A sanctuary dwells within me.

In the stillness and silence that live inside,

at any time I may find myself at peace and always home.

No matter how chaotic the world may spin around us, we can always choose the stillness and silence that live infinitely within. All around Mother India, this truth reflects back to us. The senses are often engulfed there, a complete saturation of seemingly every colour and smell, every noise and emotion. And yet, within a breath, we may find surprising sanctuaries amidst the chaos again and again. Peace in the eyes of a "stranger" or sitting with a tree. A cave carved into the mountainside or a temple in the center of a city. Perhaps most of all, we may find the stillness of our infinite home that dwells deep within, find the sanctuary that lies beneath our very skin.

Just moments before entering the ancient Hindu pilgrimage site of Galtaji Temple, I dart through traffic in the morning darkness in my friend's tuk tuk in the vastly populated state capital, Jaipur, in the deserts of Rajasthan, India. Surrounded by honking and hollering, swerving around wild pigs, large goats, and cows, and senses being filled with smells of incense and spices, fresh chapati and small fires burning on the sides of the road, I breathe and enjoy the opportunity to find stillness within me. A hike up a mountain, moments later and a few hundred monkeys passed too, I find myself seated in lotus, surrounded by temples, gazing as the sun melts the sky into light. And here, too, I find stillness, just as in the chaotic streets, realizing peace can be found anywhere, if only we allow it within ourselves.

A monk sits in meditation just down the pathway from the dirt where I sit, seeming to embody and have become the inner world he's chosen. While high in the surrounding hills, a natural spring emerges and flows downward into sacred "kunds" in which pilgrims bathe. These spaces remind me how stillness can always be found, sometimes tucked away, even right within the chaos and in the center of the movement.

Ancient Hindu Pilgrimage Site of Galtaji "Monkey" Temple, Khania-Balaji, near Jaipur "The Pink City," Rajasthan, India

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© Kaya Satori of Satori Studio