4 Reasons why Traveling is a new age Meditation

While I indulged discussing the benefits of meditation on human body with my Yoga guru, a mere mention of his experience at Chopta, led me to a thought, which formed the base of this story. Can we call travel as a substitute of Meditation or a form of new age meditation? As my guru was sharing his story of transformation which he felt under the star lited sky, I could not ignore but notice the shine on his face and sense of relief he experienced

For most of us living an urban life, it gets imperative at some point to take a break and do things which can help us in handling the juggled up 'stress' in our daily life. Offcourse the preference depends from people to people and for me travel is one such mode.

'I travel to clear my head'. During the years of my traveling, I met travelers who are constantly on a look out for transformation and personal upliftment. For them, travel is an ultimate release, a healing that not only allows them to get at par with the past, accept the present but shows them the path to a better future. And that is what meditation does to our mind: to help us find a way towards absolute nothingness, where everything ceases to exist and only peace prevails. A deeper understanding and connect with the inner self, fuelling a sense of breaking free.

Let me share why I feel traveling can be a new age meditation: 

Personal Transformation: You cannot find all the answers in books or on Google. You have to find some answers from within yourself. Just like meditation helps us in building a connection with the higher realm of our personality, traveling also helps us in building an unspoken yet strong connect with the self, transforming us to reach a near level of spirituality, making us more aware to live in the present. I started traveling with an intention to experience something new, which can be beyond my metro life and what I got in return was a transformed open self. As they say 'As you live through answering them, you'll witness that life is transforming on a higher level'

Results in pure happiness and calmness: Meditation gives us a chance to break-free from the real realm of the world to analyse what we want. A positive attitude which makes us happy, something which traveling also gifts us. What traveling has taught me over the years is that we should not consider happiness as a state of being, but that you should work towards achieving it. You just have to be as happy as you can be during every action, every place you choose to travel. Pick up the good things; start applying that in your daily life and see how happy you feel. As Margaret B. Runbeck say ' Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling' 

Consciousness evolves: With the assimilation of meditation into daily life, your consciousness evolves and in time, is able to experience the higher and refined states of consciousness. When your consciousness evolves and expands, the disturbances in your life become negligible. Anger and disappointments become fleeting emotions that occur momentarily and then vanish. You start living in 'the moment' and let go of 'the past'. Traveling has impacted me in many ways and in every sphere of my life. I have started appreciating even the smallest things in life and know that everything is possible. To top it I have started loving myself.

Brings harmony in creation: Meditation brings in the space of vastness, calmness and joy and this is what you emit into the environment, bringing harmony to your surrounding around. Similar to what we experience when we travel and build a connection with our soul. In short once you have accepted the surprises that life throws at you every second and accept it as your reality, you have found a way to get away and be truly found, emerging with the ideas of a newer, better living. Something which meditation and traveling, both teach us.

As Miriam Beard says: "Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living" What do you think about this ? Do leave your thoughts in comment section below.

This blog was originally published on Buoyant Feet.