Sometimes everyday life threatens to swallow everything. The day fills with obligations, and the mind begins to circle the same tracks, narrowing one’s inner perspective. In such moments, it may be necessary to pause and let the gaze rise above one’s habitual patterns of thought.
When a person sees themselves and their life from a wider perspective, a space opens in which both inner peace and a sense of the sacred become possible. A broader view does not remove problems, but it changes their scale. Moments like these often evoke the feeling that we are connected to something greater than ourselves.
Here are 16 concrete and experiential suggestions that may offer ways—and brief glimpses—into the experience of eternity.
- Go outside on a star-bright night and look at the sky until your eyes have adjusted. When your gaze no longer clings to individual stars but sinks into the depth of the heavens, the mind grows quiet and the vastness of space becomes perceptible.
- Walk in nature without hurry and notice the slow processes around you: the scent of decay, the growth of moss, the trunks of old trees. They remind you that life moves to a rhythm that does not follow the human calendar or clock.
- Observe the gaze of a small child. Its openness reveals a way of being that has not yet learned the weight of time.
- Spend time near an elderly or dying person. A gaze that no longer reaches towards building the future reflects a different kind of peace.
- Listen to the wind or the waves. Such sounds do not belong to any single era; they repeat themselves unchanged from one generation to the next. Their continuity opens a sense of timelessness.
- Look into your own eyes through a mirror for a long time and notice how something ageless looks back at you.
- Hold an object that has travelled a long way: a stone shaped over millions of years, or an old votive offering. The long history of matter places your own life into a different scale.
- Open a photograph of yourself from many years ago. Look into your past self’s eyes and notice how, through all stages of life, the same inner observer has always been present.
- Sit for a moment in a cemetery and read the names on the gravestones. They speak of lives lived, and at the same time you may sense that we are all part of the same flow of existence.
- Walk outside on a winter’s day when the snow muffles all sound. The world feels still, and in the quiet your inner voice becomes clearer.
- Look at the sea or a lake for a long time. Its surface changes every moment, yet the whole remains. The inner life of a human being can recognise the same rhythm.
- Hold a very old object in your hand and reflect on how many people have lived and died during its existence. The purpose of this reflection is not to evoke sadness, but to open an awareness of the long chain in which you stand.
- Close your eyes and listen to your heartbeat. It is a rhythm that has been with you since before you were born, carrying within it the continuity of life.
- Return to a memory of yourself as a child and recognise the inner observer who has never disappeared. Despite changes in body and life circumstances, some core within you experiences existence in the same way across the decades.
Look at the surface of the moon. The same landscape has been seen throughout the entire history of humankind. In this shared experience and unchanging view lies a quiet sense of eternity.- Sit in silence and observe the passing of time without feeling the need to fill it. When minutes stretch and cease to feel important, a space opens in which one can sense something enduring.
These moments reveal that life has two levels. One changes constantly, and the other remains steady in the background.
When a person pauses and perceives this distinction within their own experience, a stable point of view emerges from which their existence appears more clearly. At the same time, an understanding opens that one’s life is part of a larger whole than any single phase—and this brings peace.
