Natural Silence

Natural Silence: 

it's a nosier world these days, now more than ever there's an undercurrent of sounds that keep our nervous system on edge. I live in a beautiful town with inviting green space spread throughout, and I take full advantage of this with an active lifestyle of walking and running, seeking quiet and solitude in the earliest of morning before most people even consider getting out of bed. But still there are cars and buses in commute, planes in almost constant flight overhead, the low hum of the busyness of life in all it's myriad forms. It's seems a great shame that we've lost our natural silence, especially the quiet of night and those early hours of predawn when the world should be at rest. 

yet there is still a deep quiet to be found.

just beneath the dim of everyday life. 

if we listen...

we'll hear our natural silence once again. 

in the tradition of my meditation practice it's said that the ancient Rishis heard 108 sacred sounds, vibrational patterns of the cosmos that they translated into Sanskrit mantras to be used in for chanting and meditation. To follow the vibration of a mantra is to dive into deep depths of consciousness, our natural silence that is the allowing place for every thought and sound to occur. It's not the absence of sound that is found here, but a nourishing stillness that remains present after their passing. 

it's that presence that I return to.

and it's nature that shows me how. 

what I've learned is that every sound of nature is a mantra, a vibrational pattern that serves to bring me back to an easy quiet There's no need for me to chant or spend hours in deep meditation, the chatter of a squirrel scolding another, geese in honking flight above me, a stream giving voice to the motion of water - theses sounds carry me back to a natural silence. With each walk I am taught the true yoga of living in a nosier world, learning to rest just beneath the busyness of everyday life. 

to be a yogi, a Rishi...in a suburban world. 

~

Peace, Eric