Silence, peace and nothingness

We live in a culture were we are benchmarking activity, industriousness and financial success more than anything else. We are exploiting nature to the level and with a speed were we start to realize humans might make the end to themselves. Small children are put to school or kindergarden at an early age, to learn as much as possible. Students have to progress within the given time, shops do not want things on their shelves that rest there too long time. Speed, effectivity, productivity, profit, like a machine in full speed, thats the aim in many fields of life in our time.

To be home with children, to have a sabbatical year, to just be in a prolonged state of passivity is regarded as laziness and doing something that is less important. We seem to have forgotten the value of slowness, contemplation, just being or having a rest. The peaceful home a few decades ago, where night time was to sit around the fireplace or exceptionally lit a candle, forced gently peace and quietness on us. In a few decades limited radio hours, and limited TV broadcasting has changed to 24/7 cacophony of stations and we have recently exceeded 1 billion websites. The websites grow more than 10 pr second. We browse the TV or surf on the net and we have light that keeps the artificial day, symbol of activity as long as we want. Activity is eating up the night even. The net is eating up our time and makes us look for something more to keep us awake. 

All this impressions, all this activity drives us, exploits us and demand something from our biological system. We use resources in our body and in the external nature. We squeeze and squeeze on all levels, and end up like dry lemons completely squeezed.

The nice feeling of waking up after a deep nights sleep, the good energy after a resting holiday, the fresh start after  the more introvert winter, all shows us the value of sleep, rest and winter time. I think we will learn to understand that research on long living cultures might be more related to building our resources through sleep and rest.

Take extra notice of your need to sleep in winter, make sure you go to bed early enough, release the hold on the lemon, stop squeezing the sponge and let it fill up again with vital zap.
Or put aside time to reflect to contemplate and meditation and feel how you come back as a new person.

The ultimate unity of the All, the Godhead where all is united, is a nothingness. The Buddhist calls it nirvana (nothingness), the Kabbalist calls it AIN (nothing), the Taoist calls it Wu Wei (No action, or doing Nothing) the old Qi Gong masters said: take your Jing and refine it to get Qi, take your Qi and refine it to get Shen, take your Shen and refine it and return to the void (Nothingness). The nothingness, is a state of deep unity, a state of complete peace of mind, a state where there is no tension, split, separation or polarity a deep unity with everything. Just this deep unity where nothing is separate becomes a oneness that is a allness and a nothingness.

If you want to be productive, creative, have energy and vitality, the best way to get it is from nothingness, from silence, from rest, from diving into the deep source of the all, the night, the subconscious the deep winter. Make sure to give yourself extra time in all your activities, give yourself those moments everyday where you can load, rest, dive deep into the inner world through meditation, contemplation, reflection or slow contemplative activities like yoga, tai chi, pilates, qi gong, or just mindfulness in what ever you do.