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→Silent Listening
All the other senses undergo a similar transformation. All that the ear listens to, reveals the totality of its sound body and sound significance and all the tones of its vibration and reveals also to the single and complete hearing the quality, the rhythmic energy, the soul of the sound and its expression of the one universal spirit. There is the same internality, the going of the sense into the depths of the sound and the finding there of that which informs it and extends it into unity with the harmony of all sound and no less with the harmony of all silence, so that the ear is always listening to the infinite in its heard expression and the voice of its silence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-supramental-sense#p12</ref>
= Impediments in Attaining Silence =
''' Fear '''
I have seen many cases in which Sri Aurobindo had given silence to somebody, had made his mind silent, and that person came back to him in a kind of despair, saying: "But I have become stupid!" For his thought was no longer excited. (Sri Aurobindo, 30 January 1957) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/30-january-1957#p12</ref>
A silence, an entry into a wide or even immense or infinite emptiness is part of the inner spiritual experience; of this silence and void the physical mind has a certain fear, the small superficially active thinking or vital mind a shrinking from it or dislike,—for it confuses the silence with mental and vital incapacity and the void with cessation or non-existence: but this silence is the silence of the spirit which is the condition of a greater knowledge, power and bliss, and this emptiness is the emptying of the cup of our natural being, a liberation of it from its turbid contents so that it may be filled with the wine of God; it is the passage not into non-existence but to a greater existence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-divine-life#p16</ref>
This is true, altogether true, it is at the moment when all is silenced in order that man may become conscious of his origin that he, in his folly, in order to distract himself conceives or carries out the worst stupidities.
To distract himself because he is unable to bear the force of the Light?
Yes.
The pressure is too strong?
Yes, there are those who are afraid, they are panic-stricken. They cannot bear it so they turn to anything at all to get out of it. (The Mother, 12 March 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/12-march-1951#p47,p48,p49,p50,p51</ref>
''' Resistance to Face Themselves'''
In making a noise? Because they like to deaden themselves. In silence they have to face their own difficulties, they are in front of themselves, and usually they don't like that. In the noise they forget everything, they become stupefied. So they are happy. (The Mother, 26 January 1955) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/26-january-1955#p13</ref>
''' Interference of Lower Nature '''
The descent of the peace is often one of the first major positive experiences of the sadhana. In this state of peace the normal thought-mind (buddhi) is apt to fall silent or abate most of its activity and, when it does, very often either this vital mind can rush in, if one is not on one's guard, or else a kind of mechanical physical or random subconscient mind can begin to come up and act; these are the chief disturbers of the silence. Or else the lower vital mind can try to disturb; that brings up the ego and passions and their play. All these are signs of elements that have to be got rid of, because if they remain and other of the higher powers begin to descend, Power and Force, Knowledge, Love or Ananda, those lower things may come across with the result that either the higher consciousness retires or its descent is covered up and the stimulation it gives is misused for the purposes of the lower nature. This is the reason why many sadhaks after having big experiences fall into the clutch of a magnified ego, upheavals, ambition, exaggerated sex or other vital passions or distortions. It is always well therefore if a complete purification of the vital can either precede or keep pace with the positive experience—at least in natures in which the vital is strongly active. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-mind#p48</ref>
''' External Interference '''
To try to solve this problem ascetics used to go away into forests and sit under a tree; there, of course, they had not to fear any contagion from other human beings. But it is very difficult to go to the very end of this resolution, for it quickly gets known that a saint is sitting under a tree in meditation, and immediately everybody rushes there! Not only does he not escape from the difficulty, but he increases it, for there is not a thing more dangerous than to teach others. You know just a little and you begin to teach others, and you are immediately compelled to say more than you know, because people put questions to you which you cannot answer, unless you are a hero of silence. In the world, those who want to pass themselves off as spiritual teachers—when people come and ask them something they do not know, they invent it. (The Mother, 5 February 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/5-february-1951#p12</ref>
''' Lack of Control '''
Man is the first animal on earth to be able to use articulate sounds. Indeed, he is very proud of this capacity and exercises it without moderation or discernment. The world is deafened with the sound of his words and sometimes one almost misses the harmonious silence of the plant kingdom. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p34</ref>
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