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<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Practise silence of mind, it gives power of understanding.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-mind#p85</ref></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Wait quietly for the exact indication; all mental intervention and decisions are arbitrary. The clear indication comes in the silence of the mind.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-mind#p89</ref></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is only in mental silence that you can hear the voice without distorting it—be very peaceful.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-mind#p92</ref></span>

Wait quietly for the exact indication; all mental intervention and decisions are arbitrary. The clear indication comes in the silence of the mind.<span style="backgroundref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-color:transparent;color:mind#000000;"p89</ref>It is only in quietness, peace and mental silence that you can hear the spiritual forces actvoice without distorting it—be very peaceful.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/quietthe-mind#p26p92</ref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">A respectful It is in quietness, peace and modest silence is that the only attitude befitting a disciplespiritual forces act.</spanref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/control-of-speechquiet#p39 http:p26<//incarnateword.in/cwm/14/control-of-speech#p39]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">They [small Buddhist sects</span><span style="background-color:#f5f5f5;color:#333333;">}</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">sit down for a few hours in the day A respectful and even at night and quiet their mind. This modest silence 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. </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"><nowiki>; 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 attitude befitting a leaky roofdisciple.</nowiki></span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0314/conjugatecontrol-of-versesspeech#p87p39 </ref>

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<div style="color:#000000nowiki>;">This work for, as it is said here in the Dhammapada, if the mind is unbalanced, then this constant movement of mental purification should be done very regularly 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 order to secure the roof, as it were. So through these holes all undesirable movements enter into the consciousness, as water enters into a house with a complete control over one’s actionsleaky roof.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p87</divref>

<div style="margin-left:0cm;margin-right:0cm;"><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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 </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">. 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 </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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.</spanref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/mental-education#p19 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/mental-education#p19]</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">There is an active method by which one looks to see where the thoughts come from and finds they come not from oneself, but from outside the head as it were; if one can detect them coming, then, before they enter, they have to be thrown away altogether. This is perhaps the most difficult way and not all can do it, but if it can be done it is the shortest and most powerful road to silence.</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation#p24</ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is quite certain that to create absolute silence is of all things the most difficult, for many things of which one was not aware, become enormous! There were all kinds of suggestion, movements, thoughts, formations which went on as though automatically in the outer consciousness, almost outside the consciousness, on the frontiers of consciousness; and as soon as one wants to be absolutely silent, one becomes aware of all these things which go on moving, moving, moving and make a lot of noise and prevent you from being silent. That is why it is better to remain very quiet, very calm and at the same time </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">very attentive to something which is above you and to which you aspire,</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">and if there is this kind of noise passing like that around you (Mother moves her hands around her head), not to pay attention, not to look, not to heed it. If there are thoughts which go round and round and round like this (gestures), which come and go, do not look, do not pay attention, but concentrate upwards in a great aspiration which one may even formulate—because often it helps the concentration—towards the light, the peace, the quietude, towards a kind of inner impassiveness, so that the concentration may be strong enough for you not to attend to all that continues to whirl about all around. But if suddenly you say, "Ah, there's some noise! Oh, here is a thought!", then it is finished. You will never succeed in being quiet. Have you never seen those people who try to stop a quarrel by shouting still louder than the ones who are quarrelling? Well, it is something like that. (</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">''Mother laughs''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">.)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/8-september-1954#p32</ref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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 samatā, equality to all things.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p100</ref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">First condition, know how to keep silent. And not only keep your tongue quiet, but silence </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">your mind, keep the head silent. If you wish to have a true, sincere experience upon which you can build, you must know how to be silent, otherwise you have nothing but what you fabricate yourself, which is equivalent to zero. All that one can say is, "Heavens, what a fashioner my mind is!" (The Mother, 19 March 1951)</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/19-march-1951#p34</ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To remain in silence as much as possible is good for a time. But entire retirement is seldom found to be helpful—the lower movements may remain quiescent owing to want of stimulus from outside, but do not disappear. For that you must be able to </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">get an inner quietude and a mastery over the outer movements </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">which will resist any atmosphere.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p74</ref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The difficulty is that the things in the atmosphere come in even if one does not speak with people. There are always mind waves moving about. It is a mastery that has to be developed, beginning with a power of silence, exclusion, non-response.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p75</ref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The mind must learn to be silent—remain calm, attentive, without making a noise. If you try to silence your mind directly, it is a hard job, almost impossible; for the most material part of the mind never stops its activity—it goes on and on like a non-stop recording machine. It repeats all that it records and unless there is a switch to stop it, it continues and continues indefinitely. If, on the other hand, you manage to </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">shift your consciousness into a higher domain</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">, above the ordinary mind, this opening to the Light calms the mind, it does not stir any longer, and the mental silence so obtained can become constant. Once you enter into this domain, you may very well never come out of it—the external mind always remains calm.(The Mother, 8 March 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/8-march-1951#p4</spanref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mothersilence in the head and heart and the emptiness are both necessary and desirable. When they are there, 8 March 1951)</span><span style="background-color:transparentthe consciousness finds them natural and they give it the sense of lightness and release;color:#0066cc;">that is why the thoughts or speech of the old kind are foreign to it and when they come give fatigue. This silence and emptiness must grow, so that the higher consciousness with its knowledge, light, Ananda, peace can come down in it and progressively replace the old things. They must indeed occupy not only head and heart but the whole body. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0430/8experiences-of-marchthe-1951self-the-one-and-the-infinite#p4p25</ref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The silence in This pure stillness of the mind is indeed always the head and heart and required condition, the emptiness desideratum, but for bringing it about there are both necessary</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">and desirablemore ways than one. When they are thereIt is not, for instance, only by an effort of the mind itself to get clear of all intrusive emotion or passion, to quiet its own characteristic vibrations, to resist the consciousness finds them natural and they give it obscuring fumes of a physical inertia which brings about a sleep or a torpor of the sense mind instead of lightness and release; its wakeful silence, that the thing can be done. This is why indeed an ordinary process of the Yogic path of knowledge; but the thoughts same end can be brought about or speech automatically happen by other processes—for instance, by the descent from above of a great spiritual stillness imposing silence on the mind and heart, on the life stimuli, on the old physical reflexes. A sudden descent of this kind are foreign to it or a series of descents accumulative in force and when they come give fatigueefficacy is a well-known phenomenon of spiritual experience. This silence Or again one may start a mental process of one kind or another for the purpose which would normally mean a long labour and emptiness must growyet may pull down or be seized midway, or even at the outset, so that by an overmind influx, a rapid intervention or manifestation of the higher consciousness Silence, with its knowledgean effect sudden, lightinstantaneous, Anandaout of all proportion to the means used at the beginning. One commences with a method, peace can come down but the work is taken up by a Grace from above, by a response from That to which one aspires or by an irruption of the infinitudes of the Spirit. It was in it and progressively replace this last way that I myself came by the old things. They must indeed occupy not only head and heart but mind's absolute silence, unimaginable to me before I had the whole bodyactual experience.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3028/experiences-of-the-selfphilosophical-the-onethought-and-the-infiniteyoga#p25p19</ref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">This pure stillness of the mind is indeed always the required condition, the desideratum, but for bringing Ah! First you must will it about there are more ways than one. It is not, for instanceand then you must say, only by an effort of the mind itself as to get clear people who make a lot of all intrusive emotion or passionnoise, to "Keep quiet its own characteristic vibrations, to resist the obscuring fumes of a physical inertia which brings about a sleep or a torpor of the mind instead of its wakeful silencebe quiet, that the thing can be </span><span style=quiet!"background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">done. This is indeed an ordinary process of the Yogic path of knowledge; but the same end can be brought about or automatically happen by other processes—for instance, by the descent from above of a great spiritual stillness imposing silence on you must do this when the mind comes along with all its suggestions and heartall its movements. You must tranquillise it, on the life stimulipacify it, on the physical reflexesmake it silent. A sudden descent of this kind or a series of descents accumulative in force and efficacy The first thing is a well-known phenomenon of spiritual experiencenot to listen to it. Or again one may start a mental process Most of one kind or another for the purpose which would normally mean a long labour and yet may pull down or be seized midwaytime, or even at the outsetas soon as all these come, by an overmind influxall these thoughts, a rapid intervention or manifestation of the higher Silenceone looks, with an effect suddenseeks to understand, instantaneousone listens; then naturally that imbecile believes that you are very much interested: it increases its activity. You must not listen, out of all proportion to the means used at the beginningmust not pay attention. One commences with a methodIf it makes too much noise, </span><span style=you must tell it: "background-color:transparent;color:#000000;Be still! Now then, silence, keep quiet!">but the work is taken up by without making a Grace from abovelot of noise yourself, by a response from That to which one aspires </span><span style=you understand? You must not imitate those people who begin shouting: "background-color:transparent;color:#000000;Keep quiet">or by an irruption of the infinitudes of the Spirit. It was in this last way , and make such a noise themselves that I myself came by they are even noisier than the mind's absolute silenceothers! (The Mother, unimaginable to me before I had the actual experience.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;">19 May 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2806/philosophical19-thought-andmay-yoga1954#p19p45</ref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Ah! First </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">you must will it,</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">and then you must say, as to people who make a lot of noise, "Keep quiet, be quiet, be quiet!"; you must do this when the mind comes along with all its suggestions and all its movements. You must tranquillise it, pacify it, make it silent. The first thing is not to listen to it. Most of the time, as soon as all these come, all these thoughts, one looks, seeks to understand, one listens; then naturally that imbecile believes that you are very much interested: it increases its activity. You must not listen, must not pay attention. If it makes too much noise, you must tell it: "Be still! Now then, silence, keep quiet!" without making a lot of noise yourself, you understand? You must not imitate those people who begin shouting: "Keep quiet", and make such a noise themselves that they are even noisier than the others!</span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 19 May 1954)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/19-may-1954#p45</ref></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">At first whenever I fell back into sin, I used to weep and rage against myself and against God for having suffered it. Afterwards it was as much as I could dare to ask, "Why hast thou rolled me again in the mud, O my playfellow?" Then even that came to my mind to seem too bold and presumptuous; I could only get up in silence, look at him out of the corner of my eyes—and clean myself.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-462-463#p3</ref></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The cure is not in trying to wake up the mind but in turning it, immobile and silent, </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">upward towards the region of intuitive light, in a steady and quiet aspiration, and to wait in silence, for the light to come down </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">and flood your brain which will, little by little, wake up to this influence and become capable of receiving and expressing the intuition.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/study#p88</ref></span>