You've been hiking for two hours in a forest of tall trees. The ground beneath your feet is fresh and moist. The leaves that surround you are vibrant and green, brimming with life. They gently sway back and forth, dancing in the mellow breeze. With each breath and every step, you feel your body fill with fresh oxygen. All of a sudden, in the middle of this forest, you stop to take it all in. As you stand motionless amongst the life around you, the quiet, unnerving stillness overwhelms your senses. The energy you're feeling is profound. Time has stopped. The day, week and year are irrelevant. Yet, there is something even more relevant permeating your Being.
Within that timeless moment you are noticing Life through a different lens. The air you breathe is so rich, so full of vitality. Within each breath, a story is being told. With each inhalation, you feel simultaneously calmer and vaster. There is a song within that stillness and you want to know the words. Its melody abounds with answers, beauty and wisdom. With every breath you feel elevated to a dimension of truth. This song of timeless silence is making you feel connected to the forest - and the present moment - more than you ever thought possible. You feel at one with the breeze, leaves, ground, trees and light.
This song of beauty and wisdom that the forest sings to you is already carried in your soul. The vast stillness of the forest is the same vast stillness of your soul. The ancient answers to the mysteries of the universe are carried within the cells of those tall trees, and also within the cells of your mind. We are truly that connected to everything around us. We are truly that vast and that beautiful. And the key to unlocking your own forest within is meditation. The breath becomes a tool for unlocking the truth of our lives. Each breath that quiets the mind is actually opening a portal into the depth of your Being, your internal world.
There is a whole world within each of us waiting to be discovered. In this internal world reside our compassion, forgiveness, and intuition, our Higher Self, and our gift to the world. Our purpose resides in the songs of our souls. The quieter the mind, the more melodically this song will reverberate. The stiller a person's Being, the brighter their light will shine through the mysteries in their path. The most beautiful gift we can give ourselves in this lifetime is meditation. Each time we sit in stillness with eyes closed, focusing on the breath, becomes a ticket to the Heaven within.
It takes training to release the wandering thoughts and bring the focus back to the breath. But the world we encounter by doing so makes that effort abundantly worthwhile; and all it takes is a few seconds of no thought for stillness to be attained. That is all it takes to push into the portal of the internal world, and the mind will remember those few seconds. The key is to keep to the daily discipline of meditation, however brief the session may be. Begin with five minutes, then gradually work up to twenty minutes per day. The longer we meditate, the more opportunity we give the mind to achieve those few seconds of no thought, and hence, to make contact with the internal world.
A connection to one's Being is vital. The answers to your life's questions reside in your stillness. The path leading to your greatness resides within your internal world. It allows us to move away from mundane chords to lives filled with internal music and harmony. This is because the noises and opinions of the world do us no good. We each have a unique contribution to offer everyone around us. Like the crisp air in the forest, full of life and grace, each person's contribution is of immense value to the whole. But you must have stillness to tap into your purpose, to move society with the song of your soul and to bring joy to the hearts of many - and most importantly, to your own heart.
There is a song within each of us that the world needs to hear.
MichelleZarrin.com