When someone asked Buddha…. Why you do this?
He replied: “Sitting in order to be silent is easy,
So I walk, but carry the same silence with me. Inside I am still the same.”
So, I wondered, Can walking help me connect with my inner silence?
The answer was, yes….! The more I walk and just be with myself, the more my inner gift unfolds. But how to pursue walking in order to achieve meditative silence was yet to be affirmed. I wanted to make walking even more rewarding.
The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know how this could be possible as I see; many people want to walk regularly, in spite of challenging physical ailments, whether they are advised by a physician or inspired by others to do so.
Some of these people start walking for a few days and then stop because they see no results to their expectations. Some procrastinate and fail to walk daily. Some are motivated to walk daily but it becomes merely part of other routine things they do. In each case, walking doesn’t seem as beneficial as it should be, physically, mentally, holistically.
Haven’t we all thought, at least once in our lives, “Walking is easy and good for me, so how come I can’t keep this up regularly at a pace and duration according to body’s needs?”
And If you spend an appropriate time in walking, according to what your body needs, you will experience a benefit that will last.
There is a scientific system of three steps related to every activity we attempt in our lives: You begin to put effort into something and continue until it flows from within and you’ve reached a state of effortless coordination.
1. Activity with focus: Focus on continuing the activity until the whole being,[ including the mental and physical front] gets involved to that activity. Initially, the results will be fragmented not connected, but still continue it.
2. Activity with coordination: Focus on doing the activity persistently. Gradually, your whole body and mind will be coordinated, as if it’s a single unit moving through the activity without effort.
3. Activity with awareness: Gradually a stage comes where coordinated self becomes aware about self and begins to guide about how much hard work one needs to put in that activity to execute best results effortlessly which whole gets benefitted to. In a way it begins to instinct towards effortless designer’s activity https://erektile-apotheke.de/viagra-fuer-frauen/.
For example, when you learn to drive car, you put your conscious attention on when to break and when to accelerate. Eventually, you are driving automatically and effortlessly without paying any conscious attention to it. In bread/roti making also, initially in spite of conscious efforts, the size and shape of it varies but after a period of practice, each of it rounds up without putting any efforts to focus on size and shapes.
SO THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO DO THINGS:
(1) You just do it and it becomes routine, or
(2) You do that activity regularly involving your whole being consciously. Then after a period of time, it’s not just your body but your whole being will be focused and benefitting from the activity at a holistic level.
Thus every activity, when done in this direction following three steps, gradually mind and body becomes tuned to that activity and it flows effortlessly. And thus coordinated self will be more benefitted compared to the efforts are put and also it intuits for helpful clues towards designer’s being.
Same way, let’s see how walking, by following the three steps will end up in individualistic designer’s walk with long lasting benefits at physical, mental and vital level.
STEP 1: WALKING WITH FOCUS
Begin your walk every day for 30 minutes. After 10 days, increase your walk by 10 to 15 minutes daily according to your capacity, up to an hour of walking daily by the end of one month.
Put efforts to being persistent and focus completely on yourself, rather than listening to music or other distractions. Initially, it will be difficult to focus and concentrate on yourself, so give your full attention to breathing in and out and see what else is happening in your body. This helps to be in touch with yourself.
Initially, your hands, legs, eyes, respiration and heartbeat will probably not feel coordinated. The whole idea is to enjoy the walk. Keep walking for 1 to 2 months [which may vary, of course according to your individual situation] and don’t expect permanent benefits; because if it would be, it would be just temporary here and there.
STEP 2: WALKING WITH COORDINATION
While focusing on yourself you may be aware that not only your physical body is walking but your whole being is walking. The mind and body is one unit. When your mind is focused on what is happening in your body, the two align and then work as a single unit.
You may see physical coordination followed by mental coordination or both may happen simultaneously.
You may observe the following sequence of physical coordination occur in this order: legs, then hands and legs together. Then, your heartbeat becomes coordinated to your walking speed. Later, you will perceive that every muscle of your body will be a coordinated whole.
After walking for a period of time, you won’t feel your legs ache or shortage of breath, or muscular pain, because the body is no longer fragmented parts, but has started coordinating, into a whole being walking.
With this prolonged pattern of walk, thoughts gradually become channeled and focused on what is happening in the body. Every part of the system is in tuned to the body and would respond appropriately to the walk.
When you become aware of your body/mind coordination, your being begins to provide an instinct or intuition. It could be about you, about your work or about the physical workout your body needs to balance the stress. Now listen to the instinct/intuition and walk accordingly.
STEP 3: WALKING WITH AWARENESS
As you walk with coordination, you will know, based on your new sense of awareness of your own body, how much your body wants to walk on a particular day and what type of walk it wants – brisk, slow, jog, long – and it will all be according to instinct, and you can walk accordingly.
When you begin your daily walk at any stage of this process of being coordinated, you may notice that within a few minutes your mind gets calmer and focused on what is happening to the body followed by complete coordination in a few more minutes. With a regular practice, the transition from feeling fragmented to coordinated gets shorter and more effortless.
Walking with awareness offers a calmness you may never have experienced before. You will be in the moment, with an inner silence, completely centered in the self. This state of being is where you can receive a message for the day, a message for the future, a solution to a problem, or realize your higher purpose.
“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thought breaks their bond, your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talent become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”[Patanjali]
Benefits:
A] Mentally: It brings the mind and body together into a more coordinated insightful self that can rely on your own instincts for healthful exercise that will bring you closer to optimal health.
B] Physically: When you become aware of yourself, it helps your body heal on a deeper level. Gradually, you may see physical complaints, like blood sugar and serum cholesterol become more balanced according to your body’s needs.
C] Holistically: With regular practice your five senses are coordinated and you develop a sixth sense to help you to provide with intuitive message for the day, for your work, for your higher purpose, and for all creative areas of your life.
Whatever activity you choose: swimming, singing, or dancing, stick to the three steps, be persistent and involve your whole being, in the moment, when performing that activity until that insightful coordination happens. When your mind and body come together and your instincts, can take the lead, which are beyond your logical mind, then the benefits are inevitable at all levels of your being.
When we walk, hand in hand with ourselves
Whole world limit seems to dissolve
When there is no schedule to follow
And no thoughts of tomorrow
Then conscious gets surrendered
And subconscious overpowered
When five senses synchronize
Sixth sense then galvanized
That answers unsolved puzzles and
Buried purpose of life sizzles…Zinkal