Are you tempted often to stick to your couch and binge watch your favorite TV shows? Do you keep putting off your work? Do you wish you could lead a more active life?

Technically, you may not have a health issue but you could be dealing with undue lethargy, a definite problem from the perspective of having holistic balance and happiness in your life.

Everyone knows that how meditation helps with relaxation when you’re exhausted or overactive. But forms of meditation like Sahaja meditation work well for doing the opposite too, to charge you up and propel you into action if you’re underactive.

This goes to the holistic nature and power of Sahaja meditation and in fact one of the reasons we keep stressing that we’re a lot more than the average stress relief meditation out there.

Why Lethargy is a Big Problem

Meditators like a life of balance – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We are not just focusing on staying physically fit or healthy, to us life is more evolved and the quality of our lives is measured by higher and subtler goals. As Maslow said:

What we call ‘normal’ in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don’t even notice it ordinarily

(Maslow, 1968, p. 16).

What he was actually saying is that Normal or Average is a pathology, too, with an inference that there are higher reaches of human development to strive for. Normal, after all, underestimates the extent to which self-actualizing capacities can be developed. See our in-depth account of how Sahaja meditation helps in Self-Actualization. Or you may find our entire section on Higher purpose an interesting read or even eye-opening.

So, while you could be perfectly normal and healthy, lethargy may actually be hurting you more than you can think. And preventing you from fulfilling your potential in life.

At Sahaja, we view lethargy as a strong negative force that can cause multiple problems in life – it can sneak up on us without realizing it. It is almost a force of anti-evolution and anti-self-improvement in our life. Work is needed for self-improvement in general and especially for spiritual self-improvement, so any bit of lethargy can actually cause our lives to regress.

How and When Does Lethargy Start?

Lethargy starts with the excessive domination of our materialistic self. While convenience and comfort are essential in our life, they only need to go to the extent of freeing up our valuable time and attention for doing something better. Like being able to focus on higher pursuits and more value-adding work that enriches our and others’ lives. Beyond that, too much comfort and convenience can hurt our self-improvement. It can make us lazy, develop a feeling of entitlement and even erode our values of hard work and perseverance. And many times it can cause us to lose some vital skills or mental acumen.

Think how direction sensitive our ancestors were versus how many of us cannot survive without a GPS today.

How Lethargy Establishes Itself to Create Problems

Lethargy can then slowly establish itself in us and lead to more problems. It can then lead us to addiction, first for very simple things and progressively to more unwanted addictions. It can create vices within us. In many cases, it can cause problems with hygiene. More often than not, it ultimately results in less physical activity and eventually leads to health problems.

At a subtler level, it can build a strong sense of ego within us and make us secluded from collectivity and our community.

In short, a lot of our lives’ problems begin with lethargy and it’s time we look at how to keep it under check. And of course, use the most powerful tools we have to deal with it – meditation.

The Subtle System Correlation

First, the practice of Sahaja meditation is entirely linked to our subtle energy system, a system of energy centers and channels. Specifically, our energy channels are linked to our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and influence their functioning. The left and right energy channels correlate with our sympathetic nervous system which is responsible for our physical, mental and emotional responses and actions.

The central energy channel, on the other hand, correlates with the parasympathetic response.

Lethargy can arise from an imbalance or the overuse of the energy in our left channel. When this happens, we feel a lack of interest in doing our activities, get lazier and in extreme situations, it can also lead us to moodiness and even depression.

On the other hand, the overuse of the energies of the right energy channel can get us to become physically and mentally exhausted. And at that time, it is natural to feel tired. This is not the same as becoming lethargic and inactive on account of the imbalance in the left energy channel.

But How Does the Imbalance Occur in the First Place?

Our life is a delicate balance of the attention we pay to mundane and higher aspects. Our attention is constantly dragged to non-spiritual things and at some point, materialism and materialistic thoughts begin to dominate our attention. Too much convenience and automation become a problem, and we lose the skill of our hands and using our physical self. Creature comforts, as the phrase goes.

On the other hand, desk jobs, computerization, and the invention of better and more luxurious couches and beds hardly help our cause of keeping lethargy in check. Friction is a necessary evil they say. Without it, we won’t be able to walk. Likewise, a little inconvenience, discomfort, and something to strive or long for is a good thing in life. It keeps us in check.

Matter, as we know is made out of the five elements – earth, water, air, fire, and ether. Our body is made of these elements too. And these five elements push our attention either towards the left side or the right side, i.e., towards sympathetic nervous system activity. Or the overuse of our left and right energy channels. The matter ultimately enslaves by creating habits within us which are difficult to get rid of.

We have a natural affinity towards matter because we ourselves are made of it – the same five elements.

Yet, the game of life is also about elevating ourselves to higher and subtler states of existence, to go beyond the pull of matter and our material self. This force within us is the power of seeking or the desire for self-improvement. It is designed to be difficult and move against the forces and attraction that matter exerts on us.

To be physically active against our inertia is, by design, a more difficult thing. To ascend higher spiritually, against the subtler downward and negative forces on us is similar.

When we do nothing to rise or move against inertia, lethargy takes over – as simple as that. You may be doing nothing wrong and have no bad intentions, simply not doing anything will land you with lethargy inside which then starts doing its work and producing unintended effects.

How We Can Manage and Get Rid of Lethargy

What Nature Has Given Us

The good news is that Nature has provided several mechanisms and constructs within us to overcome lethargy and improve our quality of life. We mentioned the power of seeking and desire for self-improvement. The entire subtle energy system of chakras is also seeded with a set of positive, evolutionary qualities. These are embedded within us and all we need to do is nurture, nourish and pay attention to them and they help us evolve and avoid virtually every problem in our life.

The nourishment comes through meditation and paying attention to our subtle energy system. The more self-aware we are, the more alert we can get about keeping to our meditation routine. Below are ways to avoid lethargy.

Focus on Higher Pursuits in Life

Other than meditation, it is also essential to be aware of and avoid material domination by keeping it in check. The percentage of time and our attention to spirituality and higher things always matter. If you’re reading this article, you’re already doing this – gaining some awareness and knowledge instead of watching a useless TV show that adds no value. Make no mistake, that TV show also stimulates our emotions and can be beneficial to us. We don’t want to become dull, boring personalities and life is nothing without enjoyment. Yet, higher pursuits need to have a place and room in our lives to avoid excessive materialism and material domination which can lead to lethargy.

Meditation Techniques

Some tactical ways to deal with lethargy include balancing our left energy channel. We have technique videos on our website to help with this. Then there are advanced techniques too if you are a regular meditator and have discovered that a weak left energy channel, extreme lethargy, over-emotional behavior or feeling depressed are your problems. Our advanced sessions can help with this if you make a request to us.

We may also be able to help you with some basic diet-related changes.

The most important tool for detecting weakness in the left energy channel is of course meditation and vibratory awareness – something that you can develop through a few weeks of regular meditation, both at home and in our collective online meditation sessions.

Advanced Spiritual Pursuits

In Sahaja, we have a full spectrum of techniques and tools. Advanced practitioners are involved in seminars and longer meditation sessions and methods that focus on overcoming material domination and improving each chakra in order to imbibe those aspects. We’re happy to share those with you, but there’s a gradual ramp to these. These will not work unless you have a well-settled meditation routine and are able to feel your own chakras and vibrations clearly.

Harnessing the Power of Sahaja Meditation

What differentiates people who meditate to gain just stress relief or relaxation and the advanced practitioners who gain holistic health and healing is their focus on their own subtle energy system. A lot of beginners hardly realize how powerful our own inner instrument can be. In well settled and advanced stage meditators, the vibrations or the energy is flowing through strongly. Their chakras are healthy and they’re able to detect their own problems and correct them. They are able to correlate their behaviors to their chakras and vice versa, use their behavior and habits to improve their chakras. They seek out collectivity and group meditation a lot, realizing and being sensitive to the power of group meditation. Those who still struggle to understand this difference like to try and meditate on their own all the time.

The detection and avoidance of lethargy is a fairly advanced level practice when we use meditation. Once learned, it can greatly improve our lives.

So, were you aware that meditation can do much more than stress and anxiety relief? Did you find any other form of meditation that can give you specific ways to get rid of your lethargy? We’re keen to help you if you need.

It’s about time that meditators moved on beyond just the entry-level benefits to discover the deeper benefits of meditation.

Will you be one of them?