Hello and welcome to Joining the Unknown Podcast.
My name is Kostaba and I'll be your host for the series of upcoming episodes.
On this first episode,
I take you through the process of creation and what you will be experiencing along the way.
There are moments in life when you have to stop everything and just listen to your inner voice,
Your inner guide.
You fight it,
You ignore it,
You try to silent it but it's always there in its stillness beckoning you to listen,
To hear and to come in flow.
This podcast is both out of fighting the inner voice and finally arriving at a place where I can rest with it.
Over the course of next four episodes,
I will be taking you through the joyous journey of love,
Travel and finding yourself only by letting yourself lose within and with everything around.
All my life,
I have travelled places.
I was born in the mountains,
Schooled in a desert,
Went to college near ocean and healed myself around lakes.
The feeling of never belonging anywhere and yet belonging to the constant move of life is what have kept me alive over the years.
In a way,
We are always moving towards an unattainable flow,
Constant bickering of the two brains and most days,
The fearful side of us wins and we chase and chase and chase that unattainable fruit,
Trying to find that one moment of happiness,
Just a glimpse of stillness.
We say,
Just one more day of work and I'll get closer to the rhythm,
To the satisfaction of my life,
Longing for a distant dream and never being able to satisfy ourselves.
But all this while,
My dear one,
There was no chase,
There was stillness within,
There was a flow of complete satisfaction that stayed within you in this constant struggle of attaining something in the distance and that stillness was you and your love for yourself,
Your heart,
Your being,
Waiting for you to stop and just listen to the guided sound within you,
That all this while what you were chasing was at the center of your being.
Nine years ago,
I found this thing called travel and slowly started settling into it.
I traveled alone just to see how it feels and what it feels like.
I was out of my comfort zone.
I couldn't complain because I had put myself out there.
There was nobody inside to turn and point fingers at.
You did this to me.
I traveled and it was just me and the sides of my brain,
One that always critiques me and one that embraces me with love.
They both loved me and served me.
It was a constant struggle to who to listen to.
The stronger the voice,
The easier was it to succumb.
In my earlier days of travel,
I was like a child in a new school,
Keeping it to myself,
Silently embracing the fear of unknown.
People who I met on the road seemed confident and embraced life on the move.
With low self-esteem and a bag full of things I wouldn't need,
I traveled to places I met people from all walks of life.
Backpackers,
Nomads,
Engineers,
Waiters,
Teachers,
Designers.
They were from different schools of life,
Culture and carried unique stories.
The farther I moved,
The more I had to be with myself and it compelled me to find company.
It was just not okay to sit with me and have a coffee by myself.
It was lonely as the notion said.
It was not okay.
Why?
Who knows?
Just not okay.
Back at home,
People traveled in groups,
Stayed in luxury hotels,
Went to places that were famous and talked about work and drunk nights in the morning.
They felt free driving a scooter in their happy drunken glory,
Forgetting about their real lives for those few moments.
It was pleasure,
Fun,
Love,
Adventure.
It was what they looked forward to all year round.
I was a part of this group once,
Gathering my valuables and stepping out to three full days of debauchery,
Only to return back and talk about everything in haste.
Too drunk to remember what happened.
Memory escaped,
Work resumed and I waited to relive those few moments of life all year long.
The desire in me to live and be me was so strong that I couldn't wait for a year more and I slowly started to step out.
It was 500 kilometers first and then thousand kilometers away and then I lost the count of my distance.
It wasn't just me who was doing it.
It was everybody who I met along the road.
Their life had no stability of jobs.
They were just moving about and then I asked,
How do you do this?
Aren't you afraid?
They said,
This is so beautiful.
I wouldn't trade it for anybody or anything.
It may have been for experiences,
For the stories,
For the feeling of being out of familiar,
For the delights in casual sex,
But most of it,
It was the absolute comfort in being,
In living in the present.
My dear one,
I urge you to be lonely and to be alone because that's the only way you'll find solace within and that constant marathon to chase something will end.
Now my dear one,
Close your eyes,
Settle in a comfortable seated position.
We will go within and find your stillness.
Relax your body now,
Your muscles and straighten up your spine.
Take a deep breath in and let it out through your mouth.
One more time now,
Take a deep breath in and let it out through your mouth.
One more time,
Take a deep breath in and let it out.
Now relax,
Observe the point of contact.
Your hands on your lap or on the side of your body,
Your feet on the floor,
The feeling of your spine,
Your neck,
The temperature in the room,
Sounds around you.
Is there traffic or sounds of birds,
Of people moving in the house?
How do you feel at this moment?
Now place your right hand on your belly and your left hand on your heart.
Gently observe the beating of your heart and the rising the fall of your belly.
This is all there is in this moment.
Your heartbeat and the slow movement of your belly.
If any thought comes,
Let it pass.
Don't fight,
Engage,
Struggle.
Just observe and let them go.
Like touching the surface of water gently or a floating leaf on the surface of a river passing by slowly.
Be with your heart now,
Be with your breath.
This is your stillness.
This is all you need wherever you go.
All you seek is already within you my dear friend.
Now stay here for a while.
Come back now,
Take a deep breath and let it go.
Observe the contact of your body to the ground and the touch of your hands.
Observe the sounds around you,
The temperature of the air.
Gently open your eyes when you're ready.
Thanks for meditating with me.
I'll see you soon.
Have a great day.
