Recently I watched a recording of Adyashanti in which he suggested to “contemplate complete silence” as a portal into deeper awakening, into deeper relationship with what he refers to as the “ground of being”. I’ve been exploring this over the last few days. First, I discovered it is helpful to remind myself that no amount of efforting on my part will open me to complete silence. The suggestion to “contemplate” initially lead me to effort through my analytical, rational brain to find complete silence. While I enjoy engaging in deep, analytical process, that, for me, is not the way to complete silence. Rather than settling, engaging the analytical had me chasing after what I thought the experience of complete silence would be, and also feeling my environment needed to be completely silent in order to contemplate it. Even though I live alone in a rural setting, complete silence is rarely, readily available.

I thought, then, to trust that complete silence already and always is.

This evening the alpenglow of sunset had a feeling to it. As if I was immersed in a viscous rose gold fluid. It parted around me in currents. The currents eddied and traversed across the surface of me. Slow and smooth. Awakening cells and nerves within my body; singing, calling, caressing. Telling me there is less to do than I’ve been doing. The deep blue of the rising night emerged from the east. Dissolved the alpenglow. Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn joined me in the flow of the blue hour.