#SSY
Spending more time with people who are comfortable with and who even enjoy being together in silence has been doing wonders for my well being.
So much is communicated in healthy silence that words could never express.
The magic of mouna which is the inner silence. So much of how we think about ourselves, others and the world is attached through words and conversation. But if we take time for mouna (silence) we can uncover a much deeper, richer and fuller world.
It comes in the stillness
A wordless knowing
Of everything
And beautifully nothing
In Sanskrit, the word mouna (roughly translated) means “silence”. In its most basic essence, this can be practised as non-speaking. Mouna is often introduced in yoga retreats as a daily period of non-speaking and, at more advanced levels, as several days of silence. For many, the idea of not talking, even for a few hours, is daunting: the mind races in with questions like “ But how will I communicate?” and “What will I do with no conversation? In actuality, so much of how we think about ourselves, others, and the world is created through conversation. Talking about and relating experiences, forming opinions and having others agree and disagree with them creates a strong sense of identity and thus perpetuates a mind-based concept of who we think ourselves to be. Our minds then create thoughts to continue that momentum… and before we know it, who we think we are is dictated by our thoughts and our conversations with others. And we get totally lost within it. We get attached to our thoughts.
The practice of "yoga" asana prepares us to enter this inner space of silence through postures. We keep the body active through conscious Pranayama linked to mindful movement by balancing the flow of energy through the body. This conscious movement practice (asana) eventually creates a stillness in the body and mind, bringing us to the stage of Pratyahara (a withdrawal of the senses).
This is where mouna starts to work its magic.
Mouna provides us the opportunity to simply watch;
to observe the activity of the mind without getting involved in its antics.
When we simply observe our thoughts and how they activate our emotions ("energy in motion") and drive our behaviour without getting involved, eventually the dis integrated ego mind settles a bit and something else arises.
After any superficial attached busy thoughts have settled, from deep within that created space of inner stillness and the silence, there arises an acute awareness.
It is an awareness revealing the very nature or “aliveness” in everything. We may realize or feel or even see deeper connections within our own True Nature.
Our once fractured and scattered and mind attached attention draws within, and we may begin to see that everything in the world is bursting with Life’s creative message. It is so extremely and uncontrollably beautiful because it is the very same creative message which is bursting within ourselves. It is from this inner still space of knowing that true creativity arises. Everything in existence carries Life’s message of loving and living in every way and form possible. When we can shed a bit of our mind-based attached identity through the inner silence of mouna and rest comfortably in this knowing, then a world which is even fuller and richer than our minds can comprehend is revealed. It is through mouna that we can begin to hear with a listening way beyond what our ears can perceive. It begins with the external practice of non-speaking and eventually evolves into a deep inner listening, within which we can hear the calling of this symphony, the message of the Universe, in which each and every note is leading us back home. Mouna is a simple and common contemplative practice that is reached through many paths, one of which is the ancient "yolking" tradition that begins in asana, or mindful linking or breath to movement. This beginning of yoga, may eventually lead us all and guides us into what? Nothing new at all. Movement plus breath plus moana plus contemplation in the withdrawal of the senses, simply clarifies and eliminates all that is NOT our own nature. These practices simply remind us of who we already really are.
Our return to a deep inner stillness. Through movement we return to stillness.
Our return to a unified and settled unattached mind of wholeness.
We may become permanently unattached to the busy mind and connected heart to heart.
Our own simple, common and ordinary return to the True Nature that dwells within all of us,
Our One Consciousness. Who we all already are. Once we dismiss all that we are not.
Welcome HOME to you.
Thank You Shen and Sally #SSY & co 🌅🌅🌅
