Travel – The New Age Meditation

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

To meditate is to find a way towards absolute nothingness, where everything ceases to exist and only the peace prevails, calming the storms but lighting a fire that fuels the desires of breaking free. Some find it in the ancient of texts, studying them with the third eye, as they say; while others find it in the olden forms of yoga, kundalini, or vipassana. For some, making a physical journey to the first of the shrines, both high and near is the culmination; whereas for others the catharsis lays at the end of a strenuous workout: exercising, cycling, walking, or swimming. And then there are the travellers, constantly on the move and always on the lookout for a perpetual, personal transformation. For them, travel is the ultimate release, a prominent therapeutic that not only cures the misgivings of the past but also lays down the path to the future, without ever needing them to ponder over what is about to come.

What began, for them, as an inane exercise to experience something new gives way to wanderlust as destination and journey become one. This in turn establishes an unspoken yet vividly felt connection with the living world. Travel, then, breaks the confines of the routine and transcends itself and the recipient to a near level of spirituality, slowly becoming their present, their expression, and their chosen form of Meditation. Just as the wandering sages, it ensues the travellers to dissolve themselves and then emerge with a quieter, more spacious, a self-constructing mind, body, and soul. They might still practice one or more of the forms of meditation mentioned above, but in the end, it is travel that gives them the ultimate high. A feeling of being free by feeling one with the nature and the creations: the mountains and its broken trails, the seas and its soothing shores, the woods and its whistling creaks; the people, the cultures, and the traditions that inherit their journeys, each catalysing a change, ever enduring, that goes and grows within.

However, travel isn’t without its set of challenges. Just as other forms of meditations, travel, too, asks the travellers of continuity and dedication, lest the old world should creep up from behind and take them prisoners. Because, let’s have it, travel demands more time, which in today’s fast-paced world, is a difficult feat to achieve. As a potential traveller looking to tread this path, you will not only have to manage your time, and money, efficiently, but also pay heed to the longings that beckon, every now and then, to walk in a different place, and to feel with all your senses what stories it has to tell. And when the time comes, no matter how hard it seems, to let go. To let go of the fear that is holding you back. To embrace the uncertainty and the surprises: the hold ups, the encounters, hurdles, and the weather. But once you have accepted the surprises as a part of the journey, a part of yourself; you have found a way to get away and be truly found, emerging with the ideas of a newer, better living.