What on earth is happening to the world?
The financial sectors are being brought down to their knees the world over, jobs are on the line, and we feel forced to watch this happen and feel powerless to do anything to stop it. But are we powerless? No. Good enough reason to want to survive this ruin. In fact, the key to surviving this difficult and unprecedented stage in our planet’s history is to take responsibility, alter our thought process altogether and change the way we see the world. Travel and the exploration of our world provides us with the perfect platform for this change to occur.
When approached with openness and humility, the benefits of Travel are endless. But for the sake of simplicity, I have broken them down to 5 points.
1. Travel gives us the opportunity to silence the mind.
2. Travel gives us the opportunity to be touched by beauty.
3. Travel encourages us to grow.
4. Travel fuels our imagination, and awakens a sense of lightness and joy.
5. Travel fulfills our yearning for Unity.
1. Travel gives us the opportunity to silence the mind. Silence, which has been grossly underrated by modern society, creates a nourishing environment for contemplation and the appearance of inspiration. Yet, we find it extremely challenging to silence the mind in the midst of our everyday routine. This is where stepping outside of our comfort zone and exploring unfamiliar lands can play a very important part. It becomes easier for us to focus our undivided attention on a chosen object, such as a sunset, a beautiful landscape or a work of art, when we are outside of our normal environment. We allow ourselves to experience that sense of wonder and rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural laws, and feelings such as exhilaration, joy and peace are triggered. Time seems to stand still. Our intuitive capacity is increased, leading us to reach the Self and contact it fully. This is called an insight or “Illumination”, that “AHA” moment, where we arrive at a new level of awareness. And when an insight or illumination does appear, it sometimes reveals something that may have even been staring at us in the face all along.
The opportunity to silence the mind during my own personal travels has enabled me to find practical solutions to problems, the courage to change direction in my life at pivotal moments, and has provided me with the fertile grounds to think creatively. I have also observed that insights come as “feelings”, and so the insights vanish when the feeling vanishes. I have found that registering the insight on a mental level, like recording it into a diary, journal or workbook, fully assimilates the insights on a mental level. By recording insights, it anchors your thoughts, and thus forms the beginning of a gradual unfolding.
2. Travel gives us the opportunity to be touched by beauty.
Beauty can be described as a certain visual harmony, a spontaneous aesthetic experience. It is elusive, highly personal, it’s impact unpredictable, and yet is as integral to our human survival as Oxygen. Beauty is healing, regenerative, uplifting. Beauty allows us to put our pains and problems aside and helps us succeed in forgetting ourselves. It reveals unknown worlds and nameless possibilities. Beauty lightens our greed. As human beings, we have the choice to increase our aptitude in the art of appreciating beauty by opening ourselves to it and making ourselves available to experience it. Travel and exploring the world provides us with that opportunity in spades. After all, planet Earth is the “paradise planet” of the universe.
3. Travel encourages us to grow.
Growth is understanding what we have not previously been able to conceive. It is feeling what we have never felt, or doing what we have never done before. It obliges us to leave our comfort zone and progress into the unknown. Growth can sometimes be a joy, and sometimes it can be uncomfortable or even downright painful. But one thing is for certain. The personal growth experienced through travel and the exploration of the world results in a far greater sensitivity to the pain of human beings in general. And through this, we begin to see our own life in perspective, which in turn gives us a greater sense of purpose.
4. Travel fuels our imagination, and awakens a sense of lightness and joy.
What has happened to our imagination? Have our life experiences, schooling and conditioning discouraged us so much from using our imagination that we now view it as a frivolous word? Take a look at the eyes of a child. That look reminds us of a time when anything and everything was possible, unobstructed by past experiences and without exclusions. Travel reminds us not to take things quite so seriously in our lives. It awakens a sense of lightness and joy, and the realization that life is a dance. And dance, though powerful, is also a great pleasure.
5. Travel fulfills our yearning for Unity.
It is instinctive for human beings to naturally seek union with larger units, as we wish to share and participate in something that we regard as being greater than our individual selves. It is only natural. Travel encourages a sense of unity with all beings everywhere. Through travel we acquire a sense that we all share in the same destiny. So rather than confining ourselves to our own local communities and remaining in a stagnant mindset about the world, now more than ever, it makes so much sense to explore our wonderful world and travel more. The planet is in dire need for human beings to start resonating with each other, despite our cultural differences. No man is an island, as we have seen from the more recent financial meltdown. What has happened in Wall Street has affected us all on a global scale. We now have the opportunity to raise awareness and reverse the process through the art of travel.
Our outer world is simply a reflection of our own inner process. As without, so within. And as wonderful as the world is, it is no match for the beauty and depths of our imagination and own soul. And yet we can reach those depths via the richness of our world. The colours, languages, peoples, cultures, sounds, smells, taste sensations, art, all are part of a rich tapestry that forms our world heritage, and it’s just waiting for us to discover and enjoy it.
So act now and book that honeymoon travel destination, or that Summer holiday to somewhere that you haven’t been to before. Bring your diary, journal or workbook to record all those great insights and ideas that will come to you along the way, and don’t forget your camera so that you can capture the beauty around you.
