What Is Stillness?
Before you can know who you are at the deepest level, you must first experience what you are not. You cannot know yourself as stillness — the presence that encompasses thinking — until you have identified yourself with the ego. The ego is not a bad thing; it’s not a curse, but a gift in contrast. You would have no perspective had it not been for the ego. On the other hand, it also is what is keeping you separated from the unmanifested essence that is you, stillness. And in doing so, it is preventing you from hearing the still whisper of inner peace.
Thoughts, just like emotions, are transient in nature. They also change with each passing moment. Stillness, however, is immutable, steadfast in and of itself. It is not only outside of you, but within you. Like a long lost friend, it has been forgotten as a result of life’s distractions.
Stillness is not just your essence, but it also is the channel for inner peace. It is the language of the soul, the direct line to a forgotten level of consciousness, God consciousness. Stillness, then, is the frequency where you can tune into the Mind of God. It is the juxtaposition where your conscious mind becomes one with the All.
Thoughts come and go through the mind like the ebb and flow of the ocean. Who is thinking? Who is observing? You can be one of the two, but not both. Are you identifying yourself with thought or stillness? Thought separates, it labels, it compartmentalizes everything. Nothing wrong with that. That is the nature of the thinking mind. Stillness however unites, transcends identification and sees oneness, sees the miracle of Life.
Form is thought. Thought is energy in motion. Thoughts take shape. Stillness, however, is without form. A shape admits that there is a beginning and an end; but what is shapeless has no such boundaries.
Stillness is at the very heart of your being. It is your essence. You cannot not be still, but you can overlook its presence within you. Just as waves crash on the surface, beneath all that drama is stillness, a calmness that is not noticeable until you travel deep within the body of water.
You abide in stillness. Stillness pervades every cell in your body. And what is the body? Quantum physics says it is 99 percent empty space. And what is the space? It is nothingness. It is formless. It is stillness.
It is stillness that makes thought possible, not the other way around.
No idea or concept can define stillness, because both are forms. Stillness is not something that can be imagined, because it is no-thing. It is not possible to imagine it, because imagination is thought. And thought is not stillness. Rather, stillness is an experience in no-mind, an empty mind. It is emptiness and fullness all at once. How can that be?
Look at it this way. A bucket (mind) that is already filled with water (thoughts) cannot take on any more water. It is already full, and as you pour new fresh water (inspiration, joy) into it, what happens? The fresh water immediately spills out of the top of the bucket making it impossible to add any more. But if you remove the bottom of the bucket, it can never be filled. It remains empty but continuously allows for more and more fresh water to move through it. It is empty and yet capable of being constantly filled all at once. So it is with the empty mind, the no-mind of stillness. As it is with Source’s wisdom and understanding, it only can be experienced and felt through the channel of stillness.
Stillness is not a temporary fix to a seemingly incessant condition. It is an eternal sanctuary that transcends the conditioned mind. What would be the use for it otherwise? In stillness you can find the peace, the renewal that is desired through the experience of contrast — the ego.