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In silence, the consciousness grows. It aspires to know You more and more perfectly. (The Mother, 3 April 1972) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/3-april-1972#p1</ref>
== Not How Silence is different from == The words “peace, calm, quiet, silence” have each their own shade of meaning, but it is not easy to define them. Peace—śānti.Calm—sthiratā.Quiet—acañcalatā.Silence—niścala-nīravatā. Quiet is a condition in which there is no restlessness or disturbance.Calm is a still, unmoved condition which no disturbance can affect—it is a less negative condition than quiet.Peace is a still more positive condition; it carries with it a sense of settled and harmonious rest and deliverance.Silence is a state in which either there is no movement of the mind or vital or else a great stillness which no surface movement can pierce or alter. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p1,p2,p3,p4,p5,p6,p7,p8,p9</ref> Silence of the mind, peace or calm in the mind are three things that are very close together and bring each other. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p19</ref> == Quietude ==
The first step is a quiet mind—silence is a farther step, but quietude must be there, and by a quiet mind I mean a mental consciousness within which sees thoughts arrive to it and move about, but does not itself feel that it is thinking or identify itself with the thoughts or call them its own. Thoughts, mental movements may pass through it as wayfarers appear and pass from elsewhere through a silent country—the quiet mind observes them or does not care to observe them but in either case does not become active or lose its quietude. Silence is more than quietude; it can be gained by banishing thought altogether from the inner mind keeping it voiceless or quite outside; but more easily it is established by a descent from above—one feels it coming down, entering and occupying, or surrounding the personal consciousness which then tends to merge itself in the vast impersonal silence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p36</ref>
Quiet is rather negative—it is the absence of disturbance. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p10</ref>
== Not only Continence of Speech ==