Nirvana
One evening towards the end of Summer 2007 I took myself out for a walk.
Between the small town I was living in and the next village along is a road that winds for about a mile with meadows and fields on either side.
Walking along the path I caught sight of a large white bird circling in figures of eight low over the fields to my right. I knew instantly that it was either a sea-gull or a barn owl, although I had never seen barn owls hunt before and was not aware that they hunted like this. I decided to step over the wall and head out into the field to investigate.
It was a barn owl, a very large, bright white all over barn owl.
I spent what must have been two hours stood in the field, completely still, with the owl flying around my head as if I were not even there. It hovered at eye-level only a few feet away from me, circled the area I was standing in, and stopped once or twice on a branch or a fence-post.
As I was stood there I became aware of how blessed I was to be in this moment. A wild creature so beautiful and rare to see was close enough for me to reach out and pluck from the air, living its life as if I were not even there, and allowed me to stand there for so long and share in it in broad daylight. I felt priveliged to be experiencing something so natural that no amount of money could buy, that nobody else was experiencing, and started to notice a change in my internal space. I felt like I had been chosen in that moment to be blessed with that experience, and couldn't escape the feeling of being very lucky.
With each slow, elegant beat of the owl's bright white wings I felt more and more that something inside of me was falling away. All the worries, desires, plans, inhibitions, false labels of self; everything petty and illusory and negative that is just as much a part of me as my right arm was dissolving away minute by minute leaving only a blissful state in its place.
Words cannot describe the internal state I came to that evening, as I stood in that field, aware of only the owl; in that extended moment I wanted nothing that I did not have, I thought of nothing that I was not at one with, and I had no sense of tension or fear anywhere in my being. It is only when these things leave us completely, that we realise how completely they consume us the rest of the time.
I was at one with the moment in such an intense way that evening, that the past and the future simply did not exist, anywhere, ever. Never before or since have I experienced this feeling, it was more real, awake and amazing than anything else. Life bristled with boundless energy, not needing any gimmicks or false promises or bright lights, just life itself was enough, and more profoundly exciting than any thought my mind had ever created. It was a glimpse of something true and holy, the purest state of being that words cannot come close to describing, and it permeated my entire being to the point that nothing else existed.
Only in the moment can we experience life directly, in its purest and truest form. The rest is an illusion created by our minds.
Date experienced: Approx. September 2007
Between the small town I was living in and the next village along is a road that winds for about a mile with meadows and fields on either side.
Walking along the path I caught sight of a large white bird circling in figures of eight low over the fields to my right. I knew instantly that it was either a sea-gull or a barn owl, although I had never seen barn owls hunt before and was not aware that they hunted like this. I decided to step over the wall and head out into the field to investigate.
It was a barn owl, a very large, bright white all over barn owl.
I spent what must have been two hours stood in the field, completely still, with the owl flying around my head as if I were not even there. It hovered at eye-level only a few feet away from me, circled the area I was standing in, and stopped once or twice on a branch or a fence-post.
As I was stood there I became aware of how blessed I was to be in this moment. A wild creature so beautiful and rare to see was close enough for me to reach out and pluck from the air, living its life as if I were not even there, and allowed me to stand there for so long and share in it in broad daylight. I felt priveliged to be experiencing something so natural that no amount of money could buy, that nobody else was experiencing, and started to notice a change in my internal space. I felt like I had been chosen in that moment to be blessed with that experience, and couldn't escape the feeling of being very lucky.
With each slow, elegant beat of the owl's bright white wings I felt more and more that something inside of me was falling away. All the worries, desires, plans, inhibitions, false labels of self; everything petty and illusory and negative that is just as much a part of me as my right arm was dissolving away minute by minute leaving only a blissful state in its place.
Words cannot describe the internal state I came to that evening, as I stood in that field, aware of only the owl; in that extended moment I wanted nothing that I did not have, I thought of nothing that I was not at one with, and I had no sense of tension or fear anywhere in my being. It is only when these things leave us completely, that we realise how completely they consume us the rest of the time.
I was at one with the moment in such an intense way that evening, that the past and the future simply did not exist, anywhere, ever. Never before or since have I experienced this feeling, it was more real, awake and amazing than anything else. Life bristled with boundless energy, not needing any gimmicks or false promises or bright lights, just life itself was enough, and more profoundly exciting than any thought my mind had ever created. It was a glimpse of something true and holy, the purest state of being that words cannot come close to describing, and it permeated my entire being to the point that nothing else existed.
Only in the moment can we experience life directly, in its purest and truest form. The rest is an illusion created by our minds.
Date experienced: Approx. September 2007
Labels: barn owl, meditation, nirvana
posted by The Blogging Mystic at
08:37
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