“When the lips are silent, the heart has a hundred tongues.” ~ Rumi
After an expansive end of year pilgrimage through India, I spent my first week back in the Cape co-facilitating a 7 day silent retreat on the magical Bodhi khaya land.
The experience cemented my conviction that there is no greater work than creating space for people to come into direct contact with the movements of their inner landscapes and touch the limitless silence that unveils itself as the substance of it all.
As Nisargadatta said, “silence is the best and most potent initiation.”
It truly is.
Once we quieten our voices and the world around us, we get exposed to the noisy insanity of our own minds. Without the escapes and easy opportunities to project outwards, we begin to bear witness to all the tension, misery, confusion and turmoil we create for ourselves.
In seeing all of our self-inflicted sufferings, there is a very natural shift away from the dramas. A turning down of the volume.
As the mind quietens, the centre softens and we relax into the richness of real silence.
It is here in the quietude that life begins to whisper to us.
Not through words, but through our hearts. Through our senses. Through our intuitions. Through robin songs and creaking old milkwood trees. Through frog plops and clashing clouds.
How alive our being is when we let go of speaking, thinking and all of our ceaseless cycling mentation.
How peaceful life gets when aren’t preoccupied with maintaining the identities of our carefully crafted characters.
How blissful experience is when we unmask ourselves and stand revealed as the untouchable heart of a divisionless eternity.
Silence is the only true doorway back home, and it’s open to all of us.
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AN INVITATION
If this call to silence resonates, I’d like to invite you to explore the depths with us.
Our next retreat will be from the 13th - 17th of March.
For more info you can reach out to me (respond to this email/comment) or get in touch with Bodhi Khaya 🙏
If you’re interested in learning more about meditation, inward observation and self-inquiry you can join the Nouma WhatsApp group. Lots more to come.
Take care,
David