Something that all religious leaders, prophets and spiritual people always did and do, is to retire to places where they are alone and where they can be still. We see this with Buddha, with Christ and I doubt there’s even a single spiritual person who does not do this today, to discover something, which in the din and noise of the world, he or she cannot find.
There once was a farmer who discovered that he had lost his watch in the barn. It was no ordinary watch because it had sentimental value for him. After searching high and low among the hay for a long while; he gave up and enlisted the help of a group of children playing outside the barn.
He promised the children that the child who found it would be rewarded.
Hearing this, the children hurried inside the barn, went through and around the entire stack of hay but still could not find the watch. They made a lot of noise, squealing and shouting as they pulled out all the hay, looked under it, through it and over it but there was no sign of the watch. Just when the farmer was about to give up looking for his watch, a little boy went up to him and asked to be given another chance.
The farmer looked at him and thought, "Why not? After all, this kid looks sincere enough."
“But,” said the little fellow, “I want to go in there alone!”
So the farmer sent the little boy back to the barn. After a while the little boy came out with the watch in his hand! The farmer was both happy and surprised and so he asked the boy how he succeeded where the rest had failed. The boy replied, "I did nothing but sit on the ground and listen. In the silence, I heard the ticking of the watch and just looked for it in that direction."
The moral is that in stillness we can do things, which are otherwise impossible.
Allow a few minutes of silence to your mind every day, just for a few moments listen to the world around you. Feel your breath coming in and going out. Listen to your thoughts. See the details of your surroundings. Be at peace with being still.
In this modern world we rush around all day, doing things, talking, emailing, sending and reading messages, clicking from browser tab to the next, one link to the next. This comes at a cost: we lose that time for contemplation, for observing and listening. We lose peace.
Take a moment to be still. Don’t think about what you have to do, or what you’ve done already. Just be in the moment. Be still. Slow down. Be present. Find happiness now, in this moment, instead of waiting for it.
Savor the stillness. It’s a treasure, it’s free, it’s available to us and it can solve so many of our worries and problems. Be still and get things done.!
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and author. He blogs at www.bobsbanter.com and can be reached at bobsbanter@gmail.com
