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4,061 bytes added ,  18:06, 9 November 2018
Concentrating together is indeed a very good thing and helps you to become conscious. But it cannot be imposed. I advise you and them to organise this moment of silence daily for all those who want to participate, but without imposing anything on the others. It is not compulsory but it is good. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/community-affairs#p144,p146</ref>
 
== Different Practices ==
 
=== Regular Practice of Controlling Thoughts ===
 
This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one’s actions. For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/mental-education#p19</ref>
 
=== Dhammapada Method ===
 
They (small Buddhist sects) sit down for a few hours in the day and even at night and quiet their mind. This is for them the key to all realisation—a quiet mind that knows how to keep quiet for hours together without roving. You must not believe however that it is a very easy thing to do, but they have no other object. They do not concentrate upon any thought, they do not try to understand better, to know more, nothing of the kind; for them the only way is to have a quiet mind and sometimes they pass through years and years of effort before they arrive at this result—to silence the mind, to keep it absolutely silent and still; for, as it is said here in the Dhammapada, if the mind is unbalanced, then this constant movement of ideas following one another, sometimes without any order, ideas contradicting and opposing each other, ideas that speculate on things, all that jostles about in the head, makes holes in the roof, as it were. So through these holes all undesirable movements enter into the consciousness, as water enters into a house with a leaky roof. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p87</ref>
 
=== Practice of Samata (Equanimity) ===
 
Not to be disturbed by either joy or grief, pleasure or displeasure by what people say or do or by any outward things is called in Yoga a state of samata, equality to all things. It is of immense importance in sadhana to be able to reach this state. It helps the mental quietude and silence as well as the vital to come. It means indeed that the vital itself and the vital mind are already falling silent and becoming quiet. The thinking mind is sure to follow. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p100</ref>
 
=== Becoming Conscious ===
 
This simply means that one suddenly comes under the influence of a higher force of which one is not conscious; one is conscious only of the effect, but not of the cause. That's all. It's nothing more than that. If you were conscious you would know what makes you silent, what makes you meditate, what kind of force has entered into you or acts upon you or influences you and puts you in the silence. But as you are not conscious, you are aware only of the effect, the result, that is, the silence that comes into you. (The Mother, 24 August 1955) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/24-august-1955#p48</ref>
 
=== Nearness to Someone Who Has Achieved Silence ===
 
There is another phenomenon which is considered spiritual, but which is spiritual only indirectly: it is when you find yourself near someone who has controlled his thought and achieved mental silence. You suddenly feel this silence coming down into yourself and something which was impossible for you half an hour earlier suddenly becomes a reality. This is a rather unusual phenomenon. (The Mother, 22 January 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/22-january-1951#p16</ref>
== Few Helpful Activities and Qualities ==
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