Embracing Stillness
A Journey of Awareness
A reflective journey through nature‘s wisdom and the profound simplicity of just being.
In the quiet interlude between the bustling winds, beneath the vast expanse of a dynamic sky, I find myself reflecting on the journey that has led to this moment of serene observation. The undulating hills before me, clad in the vibrant green of life, stand as silent witnesses to the transformation that has unfolded within me.
There was a time when my days were filled with ceaseless activity, my mind a cacophony of ambitions and desires. Like many, I was a restless spirit, a wayfarer on the beaten paths of worldly pursuits. Yet, amid this fervor, I remained oblivious to the profound simplicity that life offered. This ceaseless striving, I have come to realize, was but a dance of shadows and light, a play of consciousness that I mistook for the entirety of existence.
“The change,” as I have grown to call it, was not marked by fanfare or sudden enlightenment, as so many tales suggest. It was a subtle shift, like the gradual turning of the seasons, where the once vibrant leaves of my identity slowly faded into a tranquil autumnal hue. I woke to a reality where my previous fervor seemed a distant echo, and in its place, a calm observation took root.
In this newfound clarity, the hills and clouds converse in a language beyond words, imparting wisdom through their silent transformations. They teach of nonduality, of the oneness that pervades all. The clouds do not consider themselves separate from the sky, nor do the hills claim distinction from the earth. They exist in effortless harmony, a testament to the universe’s unspoken unity.
I often ponder the paradox of this realization. How to convey the essence of a shift that is felt so deeply yet defies the confines of language? Words, with all their might, cannot encapsulate the totality of such an awakening. For to truly understand is to experience — to dissolve into the vastness of consciousness as effortlessly as the clouds meld into the horizon.
This realization is not to say that the dance of life ceases. The world continues its rhythms, the people and their plays go on. But for me, the dance has changed its tempo. I find myself an observer of the cosmic ballet, less a participant and more a witness to the extraordinary ordinariness of existence.
In moments of deep introspection, I recognize that even this role of observer is but a construct, another layer to shed in understanding the nature of reality. For in the grand tapestry of existence, there is no observer and observed — there is just the act of being, a universal consciousness expressing itself in infinite forms.
The frustration, then, lies not in the transformation itself but in the yearning to share this vision with those who see the hills as mere earth and the clouds as mere vapor. How does one convey the sweetness of water to those who have not tasted thirst? Or describe the warmth of the sun to those who have never stepped out of the shade?
I dwell in this space of knowing and not-knowing, where the only truth that remains is the presence of the present. The hills, with their eternal patience, remind me to embrace the stillness, to observe the ever-changing yet unchanging landscape of life.
In the quietude of these green sanctuaries, under the watchful gaze of the clouds, I am reminded of the delicate balance between being and non-being, doing and non-doing. And it is here, in this sacred space between breaths, that I understand the profound simplicity of just being — not as Steve, not as an identity or a role, but as the experience itself. The universe whispers its secrets, not through words, but through the very essence of existence. And for now, that is enough.
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