1,727
edits
Changes
no edit summary
All experiences come in the silence but they do not come all pell-mell in a crowd at the beginning. The inner silence and peace have first to be established. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p79</ref>
= Silence and Yoga =
Philosophy knows nothing about peace and silence or the inner and outer vital. These things are discovered only by Yoga. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-intellect-and-yoga#p2</ref>
Obviously to live in the silent Brahman, the best way is to live within where one can have the silence and resist all outward pulls. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p57</ref>
But Yoga is not a mental field, the consciousness which has to be established is not a mental, logical or debating consciousness—it is even laid down by Yoga that unless and until the mind is stilled, including the intellectual or logical mind, and opens itself in quietude or silence to a higher and deeper consciousness, vision and knowledge, sadhana cannot reach its goal. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/doubt-and-faith#p1</ref>
== Descent of Peace ==
There are two movements that are necessary—one is the ascent through the increasing of peace and silence to its source above the mind,—that is indicated by the tendency of the consciousness to rise out of the body to the top of the head and above where it is easy to realise the Self in all its stillness and liberation and wideness and to open to the other powers of the Higher Consciousness. The other is the descent of the peace, silence, the spiritual freedom and wideness and the powers of the higher consciousness as they develop into the lower down to the most physical and even the subconscient. To both of these movements there can be a block—a block above due to the mind and lower nature being unhabituated (it is that really and not incapacity) and a block below due to the physical consciousness and its natural slowness to change. Everybody has these blocks but by persistent will, aspiration or abhyāsa they can be overcome. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/ascent-and-descent#p16</ref>
I have said that the most decisive way for the Peace or the Silence to come is by a descent from above. In fact, in reality though not always in appearance, that is how they always come;—not in appearance always, because the sadhak is not always conscious of the process; he feels the peace settling in him or at least manifesting, but he has not been conscious how and whence it came. Yet it is the truth that all that belongs to the higher consciousness comes from above, not only the spiritual peace and silence, but the Light, the Power, the Knowledge, the higher seeing and thought, the Ananda come from above. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-psychic-and-spiritual-realisations#p18</ref>
If your consciousness rises above the head, that means that it goes beyond the ordinary mind to the centre above which receives the higher consciousness or else towards the ascending levels of the higher consciousness itself. The first result is the silence and peace of the Self which is the basis of the higher consciousness; this may afterwards descend into the lower levels, into the very body. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/ascent-and-descent#p9</ref>
== Release of the Spirit ==
What one feels first [in the silence] is the pure existence of the self, without any idea, characteristic or movement—existence pure and simple, Sat Brahman—or else one feels that and a vast peace and wideness. Afterwards other things are felt such as Ananda, but always with this as the basis. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/experiences-of-the-self-the-one-and-the-infinite#p7</ref>
There is no distinction between the Self and the spirit. The psychic is the soul that develops in the evolution—the spirit is the Self that is not affected by the evolution, it is above it—only it is covered or concealed by the activity of mind, vital and body. The removal of this covering is the release of the spirit—and it is removed when there is a full and wide spiritual silence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-psychic-being#p18</ref>
But for the knowledge of the Self it is necessary to have the power of a complete intellectual passivity, the power of dismissing all thought, the power of the mind to think not at all which the Gita in one passage enjoins. This is a hard saying for the occidental mind to which thought is the highest thing and which will be apt to mistake the power of the mind not to think, its complete silence for the incapacity of thought. But this power of silence is a capacity and not an incapacity, a power and not a weakness. It is a profound and pregnant stillness. Only when the mind is thus entirely still, like clear, motionless and level water, in a perfect purity and peace of the whole being and the soul transcends thought, can the Self which exceeds and originates all activities and becomings, the Silence from which all words are born, the Absolute of which all relativities are partial reflections manifest itself in the pure essence of our being. In a complete silence only is the Silence heard; in a pure peace only is its Being revealed. Therefore to us the name of That is the Silence and the Peace. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-purified-understanding#p18 </ref>
== Silence in the Physical ==
''What is meant by the "silence of the physical consciousness" and how can one remain in this silence?''
The physical consciousness is not only the consciousness of our body, but of all that surrounds us as well all that we perceive with our senses. It is a sort of apparatus for recording and transmission which is open to all the contacts and shocks coming from outside and responds to them by reactions of pleasure and pain which welcome or repel. This makes in our outer being a constant activity and noise that we are only partially aware of, because we are so accustomed to them.
But if through meditation or concentration we turn inward or upward, we can bring down into ourselves or raise up from the depths calm, quiet, peace and finally silence. It is a concrete, positive silence (not the negative silence of the absence of noise), immutable so long as it remains, a silence one can experience even in the outer tumult of a hurricane or battlefield. This silence is synonymous with peace and it is all-powerful; it is the perfectly effective remedy for the fatigue, tension and exhaustion arising from that internal over-activity and noise which generally escape our control and cease neither by day nor night.
This is why the first thing required when one wants to do Yoga is to bring down and establish in oneself the calm, the peace, the silence. (The Mother, 15 October 1959) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/15-october-1959#p2</ref>
If the peace and silence continue to come down, they usually become so intense as to seize the physical mind also after a time. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation#p79</ref>
Certainly, peace, purity and silence can be felt in all material things—for the Divine Self is there in all. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace#p27</ref>
== Subconscient ==
As for the subconscient that is best dealt with when the opening of the consciousness to what comes down from above is complete. Then one becomes aware of the subconscient as a separate domain and can bring down into it the silence and all else that comes from above. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-subconscient-and-the-integral-yoga#p49</ref>
== Silence and the Descent of Supramental Consciousness ==
The silence of the mind does not of itself bring in the supramental consciousness; there are many states or planes or levels of consciousness between the human mind and the Supermind. The silence opens the mind and the rest of the being to greater things, sometimes to the cosmic consciousness, sometimes to the experience of the silent Self, sometimes to the presence or power of the Divine, sometimes to a higher consciousness than that of the human mind; the mind's silence is the most favourable condition for any of these things to happen. In this Yoga it is the most favourable condition (not the only one) for the Divine Power to descend first upon and then into the individual consciousness and there do its work to transform that consciousness, giving it the necessary experiences, altering all its outlook and movements, leading it from stage to stage till it is ready for the last (supramental) change. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-force-in-work#p7 </ref>
= Why is Silence Important? =
The sleep you describe in which there is a luminous silence or else the sleep in which there is Ananda in the cells, these are obviously the best states. The other hours, those of which you are unconscious, may be spells of a deep slumber in which you have gone out of the physical into the mental, vital or other planes. You say you were unconscious, but it may simply be that you do not remember what happened; for in coming back there is a sort of turning over of the consciousness, a transition or reversal, in which everything experienced in sleep except perhaps the last happening of all or else one that was very impressive, recedes from the physical awareness and all becomes as if a blank. There is another blank state, a state of inertia, not truly blank, but heavy and unremembering; but that is when one goes deeply and crassly into the subconscient; this subterranean plunge is very undesirable, obscuring, lowering, often fatiguing rather than restful, the reverse of the luminous silence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sleep#p50</ref>
= How to Practice Silence? =