I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the experience of stillness and introspection without the traditional practices associated with it.
Pico Iyer's quote expresses the idea that one can experience moments of stillness and peace without adhering to structured practices like meditation, yoga, or religion. It suggests that even those who do not regularly engage in these activities can still appreciate and tap into the profound quietness of the mind, positioning oneself as an explorer rather than a practitioner within this realm of tranquility.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about mindfulness in a corporate team meeting.
Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
I think one reason, obviously, that I spend so much time in one place is that I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and now there are other different, invisible trains that are more interesting to me.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.
I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.
The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology.
In an age of speed, I began to think nothing could be more exhilarating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.
Jesus loved the will of His Father. He embraced the limitations, the necessities, the conditions, the very chains of His humanity as He walked and worked here on earth, fulfilling moment by moment His divine commission and the stern demands of His incarnation. Never was there a word or even a look of complaint.
What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.
If we can find God only as he is revealed in nature we have no moral God.
It was certainly not this mummified and outrageously painted old woman he was seeing before him, but the entire "female species," as it was his custom to call women. The individual disappeared, the features were obliterated, whether young or senile, beautiful or ugly - those were mere unimportant variations. Behind each woman rises the austere, sacred and mysterious face of Aphrodite.
Man is able to do what he is unable to imagine. His head trails a wake through the galaxy of the absurd.
Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are.
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