When you’re in the flow, you are the flow.
I was reading an article about flow states—those moments when time drops away, self-consciousness dissolves, and action seems to unfold of its own accord. Psychology frames it as optimal performance. But something deeper shimmers beneath that description.
Flow, in its essence, is what happens when egoic activity no longer dominates the field, not because the ego steps aside, but because it ceases to function as the organizing center. The brain still functions. Perception is still interpreted. But it is no longer filtered through the constructed lens of ego structure—the usual looping of self-reference, control, judgment, and identity quiets.
The painter tries to master color, the dancer tries to master motion—not to control it, but to become one with it. This is flow. It is not about effort—it is about dissolving the effortful self. – Zen and the Art of Archery
What remains is awareness moving through the body and mind directly, without being claimed or shaped by the familiar personality patterns. There is no one doing anymore. The body and mind are still active, but the experience shifts. Rather than being instruments of self-expression, they become vessels through which essential presence is rendered into form. The mind continues to interpret perception, but without the ego’s filter. What arises is not shaped by identity, preference, or defense, but by the immediacy of Being translating itself into movement, speech, and response.
And that made me think of Alice in Wonderland. When Alice asks the Cheshire Cat which way she ought to go, he replies, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” “I don’t much care where,” says Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” It seems nonsensical, but it’s profoundly accurate. Without knowing who we are, all direction is arbitrary. And once we do know, direction becomes unnecessary. The way is not chosen; it is revealed as movement itself.
In states of transparency, what moves through us is not performance, not strategy, not identity. What moves is Being. But even then, what we experience is not essence itself—it is essence interpreted through the limitations of the body and mind. Presence, strength, clarity, peace—these are the feel of essence in form. They point to what we are, but they are not the what itself.
This is a subtle point that many overlook. The experiences that arise in the body and mind are not essence itself, but its expression—its translation. Even in the most refined states, what we know of essence is shaped by the perceptual field through which it moves. The nervous system, the conceptual habits of the mind, the sensory architecture of the body—all serve as the lens, not the light. What we sense is not Being, but its impression.
So when the ego structure no longer organizes experience—when there’s no internal commentator, no controller, no center manipulating the moment—what remains is not nothing. What remains is the organ of Being, alive and responsive. The body moves. The mind thinks. But they do so as aspects of a larger unfolding, not as proprietors of action.
This is why flow feels so right. Not because it’s heightened performance, but because it’s unfiltered reality. Not the ego stepping aside, but the self-structure falling silent. And in that silence, Being moves.
When you are completely absorbed in what you are doing, the self disappears. That is the essence of flow: the absence of self-centered consciousness. – Csikszentmihalyi
So perhaps the question isn’t “Where am I going?” but rather, what is moving through me when there is no one going?
And then, as the Cat said, any road will do. Because you’re no longer seeking the path, you are the path.
John Harper is a Diamond Approach® teacher, Enneagram guide, and a student of human development whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and deep experiential inquiry. He is the author of The Enneagram World of the Child: Nurturing Resilience and Self-Compassion in Early Life and Good Vibrations: Primordial Sounds of Existence, available on Amazon.