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Inner
Frontier Fourth Way Spiritual Practice |
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Inner Work For the weeks of April 17 & 24, 2017
Stillness The sky is silent. And so is our deep mind. The sky is ever-present. And so is our deep mind. Often we do not see the sky. Often we lose contact with our deep mind. We stand outdoors to see the sky. We can stand in presence to be in our deep mind. To see the sky, we look up. To be in our deep mind, we listen to the stillness. To practice opening to stillness, we can sit quietly and begin with the stillness of our relaxed body. We notice thoughts moving across our mind, like clouds across the sky. We let them move, as we relax into our mind, behind, beneath, and around our thoughts. The sky is unmoved by clouds. Our deep mind is unmoved by thoughts, mere ripples on its surface. This mind is quiet, the cognizant space through which thoughts move. We enter the stillness of our mind, undisturbed by thoughts, emotions, sights, sounds, and sensations. The cognizant silence surrounds all that goes on. We listen to that inner silence. We abide in the stillness that transcends inner and outer. Peace permeates our being. In silence, we do not need to be someone, not even ourselves. We can just be. What a relief! Even with outer sounds, there can still be inner stillness. When we need to speak, we can do so from the stillness within, without having to be someone who is speaking. The speaking moves through us, while we remain in our silent being. When we need to act, we can do so from the stillness within, without having to be someone who is acting. The action moves through us, while we remain at peace. Allowing right action to move through us, without having to be someone, removes the burden of ego and separateness. For those moments, we are liberated from ourselves. We breathe easy, with relief and release. With no need to be our separate self, when our name is just a useful label, we no longer hold ourselves apart from the world around us. We enter the realm of oneness, of unity, of love. Stillness is the face of the timeless. In stillness, time recedes as eternity embraces us. Events occur in this one expansive moment, which has no beginning and no end. This is our spiritual home: no time, one space, no me. Just one us in this beautiful world. Back on the surface, back in time, it is not like that. Instead of oneness, we have fragmentation, splinters and shards of the underlying reality. In time, we are separate and may even treat each other as objects or impediments. Yet we can live in both worlds, in time and eternity, in the fractured and the unified. Dipping into the stillness reminds us. Through soaking in the stillness, we can carry that wonder into our life in time. The eternal stays with us as we go about our day. We become that. Whatever the circumstances, we can act, we can be, and we can be at peace. For this week, please practice hearing the silence behind all sound. Soak in the stillness and be. |
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