Silence

Q: Are you living in the Supreme Unknown?

M: Where else?

Q: What makes you say so?

M: No desire ever arises in my mind.

Q: Are you then unconscious?

M: Of course not! I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear enters my mind, there is perfect

silence.

Q: Who knows the silence?

M: Silence knows itself. It is the silence of the silent mind, when passions and desires are silenced.

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Questioner: I have come to be with you, rather than to listen. Little can be said in words, much more can be conveyed in silence.

Maharaj: First words, then silence. One must be ripe for silence.

Q: Can I live in silence?

M: Unselfish work leads to silence, for when you work selflessly, you don't need to ask for help. Indifferent to results, you are willing to work with the most inadequate means. You do not care to be much gifted and well equipped. Nor do you ask for recognition and assistance. You just do what needs be done, leaving success and failure to the unknown.

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Q: But thinking, reasoning is the mind’s normal state. The mind just cannot stop working.

M: It may be the habitual state, but it need not be the normal state. A normal state cannot be painful, while a habit often leads to chronic pain.

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If you seek the Immutable, go beyond experience. When I say: remember 'I am' all the time, I mean: 'come back to it repeatedly'. No particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence. Not the idea of silence, but silence itself. When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every experience or, rather, every experience happens against the background of silence.

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M: If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. It is your restlessness that causes chaos.

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You are entangled in the web of verbal definitions and formulations. Go beyond your concepts and ideas; in the silence of desire and thought the truth is found.

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Q: At the back of my mind there is a hum going on all the time. Numerous weak thoughts swarm and buzz and this shapeless cloud is always with me. Is it the same with you? What is at the back of your mind?

M: Where there is no mind, there is no back to it. I am all front, no back! The void speaks, the void remains.

Q: Is there no memory left?

M: No memory of past pleasure or pain is left. Each moment is newly born.

*

Having reached that far, abandon all thoughts, not only of the world, but of yourself also. Stay beyond all thoughts, in silent being-awareness. It is not progress, for what you come to is already there in you, waiting for you.

Q: So you say I should try to stop thinking and stay steady in the idea: 'I am'.

M: Yes, and whatever thoughts come to you in connection with the 'I am', empty them of all meaning, pay them no attention.

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Q: What makes us progress?

M: Silence is the main factor. In peace and silence you grow.

Q: The mind is so absolutely restless. For quieting it what is the way?

M: Trust the teacher. Take my own case. My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense ‘I am', it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears. Just turn away from all that occupies the mind; do whatever work you have to complete, but avoid new obligations; keep empty, keep available, resist not what comes uninvited.

In the end you reach a state of non-grasping, of joyful non-attachment, of inner ease and freedom indescribable, yet wonderfully real.

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Q: How am I to reach perfection?

M: Keep quiet. Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet. Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for realisation. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your mind and quiet in your heart. realised people are very quiet.

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Q: But you are talking of the knowable.

M: Of the unknowable only silence talks. The mind can talk only of what it knows. If you diligently investigate the knowable, it dissolves and only the unknowable remains. But with the first flicker of imagination and interest the unknowable is obscured and the known comes to the fore-front. The known, the changeable, is what you live with -- the unchangeable is of no use to you. It is only when you are satiated with the changeable and long for the unchangeable, that you are ready for the turning round and stepping into what can be described, when seen from the level of the mind, as emptiness and darkness.

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M: Once you are beyond the person, you need no words.

Q: What can take me beyond the person? How to go beyond consciousness?

M: Words and questions come from the mind and hold you there. To go beyond the mind, you must be silent and quiet. Peace and silence, silence and peace -- this is the way beyond. Stop asking questions.

Q: Once I give up asking questions, what am I to do?

M: What can you do but wait and watch?

Q: What am I to wait for?

M: For the centre of your being to emerge into consciousness. The three states – sleeping, dreaming and waking are all in consciousness, the manifested; what you call unconsciousness will also be manifested -- in time; beyond consciousness altogether lies the unmanifested. And beyond all, and pervading all, is the heart of being which beats steadily – manifested-unmanifested; manifested-unmanifested (saguna-nirguna).

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Q: What are the signs of progress in spiritual life?

M: Freedom from anxiety; a sense of ease and joy; deep peace within and abundant energy without.

Q: How did you get it?

M: I found it all in the holy presence of my Guru -- I did nothing on my own. He told me to be quiet -- and I did it -- as much as I could.

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Why is my inner peace not steady, I cannot understand.

M: Peace, after all, is also a condition of the mind.

Q: Beyond the mind is silence. There is nothing to be said about it.

M: Yes, all talk about silence is mere noise.

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Q: It is truth I seek, not peace.

M: You cannot see the true unless you are at peace. A quiet mind is essential for right perception, which again is required for self-realisation.

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The people who begin their sadhana are so feverish and restless, that they have to be very busy to keep themselves on the track. An absorbing routine is good for them. After some time they quieten down and turn away from effort. In peace and silence the skin of the 'I' dissolves and the inner and the outer become one. The real sadhana is effortless.

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Q: This world, with so much suffering in it, how can you see it as irrelevant. What callousness!

M: It is you who is callous, not me. If your world is so full of suffering, do something about it; don't add to it through greed or indolence. I am not bound by your dreamlike world. In my world the seeds of suffering, desire and fear are not sown and suffering does not grow. My world is free from opposites, of mutually distinctive discrepancies; harmony pervades; its peace is rocklike; this peace and silence are my body.

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M: Keep quiet, undisturbed, and the wisdom and the power will come on their own. You need not hanker. Wait in silence of the heart and mind. It is very easy to be quiet, but willingness is rare. You people want to become supermen overnight. Stay without ambition, without the least desire, exposed, vulnerable, unprotected, uncertain and alone, completely open to and welcoming life as it happens, without the selfish conviction that all must yield you pleasure or profit, material or so- called spiritual.

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M: No effort can take you there, only the clarity of understanding. Trace your misunderstandings and abandon them, that is all. There is nothing to seek and find, for there is nothing lost. Relax and watch the 'I am'. Reality is just behind it. Keep quiet, keep silent; it will emerge, or, rather, it will take you in.