Let us learn to be silent so that the Lord may make use of us. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/19-december-1971#p1,p2</ref></centre>
=References=
=What Stillness Means at a Yogic Level=
==How it is in the Mental Being?==
Even if a thousand images or the most violent events pass across it, the calm stillness remains as if the very texture of the mind were a substance of eternal and indestructible peace.
A mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act, even incessantly and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental stillness—originating nothing from itself but receiving from Above and giving it a mental form without adding anything of its own, calmly, dispassionately, though with the joy of the Truth and the happy power and light of its passage.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p56</ref>
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The first [calmness with disturbances on the surface] is the ordinary fundamental calm of the individual Adhar—the second [perfect stillness in the body and in the surrounding atmosphere] is the fundamental limitless calm of the cosmic consciousness, a calm which abides whether separated from all movements or supporting them.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p67</ref>
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This [limitless stillness] is the calm of the Atman, the Self above, silent, immutable and infinite.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p68</ref>
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These [tranquillity and stillness] are general words, of a general and not a special Yogic significance.
...but in the calm mind, it is the substance of the mental being that is still, so still that nothing disturbs it. If thoughts or activities come, they do not rise at all out of the mind, but they come from outside and cross the mind as a flight of birds crosses the sky in a windless air. It passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p56</ref>
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The first [calmness with disturbances on the surface] is the ordinary fundamental calm of the individual Adhar—the second [perfect stillness in the body and in the surrounding atmosphere] is the fundamental limitless calm of the cosmic consciousness, a calm which abides whether separated from all movements or supporting them.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p67</ref>
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The first [calmness with disturbances on the surface] is the ordinary fundamental calm of the individual Adhar—the second [perfect stillness in the body and in the surrounding atmosphere] is the fundamental limitless calm of the cosmic consciousness, a calm which abides whether separated from all movements or supporting them.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p67</ref>
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But it's incredible!... And then, from time to time, a little flame, it's so lovely! And that Presence... That Presence, that Presence... These cells are like children: when they feel, everything, but everything disappears except that Presence; then there is... like a sigh of relief. But outwardly, it's invisible: if the body were suffering, it would amount to the same thing. Generally, when it suffers, it doesn't complain: it calls.... It calls and calls and calls.... And it's quite aware that it's absolutely useless, that if it only knew... how to go into immobility, go into silence, it would be enough. As soon as it does it...
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/may-10-1969#p42</ref>
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...the two things can go together, you see, there is a moment when the two—aspiration and passivity—can be not only alternate but simultaneous. You can be at once in the state of aspiration, of willing, which calls down something—exactly the will to open oneself and receive, and the aspiration which calls down the force you want to receive—and at the same time be in that state of complete inner stillness which allows full penetration, for it is in this immobility that one can be penetrated, that one becomes permeable by the Force.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-april-1954#p26</ref>
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Well, the two can be simultaneous without the one disturbing the other, or can alternate so closely that they can hardly be distinguished. But one can be like that, like a great flame rising in aspiration, and at the same time as though this flame formed a vase, a large vase, opening and receiving all that comes down.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-april-1954#p26</ref>
==How does a Yogin Practice Stillness?==
If you suppress [the cittavṛttis], you will have no movements of the chitta at all; all will be immobile until you remove the suppression or will be so immobile that there cannot be anything else than immobility. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/sankhya-and-yoga#p7</ref>
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==What is it in Different Parts of the Being?==
Any Yogi who knows something about pranayama or japa can tell you that the running of the name in the breath is not a small phenomenon but of great importance in these practices and, if it comes naturally, a sign that something in the inner being has done that kind of sadhana in the past. As for the current it is the familiar sign of a first touch of the higher consciousness flowing down in the form of a stream—like the "wave" of light of the scientist—to prepare its possession of mind, vital and physical in the body. So is the stillness and rigidity of the body in your former experience a sign of the same descent of the higher consciousness in its form or tendency of stillness and silence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-value-of-experiences#p10</ref>
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It 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 obscuring fumes of a physical inertia which brings about a sleep or a torpor of the mind instead of its wakeful silence, that the thing can be done.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/philosophical-thought-and-yoga#p15</ref>
===Challenges Faced===
But, even in this repose of all thought movements and all movements of feeling, one sees, when one looks more closely at it, that the mind-substance is still in a constant state of very subtle formless but potentially formative vibration—not at first easily observable, but afterwards quite evident—and that state of constant vibration may be as harmful to the exact reflection or reception of the descending
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/philosophical-thought-and-yoga#p17</ref>
=Experiences Through Stillness=