By Roshan Jayasinghe
An essay on spirit, stillness, and the silent rhythm of life
An invitation to reflect through the mirror of awareness, not to remember with certainty where we came from or where we’re going, but to imagine, to feel, and to know what we may be in the space between.
There is something in us that doesn’t change. It’s not something we learned, nor something anyone gave us. Before our names, our stories, or our faces in the mirror, there was this: still, silent, aware. It’s not an idea or a belief. It’s not something we have to earn. It’s something we are. We could call it presence, nature, spirit, or simply life itself. Whatever word we use, the truth is this: it’s already here, quietly watching behind our eyes, steady beneath all the movement.
Before we took form, we were pure potential, without shape, without fear, without thought. Then something miraculous happened. A body began to form around that formless awareness: a heartbeat, a nervous system, limbs, and breath. After nine months in the womb, safe, warm, and soundless, we were born. And that moment of birth was not just physical. It was a jolt of awareness meeting matter. It was the silent essence of us being pressed into the experience of sensation and time. That first cry wasn’t just a reaction to bright lights or cold air, it was the sound of consciousness entering form.
As we grow older, we begin to forget. We start believing we are only what we do, what others see, what society tells us to be. We confuse what we feel with who we are. We carry pain like identity, wear roles like skin, and walk through life reacting more than remembering. But beneath it all, the essence hasn’t left. It is still here, quieter than our thoughts, more still than our emotions.
Sometimes, it shows itself in simple moments. When we watch a bird land softly on a tree. When we sit beside someone we love in silence. When the sun hits our skin and we feel, even for a breath, like everything is okay. That is not just calm. That is our nature reintroducing itself to us.
When the world becomes loud and overwhelming, when we feel exhausted or lost, we don’t need to power through. We don’t need to perform healing or pretend peace. Sometimes, the most sacred act is simply to rest.
“Hide and sleep… when the world gets too loud. Drift into the hush where nothing is asked of you. Where the sky covers your mind like a blanket, and the silence tells you: you are safe.”
—Alison Moet
Rest isn’t giving up. It’s returning. Returning not to a belief, but to ourselves. To that place in us where nothing needs to be fixed. Nothing needs to be earned. Just a quiet recognition: we were always enough.
Our bodies aren’t burdens. They are not something to conquer or bypass. They are sensing organs of spirit, living, breathing bridges between the seen and unseen. They respond to our truth. They tense when we betray ourselves. They soften when we are clear. The discomfort we feel isn’t punishment, it’s a signal, asking us to listen. When treated with kindness, the body becomes the map, not the obstacle.
Let’s not confuse correction with condemnation. We all act from confusion sometimes. We say things we regret. We hurt others and ourselves. But those actions don’t define us, they simply reflect a moment when we believed something untrue. Correction is not shame. It’s clarity. It’s the moment we pause and see: we’re not that thought. We’re not that reaction. We are something deeper. And the moment we remember, our actions begin to align again, not from force, but from recognition.
And from that recognition comes a deeper joy. Not a loud, fleeting high, but a grounded, quiet joy that lives beneath everything. Joy that doesn’t need a reason. Joy that exists simply because we’ve stopped running from ourselves. When we stop chasing, when we stop performing, when we allow ourselves to simply be, joy returns naturally.
So who are we, really, underneath everything the world has told us to be?
Not our jobs.
Not our traumas.
Not our titles, our memories, or even our thoughts.
We are the stillness that sees it all.
We are life itself, remembering itself.
And we don’t have to journey far.
We’re not on our way home.
We’re on our way back to ourselves.
And the returning… is joy.
And one day, just as suddenly as we arrived here, we will leave these bodies.
Not as punishment. Not as an ending.
But as another return.
Just as the spirit once entered with a cry, it may one day exit with a sigh, a silence, or a final whisper of breath.
But we will not be gone.
Because what we are does not begin or end with the body. What we are does not belong to time. We are not a moment in the world, we are the timeless presence that the world passes through.
Even in death, we are not losing ourselves. We are returning to ourselves. Fully.
And so, every moment of life in between, every laugh, every ache, every pause, is a chance to remember this:
We are spirit in form.
We are life remembering life.
We are the stillness before breath… and the stillness after.
And the more we remember, the more joy walks beside us.
Because the journey is not to some distant heaven. The journey is always… back to ourselves.
We are not here merely to survive. We are not here to perfect ourselves. We are here to remember what moves beneath all movement. To feel, to awaken, to return, not only to ourselves, but to the great unseen origin from which all life arises.
The breath that filled us in the womb is the same breath that carries us into silence. What came through us now moves on from us, as life continues its journey, perhaps returning to begin again, in physical form, or in pure energy, in synchronicity with life’s rhythm, in ways the mind cannot fully know, but the soul somehow recognizes.
This is not the end. This is the soft turning of a circle. A return to the beginning, for life to unfold once more through new form, new silence, new remembering.
And so the journey continues… not forward, not backward, but inward, outward, everywhere.
About the Author
Roshan Jayasinghe is a humanist thinker and emerging writer based in California. With a background in administration and a deep passion for social equity, he explores the intersections of politics, identity, and compassion through a lens grounded in nature’s own self-correcting wisdom.
Roshan Jayasinghe
Rooted in the belief that humanity can realign with the natural order where balance, regeneration, and interdependence are inherent. Roshan’s reflections invite readers to pause, question, and reimagine the systems we live within. His writing seeks not to impose answers, but to spark thought and awaken a deeper awareness of our shared human journey. Roshan will be sharing weekly articles that gently challenge, inspire, and reconnect us to what matters most.
