Enlightenment or inner understanding...

Over the last week I have felt a change in myself. I won't call it an enlightenment, more an understanding of inner quietness. For most of my life I have needed to have a lot of noise around me to stop myself from thinking. I have not been one to like thinking to much as I would always have my mind running over all the hurt and negative things in my life, not the positives and the happy things.

Currently I am reading an amazing book, "The Power of Now", by Eckhart Tolle, Its interesting to read a perspective as Eckhart Tolle's in the way he describes what enlightenment is, "your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form." For me I was and have been for many years so focused on my appearance and what others thought of me. I was wrapped up in being something, thinking there was more and was always searching outside of myself for the material and emotional needs. I never looked for it with in myself.

I have come to feel an inner change, one that looks for the moments of quiet, to be able to sit and ponder from with in myself, not to search the outer world for answers to feel happy or beautiful. I am my own person, I am unique, I am creative and I am me. I now love the moments I can sit in my garden, my mind quiet and being able to truly listen to natures whisper. Its been interesting also to begin writing my first fictional novel. Its wrapped around a garden and the relationships that it entwines with people who visit and work in the garden. Writing my novel has also spilled over into my reality, I have been spending my weekends weeding, clearing new garden beds and planting new plants. For this summer I am planning to be able to sit out under my patio and write, enjoying the birds singing, the breeze on a warm day and watching the butterflies, insects, lizards and more wonder around the garden and around me.

For me I wouldn't use the word 'enlightenment', I like better the use of Inner Understanding, the understanding that the material world isn't going to give what the soul needs, the soul needs us to be in quietness from our minds to be able to hear the soul, for its needs and solutions.

If you have the chance to find "The Power Of Now" please take the time to read it and find with in yourself just how wonderful life can be, once we start quietening our minds to be able to listen to our soul and in turn I believe our lives will be more fulfilling than what the material world can give us.

Hayley