On Spiritual Practices

Tags

calmness, clarity, Earth Day, mental peace, spirituality, stillness

This week’s blog post consists of some ‘live’ musings and observations on spiritual practices, derived from my walk on Earth Day, written while on my favorite trail. Hope you enjoy!

Friday, April 22 was Earth Day. So, rain or not over the past three days, there was no question that I was going to walk the trail that I walk every Friday. Thinking that my regular route would be really wet, I decided to go clockwise instead of my usual anti-clockwise route. This led to perhaps my slowest walk around the trail ever… partly because of the wetness of the earth, to the extent that much of the trail seems almost impassable. I had to walk the edges, sinking in mud on occasions, but I kept going. Practice? You may need to slow down on occasion , particularly on unfamiliar routes, but keep walking.

I almost turned around in retreat, until I saw a small bridge in the distance – this meant that I could go to slightly higher ground and then double back over the bridge, back onto the path, about a quarter mile downstream. My walk could continue, instead of me having to retreat. As I walked, I was grateful for the person who had the foresight to put the two disparate pieces of wood together to create the makeshift bridge. Practice? Be a bridge-builder when you can. You never know who will benefit from it.

Some beautiful blues and greens came into view, which made me pause, even kneel on one knee at times… to watch, and gently touch the new leaves emerging from buds. Yes, I am welcomed by the tiniest of thorns too, as I gently hold the edge of a soft branch swaying in the wind in order to still it – so that I can take a better portrait! Practice? With new growth will come thorns too – there are blessings in them all.

The pond is gorgeously clear after all the rain of the past few days… and the Sun rising above the tall trees scatters through some of the clouds, spraying whiteness everywhere, as I marvel at the next bridge that is going to take me across… Practice? Look in all directions as you walk, and occasionally upwards too.

And as I pause on the other side of the second bridge, looking at the sun, I am right upfront with a tree that is already flowering. The faintest scent of the flowers awakens me yet again to a different sensation – a reminder that truth, awareness and bliss are everywhere to be found – that is the reality that we need faith in, along with faith in our path and faith in our guide(s) – when we have all three, then there isn’t any energy in the universe that can stop us from rising. Practice? Be ready for surprises. They will often come when you are in alignment with faith.

The lake is amazingly still and full of light. A bench by the lake invites me to sit. I accept, and sit, and wait for any geese or ducks to show up and swim in the empty lake. After a while, a single goose walks up to the shore in the distance, enters the water, and takes ownership of the lake. His swimming sends ripples through the stillness of the surface, changing the nature of the reflections within it. And then, a little bit later, perhaps encouraged by the goose, a pair of mallard ducks leaves their refuge along the shore and decide to take a swim too… safety in numbers? When one decides to be brave, others get courage… Practice? Watch the ripples and disturbances of the mind – stillness and clarity go together.

And now, as I’m ready to finish the walk, it’s time for two tiny swallows to practice skimming, and even dive the lake’s surface… more ripples, more spreading of joy, more emergence of sunlight from beyond the solitary cloud as the breeze warms up a bit as it picks up speed… but the windmill by the lake barely moves – it is still largely unimpressed. Practice? Keep your heart open and you fill find joy rush in through the smallest of things.

As I was finally leaving, another tree and her blooms invited me closer – and I literally walked up to her and laid my face ever so gently into the arms of the flowers – it felt so soft, loving and gentle – a beautiful reminder that the Earth and her love for us knows no bounds. All we need to do is pause, embrace and remember.

As I returned home to a book that I had received as a gift on my recent India trip, this message about spiritual practices came from my post-walk reading…

“The real spiritual training is which makes our mind disciplined and regulated, restores moderation in senses and faculties, and creates lightness of spirit. Then alone internal peace and calmness is ensured and a higher approach is possible.” – Babuji in Reality at Dawn

I wish you all the best in your spiritual practices. I hope that they bring you internal peace and calmness as you move higher. Namaste.

Kumud

P.S. join us for our weekly twitter chat with the #SpiritChat community on twitter, Sunday April 24 at 9amET / 630pm India. We will discuss spiritual practices – old and new, simple and complex over tea, cookies and questions. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Some of my new friends – from Earth Day

The bridge – that kept me going…

The Sun sprays cloud-light upwards…

I sit with the stillness… before the goose and the ducks arrive…

The Magic of Slowing Down

Tags

serenity, silence, slowing down, stillness

I have always been a fan of the number nine. I was delighted when I first found out that if you added the number nine to any number, and you sum up the resulting digits, you got back the sum of the digits that you started with. Nine is preservative in addition. So, let’s say we begin with 25. Two plus five is seven. Now, add nine, and we get 34. Three plus four is seven. Let’s add ninety-nine. 34 plus 99 is 133. One plus three plus three is seven. Try adding 999. 1132. Still seven.

Now try multiplication with nine. Nine becomes transformative. The resulting sum of the digits will always be nine. 25 times 9 is 225. Two plus two plus five is nine. 25 times 99 is 2,475. Two plus four plus seven plus five is 18. One plus eight is 9. Yes, we can play with nines like this all day long. Magical when we slow down to contemplate, isn’t it?

In human life, when nine is engaged in multiplication, it becomes an agent for transformation. For example, it takes nine months for a human baby to be born. Is there any greater act of transformation than two cells becoming a baby? Can you think of an example in our daily lives where addition by nine represents preservation? I will give you a personal example. 

Nine years ago to the day, give or take a few days, a few folks gathered on twitter on a Sunday morning at 11am ET and had a conversation about spirituality. The topic was, “On Slowing Down”. There was no agenda or expectation that there would even be a second conversation the following Sunday. It was simply an experiment inspired by a question posed by me to one of my good friends – why isn’t there any chat on twitter about spirituality? Wayne’s response was —  so what if there isn’t one? Why don’t you start one? 

Answer a question with a question. That’s the classic way in which a teacher and mentor can nudge us to do something that takes us out of our comfort zone. I remember thinking back then — what will I even talk about? So, I asked Wayne again. What should the topic be? His response was — what do you love doing most? Talk about that. Hmm. What do I love doing most? I love slowing down, sitting and doing “nothing”. I learnt that from my Dad.

He could sit and read the newspaper for hours. He could sit in absolute stillness and silence with a cup of tea at peace for what seemed the longest time. He could stand in the kitchen patiently and tend to the assembly of his seven-layered, seven-colored rice dish for what seemed like forever. You simply couldn’t rush him for anything.

So, in the last week of July, which happens to be his birthday week (he would have been eight six this year), on a Sunday morning in 2011, a few friends of mine gathered and chatted about “slowing down”. There were only three questions. I did not ask the first question until twenty minutes into the hour. We had no idea what we were doing except that we were all simply happy to be there, enjoying each other’s company as we held our cups of tea or coffee and wondered about the merits of “slowing down”. 

That was then. Nine years ago. It seems like a life-time or more in online years. And yet, not much has changed in some ways since 2011, has it? If anything, the need for us to experience the magic of slowing down is all the more greater, isn’t it? How else is one to engage in remembrance and gratitude, if not through the active process of slowing down? How else, if not by slowing down, am I to thank all of those who have sent hundreds of thousands of words of hope and inspiration to the #SpiritChat community over the years?

How about slowing down offline? It is in slowing down that I can watch and deeply feel the sun rise slowly at the eastern end of the street at dawn or feel the silvery glow of the sliver of the moon’s rising at dusk. Slowing down allows me to contemplate the beauty of the flower that was separated overnight and fell to the ground in homage to the earth. It allows me to touch the dew fallen in the grass with light feet, and inhale the air of the cool morning breeze before the heat rises and melts it away. And yes – how is one to engage in meditation, if not by first slowing down physically and remembering to bring myself to a state of rest?

So yes, slowing down allows us to return to remembrance. Regularly slowing down within allows us to be in constant remembrance.  What kind of remembrance? The external world will be relentless in its demands on us, and yet That stillness will remain in our hearts forever. It shall be patiently waiting for us to accept its invitation to visit with it, to let the outer world be, and to choose to be immersed in the world within. Will we make that choice? How much can we slow ourselves down? Will we observe the observer and remember that there is That permanent, indestructible, all-loving, all-joyous, all-truthful One within All off us?

That remains the great question, the great challenge.

Nature has some pointers for us. As fast as a hummingbird flies or a bee buzzes or a butterfly flaps her wings, they all have to slow down, to come to a moment of stillness, so that they can experience the magical taste of the nectar of life. What can we learn from their behavior? Even the new puppy, who can go a hundred miles an hour, has to pause for a drink of water, a nibble at her food bowl, before she can take off again like an express train towards her next station of play.

Like the piano virtuoso Wayne Mcevilly, who inspired me to start the weekly chat nine years ago said — the greatest classical music compositions are so because the composers put as much care into putting the pauses into the right place, as they did into assigning the notes that each instrument is to play.

Let us condense nine years into nine minutes. That is my invitation to you. Take nine minutes and be still. Watch your breath or the light in your heart or the sunrise or the sunset or a single flower dancing in the stillness. Absolute stillness. There is magic in all of That. Thou art That. That is all there Is. 

We all can experience all of That, if we were to embrace the act of slowing down. No magic necessary. 

Kumud

P.S. Join me and the #SpiritChat community on Sunday, July 26 at 9amET as we slow down to create some magic. I look forward to hearing from you about your experiments with pure stillness. I will bring tea and maybe even some cake – you bring your open hearts and we will chat. Namaste – @AjmaniK

A bee slows down to visit a butterfly bush in the front yard

 

On Creating Clarity

Tags

awareness, clarity, spiritual practice, stillness

Over the past twenty four hours or so, a warm front sitting over the state has removed all the signs of winter from the landscape. Fierce winds and rain have lashed the west-facing windows and sidings as a reminder of the transition. The “wind tunnel” effect that pulls the wind off of the lake and guides it in the space between the back of the house and the forest, has created a continuous roar for two straight nights.

The unseasonal weather has resulted in seemingly erratic behavior among many birds and animals, if not some humans. Unanticipated transitions tend to remove clarity from our minds and replace it with doubt. When our outer environment is greatly disturbed or disrupted, the antennas that monitor our inner space try to recalibrate and reorient themselves.

Our spiritual practices — those that help us build reservoirs of resilience, patience, calmness, jurisprudence open-minded acceptance, and discernment — are often tested during ‘unseasonal’ weather. It is in these seasons of great disruption that the heart draws on our reservoirs of intuition to restore clarity. When we evoke the heart’s trust, it helps ensure that we remember to operate from a state of calmness in the midst of confusion.

Clarity of the heart helps us see the temporary for what it is, and remember the permanent for what It is.

The forecast is for a bit of snow to return over the next day or so. The heart awaits in the knowing that every season brings its own clarity.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly twitter gathering Sunday Jan 12 at 9amET in #SpiritChat. Bring your heart’s weather with you – I will bring some tea and we shall chat. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Finding Zen in a Noisy Social World

Tags

healing, silence, spirituality, stillness, zen

In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.” ― Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness

We are living in an era where the online and offline worlds are deeply intertwined. “Going online” happens faster than the blink of an eye, and five minutes to check an email or a Facebook message stretches far beyond the time that most don’t even feel they have to begin with.

Welcome to the digital era. A powerful resource for exchanging information and ideas, for creating impact, for creating change. Over the last decade, social influence has snowballed into a fast-paced, never-ending stream of data that most consume by default. Consequently, many are experiencing frustration, anxiety, stress, identity crisis and, sadly, even death as a result of the “noise” that constantly permeates our global and individual psyche, day in and day out.

You can only make sense of the online world by going offline and by getting the wisdom and emotional clarity to know how to make the best use of the Internet. — Pico Iyer

Investing time offline, on a consistent basis, is a practice that provides the inner peace, clarity, and wisdom we need to not only survive in this noisy world, but to thrive. Those who choose to integrate mindful practices into their daily lives are the ones who will be the true change agents, creating a more conscious, connected and creative world.

How conscious are we being with the use of the Internet and our devices? Is the media governing our time and our thoughts? How can we take a more conscious approach to the online space? In doing so, could we create more impact, gain greater fulfillment, make more meaningful connections?

You’re cordially invited to join us for a global conversation to discuss the topic “Finding Zen in a Noisy Social World.” This is a #SpiritChat community event taking place on the Twitter platform this Sunday October 28 at 9am ET. For a distraction free experience, join us in the chat room @ tweetchat.com/room/spiritchat.

We look forward to having you join us!

Christine L Bowen (CLB)

———

Finding Zen in a Noisy Social World

A Global #SpiritChat Community Event

Sunday, October 28 @ 9a ET

tweetchat.com/room/spiritchat

Christine L Bowen (CLB) is a creative, outgoing, and authentic person whose core values are Absolute Faith & The Golden Rule. She lives presently, loves wholeheartedly, laughs regularly, and she’s extremely passionate about living life at its highest potential and inspiring others to do the same.

With over 30 years of combined experience in the areas of visual communication, professional networking, and mass media, Christine passionately serves as a Creative Consultant to heart-centered entrepreneurs who desire to achieve a higher level of excellence with their brand identity & social presence.

Her unique approach inspires them to infuse consciousness, connection, and creativity into their TOTAL presence, empowering them to intuitively attract and align with the ideal people and opportunities; creating more sustainable, thriving, and fulfilling businesses… and lives!

www.christinelbowen.com

———

I am delighted that Christine will be hosting our weekly #SpiritChat for us on Sunday, October 28th. This is part of our new initiative to bring new voices to host the weekly chat. Thank you, Christine! – Kumud @AjmaniK

Fruits of Solitude

Tags

silence, solitude, spirituality, stillness

The month of March was unique for me in many ways. As one who has naturally tended towards silence, and lately towards stillness, it surely was a month filled with a lot of activity, including change and travel. Two of the #SpiritChat conversations in March were about silence and stillness (with Janet Nestor). There was also the beautiful conversation on serendipity (with Elisa Balabram).

We filled three of the four S-quadrants in March – in April, we return to color in the fourth S-quadrant – Solitude. On the face of it, solitude could pass for the fraternal twin of silence, and a close cousing of stillness. In the context of spiritual practice, solitude bears sweet fruit when it is a choice made with a sense of freedom. When imposed upon us, solitude can be a form of bullying, of punishment, of retribution. Solitary confinement was (and still is) often used as one of the most effective forms of “breaking the spirit” of prisoners.

Solitude as imposition, often bears bitter fruit, which creates an energy of insecurity, fear, anger and more. One other undesirable fruit of forced solitude is that of loneliness. When we feel isolated, a sense of loneliness invades our heart and weakens our light. After the basic necessities of life are met, one of our greatest needs is perhaps the need to belong. It takes great inner (spiritual) strength to be in a state where we can feel absolutely content in being, and staying alone, without a sense of loneliness eventually creeping in.

Even though we may occasionally, by choice, turn away from the world, deep, prolonged solitude is a tough mountain to climb…

I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said, “The master’s gone alone
Herb-picking somewhere on the mount,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.”
— Chia Tao in My Country and My People

Yes. It takes a certain Mastery of our own self to be at peace, even joyful, in our choice of solitude. And yet, it is often unnerving to be alone with this stranger that we often only know in the context of our relationships, our jobs, our accomplishments. We are often at see when left with our own selves, aren’t we? The regular practice of silence and stillness do help us along the way. Serendipitious discoveries on the path – an unexpected burst of spring blooms as we turn the bend, an unfamiliar yet welcoming bird call, a flash of sunlight through the trees – reinforce our choice and our practice.

And then, spring comes, and we learn to bloom, to thrive with the stranger whose silent, still company once made us uncomfortable. Solitude begins to produce that sweet fruit which we feel comfortable to share with the strangers around us. In embracing solitude, we truly embrace Oneness. In embracing Oneness, we become the masters who look forward to traveling alone, to a destination unknown…

Kumud

P.S. I invite you to join us on Sunday, April 8th at 9amET on twitter, as we gather to talk about solitude… in the community that is #SpiritChat. Namaste 🙂

Fruits of Solitude – Passionfruit and Pomegranate (on farm in Brazil)

Stillness – by @JanetNestor

Tags

silence, stillness

“When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself” ― Lao Tzu

When I think of stillness, I instantly thought of the Taoist philosophy lectures during my Chi Healing classes many years ago. I remember the foundational teachings of Tai Chi and feel of the Qi Gong form that I practice regularly. Stillness is part of the human journey.

Using ancient thought from Chinese Medicine, energy is often categorized as yin or yang. Yang energy is sunshine, masculine, and movement oriented. Yang energy likes to get things done quickly and push to the finish line – it is direct, logical, and rational. Yin energy is feminine energy, moonbeams, soft and passive. Yin energy will stop, listen to a bird’s song and enjoy the moment – it is relaxed, imaginative, intuitive and will “sleep on” a decision rather than rush to the finish line. Each of us, male and female, young or old, is a mix of these two energies.

Stillness, yin energy, is by its nature rooted and grounded. Grounded energy is solidly connected to life and the earth. This sense of flow, permanence, and moment to moment connection creates a life lived in the present moment, de-emphasizing the past and the future. A present moment lifestyle tends to center you, meaning that you are fully aligned and allow the flow of spiritual energy and earth energy into your body and energy field. A now-centered life tends to become one that is energetically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually balanced.

Yin energy is built into each of us – a part of our humanness – a part of our body structure through our yin and yang meridian system (vessels used in acupuncture) and our yin and yang organs. For example, your central nervous system is made up of yin and yang meridians, and your body is made up of yin and yang organs. Your yin organs are your heart, lungs, kidneys, and spleen and they primarily produce and regulate your blood and bodily fluids. Your yang organs are gallbladder, urinary bladder, stomach, small and large intestines and one of the meridian vessels called the triple warmer, the meridian that takes you into fight or flight in times of danger. The yang organs mainly digest food and transmit nutrients to your body. As you can see, there is communication and cooperation between your meridians and organs keeping you mentally and physically vital and alive.

Because each of us has yin energy woven into our very existence, each of us can choose to embrace the yin within us and allow the growth of our inner-stillness. We can claim the gift that is woven into the fabric of our being. I have a favorite phrase I always share with anyone having difficulties claiming their inner-stillness – Why would the Creator allow you to be born without the ability to “phone home”? Your yin energy is your GPS and your telephone line to home – to the world of spirit – to the strength of Creation – from which you came.

I’ve chosen to share two very easy ways to use your phone line and your GPS system home to the stillness within.

• Close your eyes, breathe consciously, bringing your in-breath from your belly and fully inflating your lungs. On the out-breath, exhale slowly and thoroughly. Continue breathing in this way for a minute or two. Ask your body and spirit this question: Will you show me how to quiet my mind and find the inner silence and stillness that is within me? Continue to breathe, trusting that gradually one breath and one day at a time you will be shown the way.
• Gap Breathing: Breathe using the directions above. After a few breaths, on the next in-breath, inhale deeply and hold the breath. Listen closely. There is not one sound in that gap between your in-breath and out-breath. There is total stillness. Exhale and hold the breath again. You will once again find that same stillness. You learn to trust this silence and stillness and extend it from one or two seconds into minutes. Eventually, experiencing the silence and stillness will feel normal and natural, and you will be able to tap into it anytime you choose.

– Janet Nestor

Contact Information

• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JanetNestor http://www.facebook.com/JanetGNestor
• Facebook group co/admin – http://www.facebook.com/groups/IAMChoosingLove/
• Twitter: @JanetNestor
• Website and blog: http://www.mindfulpathways.com

Please join @JanetNestor as she steps up to host #Spiritchat (twitter chat) on Sunday, March 18th at 9amEDT. This will be Janet’s debut at hosting the chat (although I have co-hosted her a few times before…). Janet is a wonderful friend and long-term member and participant in the #Spiritchat community. Thank you, Janet, for stepping up to host the live chat as I travel… Namaste. – Kumud

On Practicing Silence

Tags

silence, solitude, stillness

The practice of silence is perhaps one of the tougher practices in this age of so much noise and chatter. To experience external silence, one has to make a concentrated effort to filter out the inputs that are clamoring for our attention. Even during sleep, noise surrounds us, even though some of us sound sleepers are fortunate to be blissfully unaware of it. Have you ever noticed that you wake up on some days feeling completely rested, while on others, you are still tired? Why is that?

One reason for the difference between a ‘sound’ sleep and an ‘unsound’ one is perhaps the amount of ‘internal noise’ that we may have experienced during the night. When we get ready to go to sleep after a particularly hectic, busy, noise-filled day, our brain has not had enough time during our waking state to fully process all the inputs that it received during the day. Our central processing unit, the brain, has only so much processing power. So, when overloaded, it tends to enqueue the unprocessed inputs. It is these excess, unprocessed inputs that the brain then processes during the night – in the very hours that we are physically at rest, but mentally wide awake!

And so we begin the next day, often to the sound of a jarring, noisy sounding alarm, which literally sets the tone for the day to come. And the cycle repeats itself, until the weekend, when we can (hopefully) take some time off from the treadmill of external chatter and noise. But the weekend is often not enough time to rest our body and mind, never mind the spirit. And so we look forward to the next vacation, or at least a three- or four-day weekend, to play catch-up, to truly feel physically, mentally, and spiritually rested again. I have a proposition.

What if we could vacate our mind-brain on a regular basis, every single day? Let us develop a practice, so that we actively immerse ourselves in silence at the beginning and end of every day. The moment that we wake up, we dive into silence. We may start with fifteen minutes, grow to thirty minutes, and then progress to an hour of morning silence. If we can be physically silent, then we have a better chance to be mentally silent. At the end of every day, laying in bed, what if we were to take a few minutes to be physically, and then mentally silent? How would the quality of sleep improve with this practice?

Once we can develop a practice to be mentally quiet when physically still at the beginning and end of every day, we can invoke that quiet state any time during the day. We can even invoke silence while in motion, even amidst the great noise of the world. And when we can be internally silent on demand, we have taken one giant step towards invoking peace, joy and lightness, no matter our external state of stimulus.

In the true depth of our inner silence, we discover our connectedness to the infinite. In silence, we discover that our heart has the capacity to be like the ocean that refuses no river. For it is in silence, that we can hear the message, the purpose, of the seed that was planted in us at birth.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us for our weekly conversation on twitter – Sunday, March 11th at 9amET/1pmUTC/6:30pmIndia. Please note that we shift to daylight savings time in my time zone this Sunday. The live hour of #SpiritChat will arrive an hour early for those not observing the one hour time-shift. Namaste!

Practicing Silence…

Be Still and Focus on Love of Self – by @llake

Tags

love, self-care, stillness

Welcome to #31daysofselfcare2018 This morning was one rough morning. It followed a rough day that was yesterday. It’s really hard to deal with a series of problems that you can’t control, especially when the outcomes are tied to decisions that other people are making. It’s really hard to control anger and frustration. I struggle with…

via Be Still and Focus on Love of Self — Lillian Lake

It is with great pleasure and excitement that I will welcome our good friend, Lillian Lake (@llake on twitter) to be our guest for our weekly #SpiritChat conversation – Sunday, January 21st 2018 at 9amET on twitter. Our topic will be “Be Still and Focus on Love of Self“. Please read Lillian’s post on the topic (linked above) , and make sure to subscribe to her wonderful blog. Thank you, Lillian, for writing about this topic, and your entire #31daysofselfcare2018 series to get us started well in 2018  – Kumud @AjmaniK

In her own words, “Lillian is a focused, compassionate speaker, fostering meaningful life connections.” You can connect with Lillian, and find out more about her and her work through the following ways:

mobile: 207-557-5196

lillianlake.com

Franklin Journal columnist

twitter.com/llake

https://www.facebook.com/humantraffickingeducation/

https://www.facebook.com/lillianlake1111/

On Experiencing Stillness

Tags

experience, practice, silence, spirituality, stillness

The stillness with which leaves appear and grow on the trees… an overnight flood that greens the forest right before my very eyes… even the breeze has stood still to gawk at their brilliance…

The stillness with which the single goose swims in the lake at dusk… perhaps looking at his own shadow on the calm surface as it mingles with the fading light of the post-sunset glow…

The stillness with which the mother goose sits on her freshly laid eggs among the rapidly growing tall grasses… as she patiently grows life anew to sustain the promise of staying true to perpetuating the cycle of life…

The stillness with which the puppy watches the play of the geese on the water after he has registered his protest to them in no uncertain terms when he deemed that they were ‘in his space’ in the field where they came out to dry themselves off on this overcast day… in the same field where he chases robins on sunny days…

The stillness with which the rain falls on the lake and sets off circular ripples that dissolve into each other and quietly, imperceptibly raise the level of the lake… and spread infinite possibility in their wake…

The stillness with which the daffodils appear at the beginning of spring… in seemingly random clusters to light up the forest floor… a welcoming committee getting their color on to greet the leaves on the trees that are soon to follow…

The stillness of the morning fog that waits for the sun to rise high and turn it into dew drops on the daffodils… so that the hummingbirds and butterflies and bumblebees can awaken from their slumber and slake their early morning thirst…

The stillness that comes over the forest between pre-dawn and sunrise after the single morning lark has announced the wakening call of sunrise, only to then go silent in deference to the rising sun’s horse-drawn chariot emerging from the East…

And I haven’t even yet talked about the inner stillness that is inspired by, reflected in, is a conduit for, all of this outer stillness… for that is a gift of stillness that is an amalgamation of light and lightness and color and joy and levity that transcends any experience that the stillness of the outer world, limited as it is by our outward facing senses can present to us… imagine That.

Better yet, experience It.

For yourself.

Meditate.

On That.

Kumud @AjmaniK

Join our weekly twitter chat held Sunday April 30th, 2017 with the #SpiritChat community. We will try and experience stillness among conversation in our connection… Bring your stillnesss stories. I will bring tea and cookies…

On Experiencing Stillness… with flowers

On Stillness and Silence

Tags

silence, spiritchat, spirituality, stillness

I had planned to sleep in Saturday morning… the one day in a week where I feel that I can have a few extra winks, as a throwback to my ‘younger’ days when I could sleep for as long as a I wanted to, at any given place 🙂 But, getting ‘older’ has its ‘side-effects. One of those is this propensity to wake up at exactly the same (early) hour every morning, ready to begin the day. Over the summer, my days have fallen into the habit of beginning with ‘meditation’.

The word, ‘meditation’, along with ‘yoga’, is getting a lot of press these days. It is perhaps for good reason, because, as our lives get busier, and we feel the imbalance(s) caused by the dynamic energy of stress, some of us may seek therapies that can help restore balance for us. Any new practice, whether it be ‘meditation’, ‘yoga’, ‘mindfulness’ or a combination of them, requires practice before we can feel some positive changes within and without. In addition, we may have to review some of our conditioned responses, divest some of our habits, in order to allow these new(er) practices into our daily life.

One of the habits that has served me well for a long time, even before ‘meditation’ and ‘mindfulness’ were practices for me, is the practice of silence, the practice of stillness. Some say that we have to be still and silent before we can truly ‘meditate’, while say the opposite – that it is ‘meditation’ which helps us be silent, experience stillness. Either way, let us focus on silence and stillness. ‘Being quiet’ in the context of ‘not speaking’ is only a very rudimentary form of silence. True silence is a ‘systemic’ event. There are three aspects to complete or ‘systemic’ silence:

1. Silence of the body. One way of achieving this is by being physically still, in a comfortable posture, which we can hold for a reasonable amount of time. Good posture tends to put us in a dynamic tension and equilibrium, avoiding superfluous motion. My ‘posture of silence’ may be different from yours. I hope you have an opportunity to discover yours. What may be some challenges for us in discovering, exercising our physical ‘posture of silence’?

2. Silence of the mind. I surmise that ‘mental silence’ is perhaps the toughest for many to achieve, as it is for me. It often takes me a while as I sit in my physical ‘posture of silence’, to experience slivers of ‘mental silence’. The falling rain outside the window, the chirping of a bluejay, the starting up of a car, the rustle of the breeze through the leaves – all of these tend to activate the senses and send waves of thoughts on the surface of the mental lake…

If our aim is to ‘quieten’ all thought (to silence the mind), then we may have to ‘silence’ all senses. If our objective is to fill ourselves with ‘thought’, it doesn’t take as much work, for it seems to happen naturally! Perhaps we can reframe our objective? We can choose to simply let the thoughts flow, become observers, and practice a kind of ‘mindfulness’. Or we can fill ourselves with a single, dynamic, energizing thought, which eliminates all the spurious, energy consuming thoughts that bombard our mind. What might be this single, dynamic thought?

3. Silence of the heart. Heart silence can be loosely interpreted as emotional silence. Anger, confusion, frustration and such often send negative emotions which disturb the silence of the heart. A high degree of positive emotions created by excessive praise, victory celebrations and such, can create emotions which disrupt the silence of the heart. Disruption caused by ‘positive’ emotions may be preferable to ‘negative’ emotions, but both require work to restore our heart to a state of equanimity.

Silence and stillness of the body, mind and heart – when experienced simultaneously, these three can make us feel whole again – a sense of spiritual wellness. Yes, our silence and stillness can be misinterpreted by those who do not realize or understand their value and beauty. We need to be patient, and stay with our practice, and with time, space and grace, the light that suffuses from within us will be enough to disseminate the value of silence to those that connect with us…

In writing the words above, I was fortunate to find some of my notes on silence, from the book “Silence as Yoga”. In it, Phillips Brooks is quoted about the ‘creative power of silence’ as saying:

Even in our silence, our apparent inactivity, it is good to know that we can be something for others; to know (and this we may know surely) that no man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.

It is the lives, like the stars, which simply pour down on us, the calm light of their bright and faithful being, up to which we look, and out of which we gather the deepest calm and courage. – Phillips Brooks

Namaste, be well, and enjoy your stillness and silence,

Kumud

P.S. If you have read this far, thank you. I also invite you to join us on twitter in our weekly chat in #SpiritChat on Sunday September 14th at 9am ET / 2pm UK / 6:30pm India. If you cannot join in the live chat (or you read this after the chat time), please share some thoughts on ‘silence and stillness’ in the comments below.

Ready? Deep breath. Q1. The two words ~ "Stillness and Silence" ~ what energy do they invoke within you? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511138525820227584

Q2.  Why is silence important in our lives? How is it different from stillness? Is it?  #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511139856744202241

Q3.  Physical silence (of the body) - how can we achieve it and still avoid inaction?  #spiritchat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511141852289183744 

Q4. Some say Mental silence is tough to achieve. What are some obstacles? How do you overcome them?  #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511143778087075842

Q5. Silence of the heart (of emotions) - how is it disrupted? How is it restored? #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511145458937634816 

Q6. The connection between stress, stillness and silence is...? #SpiritChat 
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511146919415271424

Q7. Q7. Choose a Single dynamic thought/emotion that would give you mind/heart 'silence'. What is it? Why? #SpiritChat 
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511148146756698112

Q8. How do we explain our practice of stillness, of silence, to the 'world'? How does it benefit the 'world'? #SpiritChat  
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511149504083820545

Q9. What would you like to ask (or tell) the community about #Stillness and/or #Silence? #SpiritChat 
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511150909775433728

Q10. If there is a project you have been working on in 'silence', and would like to share, go ahead! :) #SpiritChat
http://twitter.com/AjmaniK/status/511151989150199808

Full Transcript (with stats)

“Silence and Stillness” – the storify summary – https://storify.com/ajmanik/silence-and-stillness