“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10)
Living a Life of Silence
Today I want to give you a little peak into my world, share with you why things around here have been really quiet for the past year.
I have really enjoyed my little blogging journey, to be honest I never thought I would be doing something like this, but here I am, and the reason I want to continue is that I have learned so much from it.
I am far from being an eloquent or entertaining writer, but I have a feeling that writing is going to be a big part of my life. I would like to get better. I admit my output (quantity of writing) has not been impressive, it’s not that I have nothing to say, it’s just that what I really want to convey feels too overwhelming at times.
I don’t want to contribute useless noise, there’s plenty of that on the net, probably 99 % is not really meaningful.
Be Still and Know
Recently the reason I have slowed down with many of my projects, is that I am totally absorbed in my inner world. The people close to me may not sense it, but a majority of the time I just fall into my inner silence. It’s not that I am escaping the world, just moving deeper into it.
This silence is something that now descends upon me without warning, like a cosmic shower, literally it feels like I am bathing in it. This silence is deafening, I am totally engrossed, and I don’t want to do anything but bask in the blissfulness of just existing.
My inner presence feels so alive that my body feels illusory, not real. I will go to a cafe with the intention to write a blog post or work on my ebooks, but then this silence takes over me. I have nothing to say, I don’t want to say anything, this space is so blissful, so enthralling that I don’t.
For a very long time now, I just keep up appearances with the people around me. I do not want to create unnecessary awkwardness by being silent, as I know most will not understand. So I talk and say whatever maybe interesting.
There’s no reason to explain myself. They may think something is wrong, that I don’t like them, that I am crazy. I would prefer to just enjoy each others silent company, it would be the deepest communication, a communion. I love going to public places and just feeling peoples energy, the vibe in the air.
“Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.”- Margaret Lee Runbeck
I also see that most of the time people just talk to talk, we talk too much, we love to talk, why is this so? Is it just to avoid feeling empty? What else can we do?
Silence for many is incredibly uncomfortable. This divine silence I am trying to describe is not the absence of talking, it is the formless dimension making itself known, the soundless sound of existence.
What I have learned over these last few years, is that any effort in making yourself more conscious (meditating, yoga, tantra, self observation) is never wasted.Every effort becomes a spiritual credit. You eventually get to the point where these credits are enough that they make a noticeable difference, they change the very quality of your consciousness.
You awaken and strengthen your attention (consciousness) to a point where it rises above the identification with the mind you have always known.
An awareness begins to bloom in you that is not so easily swayed and taken away by all your mental noise. You realize as soon as your mind begins to wonder and you have the energy to bring yourself gently back. You ground yourself. This pure attention is a birds eye view of yourself and the world.
Once I realized that I was asleep (living unconsciously), waking myself up became my number one priority. I can say that my daily efforts have really moved me into a deeper new dimension of existence. It’s a lot of work, most wont do it, they are not aware they need do.
“Silence is the true friend that never betrays.” – Confucius
I don’t know how deep this rabbit hole goes, but I will go wherever it takes me because it is so sublime.
I am also not advocating that anyone follow me, with any path you decide to take make sure you verify everything yourself, never accept anything blindly.
I just know that I am in the midst of a deep transformation, and I will let it unfold and mature no matter how much time it takes. Reality tastes so good.
I don’t know how long I will be in this space, but I am extremely delighted to see how life miraculously unfolds.
I may write 100’s of posts this year or maybe only a handful of them. If you read my blog regularly, I am sorry, I just don’t know, and that’s ok. I am deeply at ease with life. Life is so beautiful to me.
The whole world is in the midst of unprecedented changes, something is definitely in the air. I am just trying to make the most of this cosmic play called life.
Don’t worry about me (I would not expect you to), I am not going to renounce the world and retire to the Himalayas. Life is an art of moving between the opposites, and currently I am really enjoying my alone time…soon enough I will emerge energized and inspired. Peace…one love….
If you enjoyed this post please help me out by passing it along to your friends. Tweet it, facebook it, stumble it.
The calm and peace you experience and radiate is directly felt by others. It’s so important now more than ever that people learn to quiet themselves, stop the chattering, just learn to be in restful awareness. Keep on doing exactly what you’re doing.
Love and light,
Cyn
thanks my friend :)…sending you the good vibes right now…peace
Thanks for sharing your experience Ivan. I understand what you’re experiencing and could totally identify with it. Last year I’ve been feeling the call from within to go deeper. I’ve had the strong pull from the Spirit to go deeper and I’ve made this my commitment to do so. Thanks for reaffirming this with your message.
Alicia
it is my pleasure :)..keep going deeper…i wish you the best on your journey :)…
Thank you Ivan, you too.
hi Ivan,
I would want to live like you
but depend largely on the material world and i can t.
just go within…explore your inner space..if this is something you really want…the things that are essential to your life will drop off and you will become more independent…
It’s funny, I have the same feeling too sometimes. i feel people talk way too much and I wish I could just enjoy other people’s silent company, and just immerse ourselves in the inner silence.
thats great henway :)..happy to know you can relate…be well my friend…
Absolutely lovely post! Thanks for sharing your reflection. I’ve been struggling with having learned to share knowledge through open social tools …and to get the formal credits for a M.Sc. needing to work in closed and static learning environments. It’s caused a terrible stress. What you write makes me see, that we must learn to stop behavior that accumulates stress. I begin feel having learned something absolutely necessary by taking some time …to figure out there must be a way to combine the mandatory closed and the free open ways of learning and sharing wisdom.
i’ve been reading an excellent book called “mutant message” about an american woman who spends 3 months walking across australia with aboriginals. one of the key lessons she finds herself learning is that she needs to shut up! she bombarbs the aboriginals with questions about their lifestyle, and they simply remain silent, basically ignoring her for days on end. she learns a great deal of patience through all this, and when the time is right they tell her what she needs to know. they can SENSE with INTUITION what to tell her and when to tell it to her. by interspersing periods of communication with periods of introspection and/or simply existing she is able to come to a deeper understanding of life’s lessons. after one particular period of being ignored she is told that the voice was not given to humans for talking to one another, rather it’s purpose is for singing. i can’t help but agree, and wish that i spent more time singing and dancing with close friends, since that’s still one of the best ways i know to raise my spirits.
also, many aboriginals believe in telepathy, and that if you are open, honest and have nothing to hide then you are able to communicate specific things without speaking.
perhaps it’s simple biology at work, since evolutionarily we are designed to spend most of our time working, gathering, or walking, rather than blabbering about things that have no direct impact on our lives. however, children now grow up in a world where they are bombarded with the spoken word since birth, and rarely have time to simply, as george carlin said, “poke around in the dirt with a stick.”
talk about a mutant message!
the book sounds awesome :)..will have to check it out..
It is so good, so refreshing to see somebody express their contentment, having found their space through the magic of reflection, hearing their inner voice and listening to it’s magic … it shows the journey is worth it, and the destination exciting … thank you for sharing your path
I can’t believe it,
You are having the transformation I started to have three years ago. For me, it started about a year after I had moved to another country.
The first thing I remember is I started to have this tickling feeling in my stomach, coming from nowhere. I tried to smile big, to be with the feeling, but my smile was “too big”, it was such a subtle feeling. After a while, these “tickles” started to happen more often and in about two months the feeling had grown and became constant. The world was now becoming mine, and it was a beautiful world.
I lived so much more intensively, with myself. All I could think was: “I’ve been with myself my whole life, how could I never have noticed this? How did I even get here?” I didn’t know what it was, I had never been interested in spirituality or even meditated. I started a transformation that I didn’t know where it was going to take me, still I was ready to follow, to follow what my heart(that I now loved more than anything) wanted, to the worlds end.
I had two more months of this transformation going on, and my unexplainable joy was now something I could grip and spin around in my head and my whole body if I so wanted. I saw so many possibilities in my life and I was very attentive to what my heart was telling me and to not ever listen to others points of views, because I loved my way of thinking and seeing life.
Then.. I went back to my home country, for a two week vacation. I felt it as soon as I started to become familiar with the surroundings, -“oh no, this is not good. I need to leave, NOW.” But I couldn’t, not for the time of these two weeks, and I fell. I felt like I was trying grasp myself but couldn’t hold on, and everything collapsed. All the old came rushing back in. The beauty, the intelligence and intuition went somewhere over my head and then disappeared. After the two weeks, when I got back to the new country, I tried to get back to the same beauty. I tried for one month until I realized it was gone, completely. Now, worse then before, I became depressed and started having panic attacks. All I could think was, “have I actually been living like this before?” I could see that the pain and worry was an illusion because my life back in the new country was exactly the same as I had left it.
I had lost myself, and if loosing a love can cause you pain, the hurt from literally losing yourself, I have never experienced anything like it.
I was shaking through the nights, panic with no escape. I couldn’t eat, everything had lost it’s color, the daylight was threathening, I didn’t like myself, I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror, my brain felt like somebody had replaced it with packed cotton, there was nothing behind my eyes, and all I could see was cold, meaningless objects.
I started reading tons of books on the subject and tried all I could, but to no avail. Now, three years later, I’m probably back to my normal platonic mood, but I cant take anything seriously, because I know it’s not the truth. I have been searching, everywhere, in and out of myself but there is nothing, not one nudge of something outside of mechanic “reality”. I have not heard one single word from my heart, that spoke to me so loudly before. Everything is on hold and days without color are passing, opportunities that I can’t see are passing, and I’m exhausted.
You would think, that when i have been there, that I would know the way, but I do not. I remember, when I had the experience, that I would almost look down on depressed people, thinking “I took the responsibility for myself to do this. They could too. I have no respect for those who do not.” Now I would take all the responsibility in the world if I only could hear my heart. I would be with myself intensively, if I could feel myself. There is nothing to meet, since I can’t feel anything. I a way, I regret that I had the experience. Life before, was easier, more magic. I would feel more alive since I rode the waves of sorrow and joy, indulged in shortlived pleasures one after another, and took it all for being life. Even I was miserable in between, but atleast I believed it to be real.
I am insanely curious about where the transformation would have brought me, if it would have continued. Reading your post gives me a hint. Thank you.
I didn’t mean to write you a book here;) But I couldn’t help myself.:) Hold on to yourself. Jana
Thanks for sharing, Ivan! You are an inspiration.
I really enjoyed your blog. Its been couple of months that I found your blog and started reading and I have enjoyed each one of them especially the one about how to master your mind and the one related to meditation, I just started meditating and loved the things you had to say. I pray you enjoy being so full of life but do keep blogging too 🙂
Beautiful!
it may be of good use to you to do some of the experiments at http://headless.org, it sure was for me.
Enjoy!
Ivan,
Thanks for sharing it’s very inspiring. I embrace this totally : “Silence is the true friend that never betrays.” – Confucius
Awareness is found in the magic of silence and has been a transformational experience for me.
Honestly, the “pain” I felt being single is what drove me to this inner peace, and I found that there was no pain in the end at all; save the one I created for myself.
Thank you for putting into words what I couldn’t.
wow, so happy you came to that realization :)…hope all is well…keep shining :)…thanks for visiting..please come back anytime….
I get it, Ivan. I’ve felt the same way for quite awhile. I blog only when I am inspired to share a message, and more often find myself preferring the bliss of pure awareness or the joy of intentional resting. So be it.
If there is something important to say, I will be inspired to blog it or share it in a live call…if not, at least my tribe have inspiring posts to read and calls to listen to!
Many blessings,
Nancy
so great to hear from you again Nancy, hope all is well…take care!
Loved this post…felt peaceful just reading it 🙂 ….Thank You so much, and keep enjoying the silence….
Ivan,
It gives me great pleasure that your indulging yourself in inner silence, and what you said really resonated with my heart. How people talk just to talk, scared of facing their true selves ect, And what you said about everything that helps grow awareness will not useless as i myself have been having doubts about my spiritual journey, Meditating and trying to constantly watch myself throughout the day.
I have a question, would it be beneficial to gather knowledge from spiritual teachings to help me understand my practice?
Kind Regards, claudius