The Power of Silence
Modern
humans have lost touch with their inner ‘true self’. Silence and
stillness are a means to recovering happiness and contentment. In the modern
world silence has practically ceased to exist.
The
human race has stamped its authority over the planet Earth not just by covering
its surface with concrete and destroying its plant and animal life, but also by
burying the natural sounds of the Earth beneath a cacophony of man-made noise.
We live our lives against the background of this cacophony, with the jagged
mechanical sounds of urban-industrial society continually assaulting our ears:
the roar of trucks, aeroplanes and trains, the clanging and thudding of
machinery, the noise of building and renovating, the chatter of radios and TVs
in other people’s cars and houses, and pop music blaring from every conceivable
place.
But
nothing, of course, has done more to obliterate silence than the car. In the
modern world it’s very difficult to go anywhere where there’s no possibility of
being disturbed by the sound of passing cars, and the only chance that city or
town dwellers get to experience something of the quietness which existed
everywhere in the pre-car world is sometimes on Sundays, when the mad rushing
to and fro of modern life slows down. This quietness seems so foreign now that
it seems difficult to believe that a hundred years ago and before it was
everywhere all the time. Back then this quietness would even have filled the
busiest city centres, which would have probably had a noise level equivalent to
that of a modern small village.
There’s
also more noise than ever before inside our houses. It’s unusual to go into a
house nowadays where there isn’t at least one television set chattering away
somewhere, even if the residents aren’t actually watching it, and other forms
of home entertainment compete against TV to produce the most noise: radios, CD
players, computer and video games etc. In fact the only sound which is largely
absent from people’s houses nowadays is the voices of their occupants actually
talking to one another.
Living
in the midst of all this noise is bound to have a bad effect on us. All
man-made noise is fundamentally disturbing. We find the sound of birds singing
or of wind rushing through trees pleasing, but mechanical noise always jars and
grates. And since we live our lives against a background of mechanical noise it
follows that there’s always an undercurrent of agitation inside us, produced by
the noise. This noise is certainly one of the reasons why modern life is so
stressful as well. In modern life our senses are bombarded with massive amounts
of external stimuli. Our fields of vision are always crowded with different
(and constantly shifting) things, and our ears are bombarded with a bewildering
variety of sounds — all of which clamour for our attention. Our
senses have to absorb and process all this material, which takes up a lot of
energy, and means that we’re liable to become drained of energy or ‘run down’
easily.
We
can get out of this state by removing ourselves from all external stimuli and
letting our energy-batteries naturally recharge themselves i.e., by relaxing.
But there’s so much external stimuli around in the modern world and people are
so unaccustomed to the absence of it that we may never be able relax properly,
which could mean living in a permanently ‘run down’ state.
This
lack of quietness has also meant is that people are no longer used to silence,
and have even, as a result, become afraid of it. Along with inactivity, silence
has become something which most people are determined to avoid at all costs,
and which, when they are confronted with it, unnerves them. People have become
so used to the frantic pace and the ceaseless activity of modern life that they
feel uneasy when they’re left at a loose end with nothing to occupy their
attention even for a few moments, and they feel equally uneasy when the noise
they live their lives against the background of subsides. Why else is it that
they need to have their radios and televisions chattering away in the
background even when they’re not paying attention to them?
In
other words, in the modern world silence has become an enemy. And this is a
terrible shame, because in reality silence is one of our greatest friends, and
can if it’s allowed to reveal itself to us have a powerfully beneficial effect
on us.
Inner Noise
It’s
not just the noise outside us which causes us problems, though, but also
the noise inside us.
In
the same way that the natural quietness and stillness of the world around us is
always covered over with man-made noise, the natural quietness of our minds is
constantly disturbed by the chattering of our ego-selves. This chattering fills
our minds from the moment we wake up in the morning till the moment we go to
sleep at night an endless stream of daydreams, memories, deliberations,
worries, plans etc. which we have no control over and which even continues (in
the form of dreams) when we fall asleep.
This
‘inner noise’ has as many bad effects as the mechanical noise outside us. It
actually creates problems in our lives, when we mull over tiny inconveniences
or uncertainties which seem to become important just because we’re giving so
much attention to them, and when we imagine all kinds of possible scenarios
about future events instead of just taking them as they come. It means that we
don’t live in the present, because we’re always either planning for and
anticipating the future or remembering the past, “wandering about in times that
do not belong to us and never thinking of the one that does” as Blaise Pascal
wrote. And this constant inner chattering also means that we can never give our
full attention to our surroundings and to the activities of our lives. Our
attention is always partly taken up by the thoughts in our minds, so that wherever
we are and whatever we’re doing we’re never completely there.
It’s
probably possible to say that there’s also more of this ‘inner noise’ inside
human beings than there’s ever been before. The hectic pace and the constant
activity of our lives, the massive amount of external stimuli we’re bombarded
with, and the barrage of information which the mass media sends our way, have
made our minds more restless and active. We’ve got to juggle dozens of
different problems and concerns in our minds just to get by from day to day,
and every new thing we see or every new piece of information which is sent our
way is potentially the beginning of a whole new train of thought to occupy our
minds.
The True Self
Ultimately,
the most serious consequence of both this inner chattering and the noise and
activity of the modern world is that they separate us from our true selves.
Our
‘true self’ might be called the ground, or the essence, of our beings. It’s the
pure consciousness inside us, the consciousness-in-itself which remains when
we’re not actually conscious of anything. It’s what remains when our the
activity of our senses and the activity of our minds cease. The
sense-impressions we absorb from the world and the thoughts which run through
our minds are like the images on a cinema screen, but our ‘true self’ is the
cinema screen itself, which is still there even when there aren’t any images
being projected on to it.
Experiencing
this ‘consciousness-in-itself’ can have a massively therapeutic effect. It
brings a sense of being firmly rooted in ourselves, of being truly who we are.
We also have a sense of being truly where we are, realising that before we were
only half-present, and everything we see around us seems intensely real and
alive, as if our perceptions have become much more acute. But above all, we
experience a profound sense of inner peace and natural happiness.
As
the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have always held, the nature of
consciousness-in-itself (which means the consciousness inside us and the
consciousness which pervades the whole universe) is bliss. Getting into contact
with the pure consciousness inside us enables us, therefore, to experience this
bliss. Indeed, it could be said that it’s only when we do this that we can
experience true happiness.
Usually
what we think of as happiness is hedonistic or ego-based that is, based around
pressing instinctive ‘pleasure buttons’ or around receiving attention and
praise from others and increasing our self-esteem. But the kind of deep and
rich happiness we experience when we’re in touch with the ground or essence of
our beings is a natural, spiritual happiness, which doesn’t depend on anything
external, and doesn’t vanish as soon as the thing which produced it is taken
away. It’s a happiness which comes from experiencing the divine inside us and
also the divine inside everything else, since the pure consciousness inside us
is the same pure consciousness inside everything else, and the pure
consciousness of the universe itself.
Making Contact with the True Self
Whether
we’re in touch with this ‘true self’ or not depends on how much external stimuli our
senses are taking in from the world around us, and on how much activity there
is going on in our minds.
If
there is a lot of noise, movement and activity taking place around us then we
can’t help but give our attention to it; and in the same way, when there is a
lot of ‘inner noise’ taking place we have to give our attention to that too.
And when our attention is completely absorbed in this way either by external
stimuli on their own, such as when we watch TV; by ‘inner noise’ on its own,
such as when we daydream; or by both of them at the same time it’s impossible
for us to be in contact with our ‘true self’ to any degree, in the same way
that it’s impossible to see a cinema screen in itself when it’s full of dancing
images. Being in contact with our ‘true self’ is a state of attentionless-ness,
when our minds are completely empty.
What
we have to do if we want to get into contact with this part of ourselves is,
therefore, to withdraw our attention from these things. And this is, of course,
what we do when we meditate: first of all, we remove ourselves from external
stimuli, by sitting in a quiet room and closing our eyes. And then there’s only
‘inner noise’ standing between us and consciousness-in-itself, which we try to
quieten by concentrating on a mantra or on our breathing. If we manage to stop
the inner noise (and therefore stop our attention being absorbed in it) pure
consciousness immerses us and we become our true selves.
And
this brings us back to the most serious problem caused by the massive amount of
external stimuli (including noise) which our senses are bombarded with in the
modern world, and by the intensified ‘inner noise’ which modern life generates.
It’s not just a question of completely closing yourself off to external stimuli
and shutting down ‘inner noise’, so that you can experience a state of total
immersion in pure consciousness. It’s possible to have a foot in both camps, so
to speak; to live a normal life in the world, being exposed to external stimuli
and experiencing inner noise, and at the same time still be rooted in your real
self. That is, it’s possible to be partially immersed in
consciousness-in-itself, and for your attention to be partially absorbed by
external stimuli and inner talk. But this can only happen when there is just a
moderate degree of both of the latter.
It
would probably have been quite easy for our ancestors to live in this way,
because they weren’t exposed to a great deal of external stimuli and because
their lives were relatively slow-paced and stress-free, which would have meant
that their attention needn’t have been completely absorbed by external stimuli
and inner talk. Perhaps this even partly explains why native peoples seem to
possess a natural contentment which modern city dwellers have lost because
their more sedate lives mean that they’re able to be in touch with the ground
of their being as they go about their lives, and that they can therefore
continually experience something of the bliss of which is the nature of
consciousness-in-itself.
For
us, however, this has become very difficult. There’s always so much noise and
activity both inside and outside us that our attention is always completely
absorbed, so that we can’t be in contact with our real selves. We spend all our
time living outside ourselves, lost in the external world of activity and
stimuli or in the inner world of our own thoughts. We’re like a person who
plans to go away for a few days but finds so much to occupy them in the place
they go to that they never go home again, and never again experience the peace
and contentment which lie there. This is certainly one of the reasons why so
many people nowadays seem to live in a state of dissatisfaction — because
they’ve lost touch with the natural happiness inside them. That natural
happiness has been buried underneath a storm of external stimuli and what
Meister Eckhart called ‘the storm of inward thought’.
As
a result of this it’s essential for us, in the modern world, to go out of our
way to cultivate silence ourselves. Circumstances may oblige us to live in
cities, and our jobs may be stressful and demanding, but we’re still free to
remove ourselves from external stimuli and to try to quieten our minds by
meditating, going out into the countryside, or just by sitting quietly in our
rooms. We don’t have to fill our free time with attention-absorbing
distractions like TV and computer games, which take us even further away from
ourselves. We should do the opposite: stop our attention being absorbed like
this so that we can find ourselves again.
We
need silence and stillness to become our true selves and to be truly happy. ‘Be
still,’ said Jesus, ‘and know that I am God.’ But he might have added, ‘and
know that you are God.’
From Wake Up World @ http://wakeup-world.com/2015/03/15/the-power-of-silence/
For more information about meditation see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/meditation
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