In the previous article in this series, we touched on the nature and secrets of inner peace.
Inner peace is not merely a distant goal to aim for after all your worldly affairs are set in order.
Inner peace is your inner power.
By embracing inner peace, you unleash your inner power into your life.
The cultivation of inner peace helps bring all the ingredients for success and fulfillment into your life: calmness, clarity, wisdom, courage, strength, creativity, and compassion.
How to Cultivate Inner Peace?
In the fast paced, stressful, and busy modern world, how can one cultivate inner peace?
It may seem like a tall order, maybe even impossible.
But cultivating inner peace is not as difficult as you might think.
Imagine you wanted to run a marathon after living a non athletic lifestyle.
What would you need to do?
You’d have to invest time, months or even years, to train yourself to run that distance at competitive speeds.
Without proper training, you’d be unable to compete in a marathon, right?
Now, in the same way, let’s look at cultivating peacefulness within you.
If you’ve been caught in the grip of your busy, “monkey mind,” and lived a conventional lifestyle, you must invest time to train yourself to experience steady peacefulness.
Fortunately, cultivating inner peace is much simpler than training for a marathon or other complex athletic feats.
How can that be, you wonder?
Why Cultivating Inner Peace Is Simple
First, peace already exists within you.
That’s why we call it “inner peace.”
You don’t have to go anywhere special to find it.
Second, peace exists in the silence within you.
To experience peace, you need to learn to be silent.
Third, to be silent, you need to rest your attention single pointedly in silence.
That’s it.
The practice of cultivating inner peace is simple and becomes easy with consistent effort.
Have you ever tried to quiet your mind, only to find your thoughts racing faster?
Does it seem impossible to carve out time for peace amidst your busy day?
You’re not alone… many believe inner peace is unattainable in such a world.
But what if it’s closer than you think?
The Art of Silence Meditation
There’s a great power within you
Amid fleeting experiences, it is ever-present
Through ever-changing experiences, it is unchanging
It is always accessible in the silence of the heart
Go past three doors:
The door of the tense body
The door of the noisy mind, and
The door of the clenched heart
Enter the realm of silence
With your single pointed attention
Dive into the sacred space
Between this realm and the beyond
Discover the soothing calmness
With it, experience great ease
Soak in the indescribable peace
Come into the flow of Grace
Experientially discover
The unfathomable inner power
That is clarity and wisdom
Courage and strength
Creativity and compassion
And witness it transform your life
The Practice of Silence Meditation
The poem above reveals the art of silence meditation.
It is the art of resting attention single pointedly in silence.
Silence, as referred to here, is not just the absence of words and sounds, but the absence of thoughts.
Think of it as a space beneath your daily mental chatter.
The silence we’re referring to isn’t simply a quiet room or a still moment… it’s the deep, peaceful void that exists when thoughts stop flowing.
When your mind pauses, even for a moment, it allows you to experience the natural peace that lies beneath the surface.
The key to the practice of silence meditation is attention.
Attention is usually lost in thought or in feelings, body sensations, or sense perceptions.. mostly in thought, with some 60,000 or so thoughts per day.
Extricating this attention involves three steps:
1. Relax the body through deep belly breathing.
This frees attention from the grip of physical tension.
2. Let go of unresolved issues, to-do lists, and burdens that occupy your attention.
You can temporarily free yourself from these distractions with a firm intention to set them aside during your practice session.
3. Move your attention into the heart center (not the physical heart but the space within the center of your chest).
Silence naturally exists here.
When attention wanders away, gently bring it back to the heart center without force or frustration.
This process enables single pointed attention in silence.
How long does this practice take daily?
You can start with just five minutes of resting attention in silence and gradually increase the time from there.
Start with just five minutes. Could you spare that in your busy day?
Imagine if, in just five minutes, you could feel calm, releasing that inner peace into your experience!
Gradually, you’ll find it easier to lengthen this time and return to that silence, no matter how busy your life may be.
The Peace Practice
To make it easier to cultivate your practice, I offer a service called The Peace Practice.
The Peace Practice is silence meditation.
It is simple, and its effects are profound.
We’ll delve into The Peace Practice in the next article in this series.
Inner peace is your inner power.
Embrace inner peace and thrive!
About the Author
Sundar Kadayam is an author, spiritual teacher, mentor, and healer. Midway through his 34 year career as a technologist and entrepreneur, life circumstances pushed him into an unlikely journey toward healing and awakening. His offerings provide guidance on self care and healing, self transformation, and self realization.
Sundar’s Website: Being YOU with Sundar Kadayam – Resources for self-care and healing, continuous self-transformation, and Self-Realization
Sundar’s Bio: About Sundar Kadayam
Sundar’s Writings: Articles and Pointers to Being YOU – with Sundar Kadayam
The Peace Practice: The Peace Practice – Simple Meditation to Cultivate Inner Peace (sundar.com)
Life Coach Code Interview: Find Life Coach | Meet Sundar Kadayam: How to Go from Weakness to True Power and Limitless Potential? (lifecoachcode.com)
Related Articles from Sundar:
- The Power of Silence (sundar.com)
- The Sacred Silence (sundar.com)
- The Sacred Silence – II (sundar.com)
- Quieting the Mind – Why Meditation can be Frustrating, and Why it Need Not (sundar.com)
