in itself.
Many years when I was at my sickest with the ME/CFS, I would still drag myself along to the AFL grand final – I’ve been an AFL member for 25 years along with many of my family.
In those years it was the atmosphere I was going for, much more than the football.
I realise now that it was a healing ‘hit’ of spiritual connection and energy that had me queuing up at 6am to get our seats (prior to reserved seating), going back to the car 2-3 times for a sleep/rest before the game started at 2.30pm, and sitting through 3 hours of the game itself.
Even though it physically knocked me around, I always felt better after I went to the grand final. I realise now it was spiritually healing.
I’ve had many occasions over the years where I chose to defy my physical condition and go to live events.
I knew they lifted my spirits and that lift was worth the physical repercussions. And often I’d find I didn’t have the physical repercussions I could usually expect from pushing my limits.
The lengths I’ll go to for a ‘hit’ 🙂
As I write this I smile to myself at some of the lengths I’ve gone to to get that ‘hit’ of what I now see was spiritual healing/energy. In a funny way, these events were like a religious experience.
Some people go to church. I go to music concerts, sporting events and musicals!
I remember one Bon Jovi concert I went to in the mid-late 90s where it was general admission at Olympic Stadium in Melbourne.
There were some pretty good support acts, like Jimmy Barnes, so we got there about 4pm. In the middle of one of the breaks I could be found nestled in among the crowd, my friends and sister around me, trying to have a nap on a pile of coats.
I could never explain exactly why I went to these events when I was clearly very ill. But I knew it boosted me, in a time very little did.
Actually I wrote a blog post a couple of years ago about attending my home town footy grand final when I was about as ill as I’d ever been. Have a read here if you’re interested. It goes more in-depth into some of the reasons I sometimes push beyond my physical restrictions to experience the invisible, spiritual energy I now see as Tao energy.
Sydney 2000 – A Tao Experience
My final example of the invisible, intangible, spiritual energy that I’ve experienced in my lifetime is that of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
I’m not the only one to talk of this amazing atmosphere and energy. Any person who spent time at the Sydney 2000 Olympics speaks of it (I even heard Hugh Jackman speak of it in an interview just the other day!).
Being there for 10 days, we were talking about the amazing energy that engulfed the city well before it became folklore. It was like everyone had taken happy pills. Even the people where were still working in the city in their 9-5 jobs were still smiling and friendly in peak hour on the trains.
I now see that it was the collective positive energy that became like an invisible fog throughout Sydney during the Olympics. And everyone was breathing in this energy and living in it.
We were all experiencing a collective energy that connected us to each other like nothing has before or since.
It was definitely a more innocent time, 12 months prior to 9/11 that changed the world with an entirely different type of energy (although it could be argued that that tragic event brought the world together as much as it tore it apart).
But in 2000 there was still the threat of terrorism. It was a hot topic in the leadup to the Games.
But when we were there it was like we rode a wave of positive energy, where the world was united, where all nationalities, skin colours and other differences were ignored, and we were all joined as one.
I know I don’t need to go to such events to connect my energy with others now. I can do that via meditation anytime. But being around thousands of other people helps the process.
We are one!
At another Bon Jovi concert just two years ago, I watched and listened to 20,000+ people singing in unison as they waved their smartphones in the air, and I marveled at how music has the ability to unite people from all different backgrounds – and believe me, a Bon Jovi concert attracts an eclectic mix of backgrounds!
In that moment, as I saw and heard tens of thousands of people unite as one to sing a song, I had a moment where I really believed world peace was possible.
I still do.
We are all connected by the invisible, inaudible, intangible Tao. These live events just allow us to experience that energy in a way we often can’t access in our day-to-day lives.
It’s only just occurred to me that this is probably the main reason people congregate at churches, synagogues and mosques. It’s not necessarily just to worship their chosen deity, but to join together with a large group of people, focussed on the same thing, which creates a similar energy to live events like concerts.
Having come from a small country town where our church services were often just 10-20 people on a good night, I sometimes forget that places of worship in cities and other countries involve the coming together of a much larger community of people – thus creating a more powerful collective energy and connection with spirit.
This process of living the Tao is fascinating in the way it opens my mind up to things I hadn’t thought about before.
May the fascinating journey continue
Keep Smiling
Louise