Spiritual Peace

Actually, you already live in the midst of it, and it lives in the midst of you...

Intellectually, you can understand it this way:
Imagine the silence that exists in the furthest reaches of deep space...
like space itself, it is empty...there is no content, no sound...
no medium or atmosphere, for that matter, in which sound can travel...

Now imagine traveling toward the earth and entering the earth's
atmosphere...the silence of deep space still exists, but if you
say your name, you can hear it now, since the atmosphere
allows sound to travel from your mouth to your ear....

Silently, you continue, moving closer to the earth...
you can hear airplanes now, and closer still, you hear birds...
as you approach a city, you can hear traffic, sirens, etc...
Finally you come to rest in the middle of a sports
stadium filled with cheering people, and the noise is constant...

Then you realize that you are still sitting in the middle of
the same space through which you just traveled,
where there is endless and eternal silence.
It is just that your current space has been filled with
the earth, the people, and the sounds of the game and the crowd...
Take all that away, and the space and its native silence still exist...

You have been taught to pay attention to the sounds, the light,
and the physical objects...taught that these are the things of value and
significance....

But you can train yourself to pay attention to the native attributes of
space - the darkness, the silence and the space...

To appreciate the pauses between musical notes and the spoken
words of speech...between your thoughts, your breaths, your
heartbeats...

To appreciate the vast and silent emptiness which exists constantly
around you, no matter what content occupies or passes through it
in any given moment, attempting to distract you from it and the
infinite, fulfilling peace it represents...

Your mind is just like outer space, in which are endless constellations
of heavenly bodies, and innumerable objects like our planet...

And, as with the physical universe, you have been taught that the
contents of your mind-space are what matter...thus depriving
yourself of the nurturing fulfillment of the infinite emptiness of
the womb from which you were born....and to which you will,
inevitably, return....

Losing your attachment to the meaningless contents of the
mind and losing yourself in the infinite creative emptiness,
which alone can restore and renew you, is the necessary
surrender which gives rebirth, and comes either at death,
when we no longer have the strength to fight the force of
the attraction we have resisted all our lives
(which resistance has led to our weakness and death),
or through conscious trust and surrender in the act of meditation.

It took you years, from the moment you first opened
your eyes on this planet, to be taught the value of the
words and ideas you use, and the things you own
and seek after...

It will take more than a moment of opening your
heart to the empty silence before you appreciate
its mysteries...

Don't 'look' - you don't know what to look for....
Stop 'looking' and 'seeking' and simply
open your eyes in the dark...
open your heart in the silence...

Be willing to take your time,
or, better, give it...
It's the only thing you have to trade....

I want to know, anew, a gnu...
And learn how to attire a tire.
I want to run afoul a fowl....
And then, to try, once more, one smore.

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during the last 2 months".

Additionally, Google just removed from 'beta' status a question-answering service
called Google Answers, which allows you to post a question, set a price, and get an answer from any of the 500 or so approved researchers who have been
screened by the Google Answers Editors. You can learn more about the researchers behind the service at Google Blogoscoped, a blog which publishes interviews with the researchers, as well as useful information about the world according to Google, and tips & tricks for using the search engine.