I dive deeper and deeper into questions that can not bring any answers to me.
Why?
So I can unlearn, become more open, without any fixed ideas and limiting belief systems and question everything.
If I’m able to question something, I can easily drift behind the ego and meet the source of my awareness. And even further. Where the mind doesn’t rule my existence and interfere with my experience, – the living image of what is – I am unlimited.
When I say drift back, I mean the practice of coming back to my neutral, expanded and rooted awareness. There, I can simply allow my mind to take a rest. In that experience – like a flock of bird occupy the tallest tree and sing the stories of beauty – peace descends upon my being.
When I ask the question: “Where will my next thought come from?”, I offer my mind a gap, right after the question. This gap is what I call “the space inbetween”. There, the mind can recognize the ongoing chatter it is constantly living in.
Something very magical happens in that space…
Some kind of indescribable rush of light enters my body. I feel it washing through my spine, limbs, exiting through the top of my head. When it leaves, I don’t feel alone. I don’t feel the urge to hold on to it. I allow it to come and go. Simply.
The flow of inspiration can only come through if we are receptive, alert yet peaceful.
Imagine a cycle of breathing (do as you read).
Inhale – exhale.
Can you become aware of the inhale? And then the exhale? Do you sense anything else in the breath?
Usually we dont pay attention to what happens after the inhale, right before the exhale.
In between the expansion and contraction, there’s a very subtle space, like a momentary stillness. An end – or beginning.
This stillness holds the potential for the coming and also holds what has already left, without being attached to it. It is just there, resting and being.
Let’s say that in that space in between, there’s a potential for growth, for expansion yet it is also the essence of deepening. Some kind of other-dimensional access through stillness.
Can we measure the length or capacity of this phenomena?
I don’t know but I truly believe that in that silence, our whole system is able not only to rest but recharge, recalibrate and reinstall its original print. And that is the moment of coming towards our (well-)being.
I started this idea of the “in between space” with asking myself the question:
“Where will my next thought come from?”
When I say this sentence out loud, the sound of thoughts, motion of pictures and flow of ideas in my head, stops.
They literally withdraw because the question cannot be answered. We just simply don’t know. We might have an idea where the next thought will come from but it’s not necessary to look for it (or at least we’re playing a different game here).
Try it:
“Where will my next thought come from?”
We can learn how to enhance and lengthen the “time” of this infinite experience.
And then what?
We enjoy. We settle and stay. We ask the question over and over again until it becomes a resource for us to find peace within ourselves, anytime.
We come closer and closer to the state of unknown. So close, we become secret lovers, dwelling deeply in the silence of each others beings.
Through this vast field of “not knowing” our capacity widens. Creativity, clarity, inspiration, truthful connection with another being, patience towards ourselves, society, our problems and so on…
We don’t have to empty our mind or stop our thoughts. It is a highly misunderstood practice to train our mind. Our mind has its own power and its better if we just let it be.
It is much more useful to learn how not to get drawn into it – in our case, direct a question mentally, that addresses its weak point, the unknown.
We are capable of creating the life we actually enjoy living in.
I am certain about it. Slowly-slowly, moment by moment, we can recall this emptiness within that will show us the way. It doesn’t happen overnight, of course, but if we don’t even give the chance to ourselves, we will never see why we could benefit from it.
And that recognition is how the practice starts.