“The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.” – Jim Hightower
Finding inner peace involves an act of rebellion. But no one gets hurt on this journey.
One of the greatest rebellious movements we could follow is one inside our own minds. It’s a movement towards inner peace through the act of saying yes to present reality. This rebellion is not against anything. In fact, it’s only according to our thinking minds that it’s a rebellion at all. In reality we just stop believing the mind’s version of who and what we should be and start attuning to and welcoming what we experience in our own inner world.
It’s a masterly rebellion. It involves cultivating the capacity to stay with our own experience. In this cultivation, we follow the rhythm of our breath, the dynamism of our body and the fluidity of our emotions and passions.
It’s a risky rebellion. In it, we question our allegiance to the codes that bond us to our groups. So we risk our membership to our flock, to our tribe, to our culture, and to society at large. If we stay true to ourselves, we will always be a rebel of some kind to the group we belong to.
It’s a subtle rebellion. It involves the subtle craft of discriminating what arises in our own being, from what arises in us from identifying with our thinking minds.
It’s a peaceful rebellion. There is no violence involved here. We rebel against the ceaseless movements of the mind that drive us to get somewhere and be something that we are not.
It’s a sacred rebellion. In it we create a safe inner space that welcomes whatever arises in our experience, no matter what that is.
There is a great act of annihilation that helps us on this journey, not through destruction, but rather through cessation of our bond to the thinking mind. We cease to live in the mind. The way home becomes clear when we end the distraction of the mind.
As we pay attention with the movements of our inner world and stay loyal to our authentic sensual selves, we find home. It’s the home of our passions, our feelings, and the dynamism of our being—it’s the home where our heart truly resides, where we are truly at peace.
Photo by Ali Kaukas
—
Originally posted on Holstee’s Mindful Matter, the best place to read stories and tips on how to live life fully.
Dr. Geoff Warburton is a specialist in love and movement meditation. He enjoys baking bread and dancing whenever possible, often at the same time.