“Strength for living necessitates finding a point of stillness from which I begin, and to which I return, every day: an oasis of inner peace.”
– Anthony Strano
We were always meant to integrate movement and stillness, and silence and sound, as we live our lives. Yet many of us spend most of our time only in movement and sound – no wonder we sometimes feel out of balance, exhausted, and unable to respond well to the situations we find ourselves in.
Stillness brings us back to self-mastery and harnesses the human potential from the very core. Going into a place of calm and quiet gives access to the greatness of the human spirit. When we look into a body of water that is choppy, full of ebb and flow and turbulence, we cannot see into the depths. When the water is completely still, we can then see what has been there all along. We can see into the deepest parts. In stillness we can see into the depths of the self, the soul.
Spiritual endeavour is about self-transformation. It is very important, when managing self-transformation, to flood the self with stillness to be able to profoundly see what is happening with thoughts, feelings, attitudes, perspectives – the powerful inner depths of the self. The single deepest longing of the human spirit, deep in the heart, is to return to our highest potential.
However, we cannot go directly to the new from the old. We cannot just glue wings on a caterpillar and call it a butterfly – the caterpillar needs the stillness of the chrysalis. This is a critical step. To move in a new direction, I need stillness for that movement.
“In the introspective space – I reflect. I recollect what has been forgotten for a long time.”
– Anthony Strano
In the still mirror inside, I see who I really am. All I have to do is close the gap between that which I really am and where I am now. For this to happen, stillness is the chrysalis that will activate a completely different operating system. We need a reset. Just as when a defibrillator shocks a heart that is out of synch – it will restart and function normally. We emerge from the times of stillness with a different way of being, which means we do things differently, we do things in a new way, the ‘normal’ way of being. We return to responding with clarity to our life’s story, and not reacting in the same old way with the same old outcomes.
What is it that we are connecting with in the stillness? With the long-forgotten true self, in a state where silence heals. Sometimes, physical stillness and physical silence are confused with spiritual stillness and silence. But they are very different. What we aim to do is maintain an inner stillness and silence while in physical action. However, there is something more going on as we return to the self. We are able, in that stillness, to not only return to the roots but also to the Seed. A return to God – a separate entity from I, the soul. That Being exists to remind us of who we really are, and our most intimate and eternal relationship is with that Being. In silence, in that reunion with the self, I have communion with the Divine. Then, when I come back into the field of expression, I am operating at my highest, most gracious potential.
Judi Rich is a graphic designer and fitness instructor. She is the Brahma Kumaris Centre Coordinator in Calgary, Canada.