How to find peace in our daily lives
21st October 2021
There’s an aspect of you that is always there and never changes
– The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer
Whenever I was worried or rattled by something that was going on in my life my dad always used to tell me the following phrase: ‘the horizon is always in the same place’ and at twelve years old it didn’t quite make sense. In fact, all those years later it has only clicked when I’ve got introduced to the work of Michael Singer and I discovered the part of me that is always there overseeing everything that is happening. It’s not the thoughts and it’s not the emotions, it’s below them. It’s the one that never changes, in fact I know it never changes because it’s the same aspect of myself that was the same at twelve years old than it is now at forty three.
That horizon my dad talked about is called by the buddhist traditions ‘the Root of the self’ and it’s sometimes easier explored by explaining what it’s not rather than what it is. It’s not your thoughts, it’s not your emotions, it’s not your body. It’s what’s left when all those aren’t present, and the one that is aware of all of those when they’re there.
It’s somewhat a difficult concept to grasp in our culture where everything is outwardly focused and our deification of science, and it’s inability to recognise as true anything that can’t be proven, has made the talk of anything to do with our internal experience of the world the domain of the non rational, religious and attacked as just plain wacky. However when something is so universal and when the rates of mental health problems are taking epidemic levels, it’s difficult to deny that we’re probably missing a trick when we dismiss probably the most important part of our experience here on earth.
How could it help us to think more on those terms? How could our lives change if we created a practice for ourselves that helped us be more aware of who we really are, underneath all the layers or ego, thoughts, emotions, learned behaviours? In my opinion, and that of Michael Singer and the Buddhist traditions is the only way to find true peace in our daily lives.