Relaxing into Being

“Many of us have unknowingly dropped into awake awareness while walking in nature, being creative, making love, or playing sports; some of us have experienced it through crisis that became opportunity. Although activities like nature walks are pleasurable in themselves, they also relax the dominance of ego-identification, allowing awake awareness to emerge from the background.

When we go hiking and get to the top of a hill, our seeking to reach a goal stops. We relax fully, and our identity as the seeker drops away, revealing the awake awareness that was naturally there all along. At times like these, natural qualities of awake awareness show up – among them clarity, boundless freedom, peace of mind, joy, connection, and a sense of wellbeing. Because we don’t know that the source of our joy and freedom is already within us, we might say later, ‘I feel miserable these days. I’ll just have to wait until I can go back to the top of that hill again next year.’

There is an old wisdom saying: ‘Silence is not the absence of sound but the absence of self.’ In other words, we don’t need to go to a physically quiet place. We can experience both the deep stillness and the dancing aliveness that arise simultaneously. Silence and stillness are here and now within you …”

Loch Kelly. “Shift into Freedom. The Science and Practice of Open-hearted Awareness.”

Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado, 2015.