Way with change

"Change is a law."
- Dan Millman

Life is forever changing. Indeed I can say that life is all about change.

As an introverted soul, I always look forward to recharging my battery in moments of solitude and quiet. And when I sit still in a quiet room, it can seem for a moment as if my world comes to rest, without tiring changes. Then it turns out to be an illusion.

The antics of my own mind continue to create activity, and even late at night I hear a bus driver blaring his horn in frustration of someone else who blocks his way in speeding to the next stop.

It is difficult, if not impossible to be still and resist change.

I know how meditation can help me observe my mind and its endless flow of thoughts, but I also know the mind cannot be shut down. Within its own constraints of repetition and extrapolation, it keeps ever vibrant.

And outside my awareness, millions of cells in my body are regenerating all the time, and my heartbeat and breathing are continuing uninterrupted.

Meanwhile, all around me the earth keeps spinning at a dizzying pace, unseen to anyone but the scientists who monitor such movement.

How can I find moments of peace and freedom of action within such relentless movement and continuous change taking place all around and inside me?

Can I practice having little retreats while continuing to be a participant in this circus of movement and changes called the Universe?

A few weeks ago, I was looking forward to a long journey, expecting that the many hours of travel would offer a good opportunity for a soul retreat. Yet what I experienced was a non-stop sequence of moments and events, some more memorable than others.

Reaching the destination, I discovered that being surrounded by thousands of people for a week-long conference offered even fewer chances for solitude.

With my fellow traveler's ingenuity, we found that the only place for a quiet recharge during the daytime was to sit in the back row of the large auditoriums, like using a cinema to rest rather than seeing the movie.

As I write this, hundreds of people keep passing by the windows of the coffee shop, going from cinemas to shops and vice versa. Each of them living a life, with emotions, challenges, and changes to face. An amazing totality really, this Universe.

Every day, the world offers me new insights, new points of view, new challenges, and new opportunities. I feel immersed in it like in a fast-flowing river.

Hour by hour, day by day, I allow myself to float, to observe the changes, stopping myself from resisting the flow. Choosing to adapt to changes is starting to feel like a game I can play.

So what time do I really have to recharge my battery, to realize what my options are, to how to decide among alternatives, to take action, to enjoy passion, and to deliver results?

Since the past is already behind me, and the future continues to elude me ahead, I find myself enjoying to turn to zero, to the moment where everything is possible, where everything can be done, to the now, to the present moment.

As I reflect, I no longer cling to my mind's thoughts, to time, to anything really. Through my moments of passion and my times of living flatly, I find myself happy most of the time, either with or without a reason. I can smile.

To have more time later today, or tomorrow, to do what I dream of, is an illusion. There is no such thing.

There is only now, and my decision how to use this present moment. To consciously do something that brings me closer to realizing my life dreams.

Or to let myself wander farther off these goals. Or, to simply go with the flow with a sense of wonder, ready to discover something new as I move further along the river.

I can see now what made Dan Millman choose the title for his book The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which he confidently subtitled saying that it would change lives.

I can live in the present moment with the peaceful heart of a mystic and a warrior's spirit of discipline. Working simultaneously with my logos or reason from the right brain, and with my mythos or intuition from the left brain. Thank you, Dan!

Photograph: Istanbul, witness to millennia of changes.