Going with the Flow of Life Is Not What You Think

In this video, I examine one of today’s most misunderstood phrases — “go with the flow”: why the common understanding of it is a trap people get stuck in, how real awareness differs from passivity, and why truly “going with the flow” requires becoming an incredibly strong and developed person.

Going with the flow means being aware

When we talk about whether it is good or bad to go with the flow of life — how does a person perceive what that is? How can you get any benefit out of this understanding at all? The thing is, a person initially understands “going with the flow of life” mentally — as a story where you are an idler, where you are an emotionless being and where you do nothing. But this understanding was created by social society.

Because however much a person may want to go with the flow of life and do nothing, they still have to do something. They have to go to work, communicate with other people, interact with the world around them. They have to interact with themselves — at the very least, really, with themselves. And so the number one thing in this construct of “going with the flow of life” is to be aware of what is happening in this life.

You come to the Pacific Ocean. I live thirty minutes from the Pacific Ocean — thirty to forty. And there are different stretches there, beaches five hundred meters or a kilometer apart, and they have different water currents. There is a beach where you can more or less go into the water — at least five meters or so. Although it is always cold, but on the whole. And there is a beach where going in five meters is a risk to your life. Why? Because the current there is like that. And at the entrance to this beach it says: “This beach has a rip current. Be aware of it.”

What is a rip current? As soon as you go in, within a minute you will be a hundred or two hundred meters from where you entered, and you won’t get back. To get back, you need to understand where to swim, understand the technique and understand the current. So going with the flow means being aware of it.

If a person treats going with the flow as idling, they will die just as in the ocean. They are guaranteed to die. And what will die in life in this case? It doesn’t mean they will die physically. It means they will die in terms of their consciousness.

It means understanding what the weather is now, what the wind is now, what the waves are now, what the water temperature is, how long you will be able to last in it. Because if you go into water with a fast current, you must understand that at the very least you could die: the water is cold, you won’t be able to get back within twenty or thirty minutes — and you will die because of it.

Being aware of reality

All right, you swim farther out, start swimming sideways and survive. I know people who come to any spot, go into the water and start swimming, because they can last an hour in the cold water of the Pacific Ocean. They are prepared, their physical body is prepared. You don’t need to worry about them. Such a person swims out, calmly swims five hundred meters sideways and comes out farther along, in a zone where you can get out — where there are no reefs, no rocks, no sharp waves. Or at least they will be able to wait for the rescuers. And they will do it: they know how to find their bearings, they know how to swim. And even then it is not easy. Even the very best athletes can die, because they are not fully aware of nature. It is nature, and that is the point: it is very hard to be aware of it.

So how, then, do you become aware of life? It is even bigger, even broader than everything happening there. Because nature is only one component of the spiritual world and one component of what happens in our life.

And so, when you go with the flow, you need to become aware of where you are, aware of your reality, your character, your cause-and-effect connections, your karma, your heredity, aware of what is going to happen in your life. Aware of why there are such people, why there are such parents, such children, husband and wife, such work.

What is happening? Be aware of where you are now, what country you live in, among what people. Be aware of what laws there are, what rules there are — and act according to these things. Going with the flow means being aware.

There are places where, on the whole, you can show up naked and nothing will be done to you for it. In California, on the whole, you can do that — you can go to the theater that way. Loosely speaking; of course there are restrictions. Someone might think: “California — they do that there.” That’s not the point. The point is that they could. I have never seen a person do that. But there is one thing: this person won’t be punished — won’t be hanged, for example. And there are countries where they will hang you if you go out naked. Look, this is very important. Here you most likely won’t be punished and won’t be fined. I don’t fully know the law on this, and I don’t want to say what is allowed and what isn’t, but many things are allowed.

That is exactly what going with the flow is — being aware of reality. Here, for example, you can go out into the street, walk and film everything on a video camera: any property, any people, in a cafe — film everything everywhere. Without imposing, without pestering, without getting in people’s faces, without getting in a person’s way. You have the right to film everything: the police, strangers. With children there are some nuances when it comes to filming them up close, but on the whole you can film everyone. And there are countries where you can’t do that; in some places there will be a harsh punishment for it.

Olya, that is the whole point. That is exactly what going with the flow is: you understand the current — and you go into the river. I have been on mountain rivers and other rivers many times. You must understand that you’d better not go into this particular river, because you won’t be able to go with the current — you’ll smash your head. But somewhere on the way to Belukha — that’s a mountain in the Altai — there is a pool in the river, and you can go into the river and take a swim. That is going with the flow — understanding what kind of current it is, that here the water is still.

You need to be an incredibly strong person

That is the essence of life: you can swim here, you have the right to do it here. You have the right to rest here, or to change your profession, or to try something new, to launch something new for your life, or to communicate with these people in a certain manner, within a certain range of circumstances and different characteristics. That is going with the flow — truly being aware of reality, being in full awareness.

These are not the ocean’s variables. In life it is much easier to drown than in the Pacific Ocean. Much easier. This is not an abstraction, it is a fact of what happens, because there are too many details, too many nuances. And you have to work them out your whole life.

Learning to swim in the Pacific Ocean is much easier than in life. And learning to swim in a mountain river is much easier than swimming in life. So when people say the phrase “go with the flow” — it is much easier to learn to swim in a mountain river than to interact.

An incredible amount of work for your whole life

Learning to interact with your child, to go with the flow with your child in life — that doesn’t mean throwing them out into the street: they walk around pooped and peed, screaming, with nothing to eat anywhere, a bear has bitten them, and you do nothing — and that’s it. You simply toss them somewhere: tossed them into the nearest school, or a storeroom, or a box, or wherever. That isn’t going with the flow.

Going with the flow means being responsible, figuring out their life, understanding what kind of spiritual being this is, what kind of system has come into your spiritual life.

Understanding what circumstances you are in, how you perceive this child, how you live together with them, what circumstances of life are unfolding, how their spiritual being is opening up at all, what is forming in them, what they are. This is an incredible amount of work for your whole life. To go with the flow with another person, you will have to work your whole life — just as on a river. You won’t be able to travel the whole length of a mountain river without working all the time. You will need to work all the time.

You get into a boat — there are boats where you row — and you will have to work all the time. Somewhere it will be a little calmer, somewhere a little harder. But even where it is calm, you still have to work, because you are on the water. The boat capsizes — you die. Someone has a seizure, epilepsy in the boat — the whole boat may die. Something just happened to another person.

That is going with the flow: being fully aware of what is really happening, understanding what the air is now, what the world is now, what the economic situation is now, what social phenomena there are now. Not shutting yourself off from it, not saying: “I’m already grown up, I’m already old, I won’t understand anymore.” Or: “Oh, I’m still young, I have my whole life ahead of me.” And this is exactly where going with the flow becomes a very difficult, impossible action.

Because to go with the flow, you need to be incredibly devel… joyful, developed. You see, even the word “devel-joyful” comes out of me. A developed person — and, of course, a joyful one as well. Because development without joy is impossible. Both development without joy and joy without development are impossible. Fundamentally impossible.

Then you will be able to arrive at an incredibly strong understanding of such social phrases and sayings and, for the first time, truly take responsibility for your life.

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