Showing posts with label power of silence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label power of silence. Show all posts

Sunday, May 15, 2011

The sound of silence!


Definitely we don’t like silence though we hear all the time, “I want silence”. This is a big lie without realizing it so. I too fall into this category.

In truth, we are all afraid of silence. Ever since we came out of the silence of womb, we are surrounded by noise, we feed on noise, we talk while eating, we work surrounded by cacophony, we listen to noise, we sleep with noise. We just can’t seem to survive without one noise or other but we, at times feel that it is too much noise out there.

Ok, we shut up ourselves in sound proof rooms for a brief period to really stay away from noise.

However, do we?

When the outer noise stops reaching our ears, we immediately start the inner noise engine by talking to self, thinking about our past, day dreaming about our future, imagining street fights, catastrophes and rehearsing what we would do bravely to encounter attempts of abuse, theft and so on and on…!

No! We don’t want silence! We can't endure the sound of silence!Till we die…

Sunday, November 16, 2008

The power of silence-Part 9.

A great mystic like Buddha could easily sense the interior preparedness of the philosopher, who had unreservedly surrendered himself, with profound trust, docile humility, and audacious hope. The very decision of the philosopher to come to him asking for an experience of the Truth was already a revolutionary step of personal conversion.

Thus Buddha did not need any external force to teach him or lead him to the Truth. Neither was there any need to prescribe techniques and exercises or lessons on meditation.

For Buddha, the philosopher's sheer openness, the sublime emptiness that could now be filled to the brim, was enough. He therefore compares this philosopher to a good horse that is so watchfully alert and aware that it begins to run if it merely sees the shadow of the whip. The master has only to touch the whip and the horse nearly flies. Buddha has only to look into the eyes of the philosopher and all the teaching that can ever be imparted is readily received.

Buddha's Silence was not wordlessness or noiselessness. It had a transforming power, permeating and filling the atmosphere around him with such intensity that people seated at his presence experienced "the ineffable and the inexplicable."

His Silence had no movement, yet people around him moved closer to the Truth just by being in his presence, permeated and filled by the effulgence of his joyous stillness. His Silence was contagious. It was like the unseen powers of a magnetic field or the invisible sound waves that travel in the atmosphere.

True Silence is not forced by any internal or external factors. It is natural and spontaneous, active and sublime. It wells up from the depths of our personality and overflows with a certain rhythm. It is mauna in the fullest sense of the term. It radiates energy and emanates vitality. Peace and joy are inseparably interwoven in its very essence.

This Silence is not negative; there is no "absence" of something. It is wholly positive, pervading the entire atmosphere around him, so that he can just sit without uttering anything and the people around him can receive wisdom. It is this pattern of Silence that the early Buddhist sculptors and artists endeavored to convey in their images and replicas of the Buddha.

Buddha's Silence was the result of a profound harmony within himself and with the world outside. It pointed to a deep concord between the centre and periphery of his self and his states of awareness or consciousness. Buddhism refers to seven layers of such consciousness.

A joyous quietude is attained when these seven layers throb harmoniously, pulsating in sublime awareness. Buddha is silent because he knows the narrow boundaries of rational knowledge and the blind alleys of metaphysical queries. He knows the frailty and feebleness of words and concepts. His discovery of the language of Silence helped him dispel the inner darkness and void created by a rational thirst for knowledge

In the Christian mystical and contemplative tradition, silence is strongly recommended as an ingredient of the religio-spiritual quest. The Desert Fathers and the later monastic tradition stress the role of silence for interior spiritual growth. St. Benedict advises his followers, "Monks ought to be zealous for silence at all times . . . ." Silence creates an atmosphere and an attitude for listening and receptivity, for response and recollection. Only thus can the Truth, that is, the Divine Reality, be able to permeate our entire being.

When we are truly silent, we understand the richness of emptiness. Very often such silence is equated with truth. A story of one of the Buddha's disciples can help us to discern how the process of achieving emptiness is an ideal means of attaining the Truth:

Subhuti was one of Buddha's disciples. He was able to understand the potency of emptiness: the viewpoint that nothing exists except in its relationship of subjectivity and objectivity. One day, when Subhuti was sitting under a tree in a mood of sublime emptiness, flowers began to fall around him.

"We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness;' the gods whispered to him.

'But I have not spoken of emptiness;' said Subhuti.

"You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness," responded the gods. "This is true emptiness."

And the blossoms showered upon Subhuti like rain.

Being silent about our own exercises of manifestation can considerably speed up the process of manifestation. That is why I always suggest keeping your imaging and visualization exercises as a top secret, something strictly between you and Source Energy. There is no need to tell your parents or your friends about your own personal meditation practices, especially if your intuition tells you that they are only going to shake your faith.

Let me wind up this piece with a small beautiful piece of profound Zen poetry:

At a place deep
In green trees,
A lamp’s light
Burns long.
Spring pilgrims
Make their way to the temple;
Blossoms fall
At a monk’s closed gate.
In the mind, the ten
Thousand doctrines are still;
A clear, lone spring
Purls over rocks.
We do not ask
About our lives, our work,
And the silence between us
We keep.

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This is the last part of the Power of Silence written by my friend Pramod Uday, a leading news paper columnist in India.

The earlier parts are:

Read the earlier parts here:

Power of silence-part 1.

Power of silence-part 2.

Power of Silence-part 3.

Power of Silence-part 4

Power of Silence-part 5

Power of Silence-part 6

Power of Silence-part 7

Power of Silence-part 8

You can reach him at pramoduday@yahoo.com

His other credentials are:
24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station:
http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday
Website:
http://www.spiritualbeings.bravehost.com

Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod

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Thank you very much Pramod for giving me an opportunity to publish this inspiring and thought provoking article.
Oh, let me shut up at this juncture and send my profound gratitude and deep appreciation to the Universe. I am sure it will be delivered to you.
Malathy



Friday, October 10, 2008

The power of silence-Part 8.

The practice of silence helps us create an inner sense of equilibrium which encourages genuine wellbeing. Such feelings attract fulfillment and a strong faith that the universe is beneficent. We are constantly encouraged to engage in an ongoing search for satisfaction … without ever finding it. It keeps us striving.

Mauna, rendered in English as "silence," was the chief characteristic of the life of Buddha. The word mauna is one of the few terms used commonly by all language and religious groups in India. Mauna, from which the noun muni, meaning "sage" or "hermit" is derived, has a meaning exorbitantly wealthier than its English counterpart "silence." Mauna means blissful calmness, joyous recollection, tranquil quietude, and peaceful stillness.

A philosopher once visited Buddha and asked him: "Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me the truth?" Buddha kept silence. After a while the philosopher rose up gently, made a solemn bow and thanked Buddha saying: "With your loving kindness, I have cleared away all my delusions and entered the true path."

When the philosopher had left, Ananda, a senior disciple of Buddha, enquired: "O, Blessed one, what hath this philosopher attained?"

Buddha replied: "A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip!"

This is the eighth part of a series of articles on the power of silence written by Pramod K Uday. He is a leading news paper columnist in India.

Read the earlier parts here:

Power of silence-part 1.

Power of silence-part 2.

Power of Silence-part 3.

Power of Silence-part 4

Power of Silence-part 5

Power of Silence-part 6

Power of Silence-part 7

You can reach him at pramoduday@yahoo.com

His other credentials are:

24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station: http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday

Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The power of silence-Part 7.

The whole physical activity becomes a draining and tiring bout of feverish and frantic physical movement, a sort of seeking of a very rare, precious and ethereal experience, something which is rarely obtained, something that tantalizes and eludes you forever.

Still we never stop expecting and looking forward to this experience of fulfillment. We never realize that expectation always pushes the fulfillment away from us. When we expect anything we take our eyes off the beautiful present moment and fix our eyes on a moment in future when we think we are going to be happier.

There is another totally different approach to any sort of physical expression of the love in our hearts. First off, we slow down and really slow down. We say to ourselves that we are not going to seek anything. We are not going to get anything, but we are going to share what we already have with us.

The focus shifts from taking to giving, fully realizing that we are not giving to any one else who is separate from us but to another part of ourselves. We observe that, as far as we are concerned, the other person on the bed exists only in our thoughts about that person.

For us, he or she is the thoughts about him or her and we decide what we think. He or she cannot insert any thought in our head. If the physical expression of love makes us happy, we note that we created this happiness. If we feel unfulfilled, we again realize that we chose to feel unfulfilled for some reason that only we know of.

We also acknowledge that this other person entered our life space because we matched up with them internally using our thoughts and then the amazing Law of Attraction (LOA) brought them to us. You focus on the present moment, the grace of bodily action and the beauty of your partner. You abandon yourself totally to the warmth of the present moment.

Aaah! That can be such a rewarding and unforgettable experience, when we totally lose touch with the passage of time and get glimpses of our own eternal nature.

This is the seventh part of a series of articles on the power of silence written by Pramod K Uday. He is a leading news paper columnist in India.

Read the earlier parts here:

Power of silence-part 1.

Power of silence-part 2.

Power of Silence-part 3.

Power of Silence-part 4

Power of Silence-part 5

Power of Silence-part 6

You can reach him at pramoduday@yahoo.com

His other credentials are:

24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station: http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday

Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod

Monday, August 11, 2008

The power of silence-Part 6

In my guided meditation, Celebration of Silence, I incorporated a lot of true sounds from nature to enhance your meditation experience. The whole exercise is about you making an imaginary expedition to a wooden cabin in the middle of a jungle. I have tried this meditation many times and I find it immensely useful in my manifestation practices. If you have not listened to it before, I strongly suggest that you give it a whirl.

When we are silent, we appreciate more. In an earlier episode, we saw that appreciation is the key to fulfillment. When we become silent, everything slows down – our heartbeat, our thoughts, our breathing.

We attain more clarity of mind. We find it easier to focus on the beauty and goodness around us. We stop depreciating, if only for a moment and see that we have already attained marvelous success in attracting to us many things we once craved for. We notice that that the bookshelf in our personal library houses many unread books that we once longed to possess.

We pull out one of them and read the words very slowly as if we had all the time in the world, relishing the sound and senses of the words. As we slow down, we might notice that the persistent feeling of emptiness, which always gnaws relentlessly at our hearts, has vanished and a growing sense of divine satisfaction and calmness has taken its place. This feeling of peace might crowd out all feelings of boredom and disease from the mind.

Those men who strive to be the alpha male seem to be drawn to the notion that every act of lovemaking is a conquest. In this picture, the focal point is the climax or the discharge or release of the tension and agony that was building up inside. At times the focal point might be the compliment that can be earned by discussing the details and boasting of the physical prowess that easily subdued the weaker partner. Such a discussion very easily degenerates into another exercise of seeking approval and acceptance. The number and the speed become more important than the joy or appreciation of the intimacy.

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This is the sixth part of a series of articles on the power of silence written by Pramod K Uday. He is a leading news paper columnist in India.

Read the earlier parts here:

Power of silence-part 1.

Power of silence-part 2.

Power of Silence-part 3.

Power of Silence-part 4

Power of Silence-part 5

You can reach him at pramoduday@yahoo.com

His other credentials are:

24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station: http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday

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Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod


Monday, July 21, 2008

The silence speaks!

I just read a lovely, thought provoking blog post titles, "An interview with silence".

This reminds me to tell you that all sounds rise from silence and end at silence. In short, the silence enables the sound to be.

Now, getting back to the subject, the article is very well conceived and interesting to read without having the need to skip in between. I adore silence and worship it in fact. Whenever I read an article about silence, either offline or online, I share it here.

I quote a small piece:
"Well, silence is the absence of sound, every time I say there is silence I know about your presence, but I can’t really feel you, because no sound is the negation of perception. For me you don’t really exist, only sound is real".

Friday, July 18, 2008

The Power of silence-Part 5

Everything is divisible. All those dichotomies - male/female, day/night, black/white, work/play, pleasure/pain, right/wrong - indicate our preoccupation with duality and how our ego loves duality.

Silence is one experience that cannot be divided. Cut silence into pieces and you get more silence, one silence. Therefore when we are in silence we are in fact having a direct personal experience of the oneness and the indivisibility of Source Energy.

Nature is one place where we can easily find silence. That is the reason why many prefer meditating in the isolation of wilderness or the mountains. The sounds of nature - the enchanting music of the birds, the mesmerizing chirping of the crickets, the soft rustling of green leaves, the melodious breeze, the sparkling and whispering waves of the sea - all of them are soothing and resemble silence.

These are the sounds of healing that can cure us of the painful effects of the discordant noise of urban life - the incessant honking, the sounds from the nearby construction site, the sounds produced by the fast locomotives, the noisy parties, the hollow hubbub and chatter and even the long periods of artificial laughter that cover up the underlying emptiness and depression.

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This is the fifth part of a series of articles on the power of silence written by Pramod K Uday. He is a leading news paper columnist in India.

Read the earlier parts here:

Power of silence-part 1.

Power of silence-part 2.

Power of Silence-part 3.

Power of Silence-part 4

You can reach him at pramoduday@yahoo.com

His other credentials are:

24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station: http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday

Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod


Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Power of Silence-Part 4

All good writers, composers, dancers, singers and actors know the value of silence. Many writers say spending a few moments in silence before writing helps them to get past the most horrific writers’ blocks and get into the most long-lasting experiences of flow where the words and ideas keep flowing out through the pen.

While in the flow, many feel no hunger or thirst or exhaustion. It is almost as if they will never get tired. Perhaps this is what the poet was referring to when he said, “I leave my body outside my study just as Muslims leave their footwear outside their place of worship.” Only the body gets tired.

We are not our bodies and we know this to be true while in an experience of flow, when the Universe writes through us or composes through us and we become just a clear conduit.

It has been said that it is the space between the bars that holds the tiger. It is the space between the notes that makes the music. Remove the spaces of silence and we are left with one continuous noisy note.

God is that which is indivisible. God is that presence which cannot be cut up into pieces; it is the one power in the universe. But we might find it difficult to comprehend this idea of oneness because our normal material existence is very much connected with duality.

When we say light we know we appreciate light because of darkness. Some actions are right and those who involve in right actions are singled out and respected because there are those who do the wrong things. A person with a front should have a back. We cannot think of the inside of a bottle without the opposite idea of the outside of the bottle. A magnet has both the North Pole and the South Pole. This ubiquitous duality has led to dichotomous thinking. Our physical world is a world of dichotomies and combinations of opposites.

This is the fourth part of a series of articles on the power of silence written by Pramod K Uday. He is a leading news paper columnist in India.

His other credentials are:

24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station: http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday

Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod

Read the earlier parts of this article here:

Power of silence-part 1.

Power of silence-part 2.

Power of Silence-part 3.

Image Courtesy: Flickr.-Sound of Silence.


Monday, May 26, 2008

The Power of silence-Part 3.

As the speed and the number of the thoughts increases, the frequency and the length of the gaps or silent spaces between those thoughts decreases. In fact, very often, there are almost no gaps. It is interesting to note that our thoughts which create our words and result in our actions actually arise from those silent spaces between the thoughts.

Obviously the thoughts came out of the nothingness of silence, from an infinite void. The thought just came into existence in an instant from somewhere and there was really no cause for it, no logical beginning that we can point out. If we think about it using our mind or faculties of logic or ratiocination, we are only going to be confused.

It is in those gaps that we can find peace and, as we will see today, while we are in those gaps we can also find or tap into the Source of all that is or All-That-Is itself. When we merge with the silence and become one with it, we have this beautiful experience of eternal peacefulness that some might label God.

In Getting in the Gap meditation, we bring up the first ten words of the Lord ’s Prayer, “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” First we see the word our on the inner screen of our mind and then the word father and then we try to move back and slip into the gap or space of silence between our and father and stay there for some time.

Then we come out of the gap and see the word father and the word who and then slip into the gap between the words father and who. We repeat this with the whole line. Dyer also suggests thinking of what we want to attract to ourselves while in the gap and also chanting some sound or phrase that we love. Dyer especially recommends the sound “aaah” which, he points out, can be found in the names of god in all cultures and languages, like for example, Allah, Kali, Krishna, Yahweh, Rama, etc.

The Psalms of the Old Testament advise: “Be still and know that I am God.” Mother Theresa had the following to say about silence: “GOD is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, grass grow in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence….”

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This is the second part of a series of articles on the power of silence written by Pramod K Uday. He is a leading news paper columnist in India.

Read the earlier parts here: Power of silence-part 1.

Power of silence-part 2.

You can reach him at pramoduday@yahoo.com

His other credentials are:

24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station: http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday

Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod

Friday, May 09, 2008

The Power of silence-Part 2


When there is an issue in our relationships, we encourage each other to talk about it. We take care to plead our innocence, to argue, to coax, to use the most effective words, even to not mince our words. Sri Sri Ravishanker, the exponent of The Art of Living, points out that silence can be a better tool in defusing the tension. Our silence can scream our innocence. By just being silent, we can communicate trust and love.

When we are silent, we think clearly and the strong volatile emotions might drain away making way for peace. We are able to see the situation in a better way. Very often, that itself resolves the issue. Many couples report that they communicate better and touch each others souls by being silent.

Many achieve greater intimacy through silence. You just sit in your favorite room with your beloved. You are in no hurry to rush to that posh hotel or to reserve your seats for that show or movie. You both sit down comfortably. You may be sitting in two different corners of the room and might be involved in different activities. But still you might feel an uncanny sense of connection and romantic intimacy.

You may also use such rare moments of silence to touch and really feel the warm skin of your lover’s palms, the softness of their cheeks and earlobes and the smoothness and thickness of the soles of their feet.

In his ground breaking booklet and CD, Getting in the Gap ; Making Conscious Contact with God Through Meditation, Dr. Wayne Dyer introduces a new technique of meditation in which we become aware of the fact that there is a silent space between our thoughts. It has been said that we all have 60,000 separate thoughts everyday. There is this constant ceaseless turbulent chatter that always goes on in our minds.

I will tell you more revealing things about the gaps between thoughts and from where these thoughts arise in the next part.

This is the second part of a series of articles on the power of silence written by Pramod K Uday. He is a leading news paper columnist in India.

Read the first part here: Power of silence-part 1.

You can reach him at pramoduday@yahoo.com

His other credentials are:

24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station: http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday

Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod


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Friday, May 02, 2008

Power of Silence-part 1.

Most of us are not very comfortable with silence. A few of us are terrified by silence and try our best to avoid it. There are those who cannot tolerate even one moment of forced silence in a theatre or a cinema caused by something like power failure and they immediately fill those silent moments with their shrill catcalls and their charged expletives.

The powerful audio player in your car must always be talking or singing or shouting, even if you find its talk most unpleasant. And yes, you hate being alone, especially, being alone in silence. You rush to turn on the TV and fill your mind with that dashy news reader’s voice and immediately you feel immense gratitude to him, for without his voice filling your room and your mind, you would have felt so lonely. You can easily forget that profound observation made by Blaise Pascal: “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”

You are talking to your friend and then you momentarily run out of words and there is this embarrassing moment of silence. Luckily, your friend rescues you both by quickly rising to the occasion and filling that silent unbearable moment with senseless chatter.

We are constantly urged to express ourselves, to speak up, to communicate, to verbalize, to sing. We cannot even conceive of silence as a mode of communication. The very idea might sound ludicrous.

This is the first part of a series of articles on the power of silence written by Pramod K Uday. He is a leading news paper columnist in India. You can reach him at pramoduday@yahoo.com

His other credentials are:

24 / 7 Inspirational Radio Station: http://www.live365.com/stations/pramoduday

Online Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/pramod



Thursday, April 17, 2008

How to communicate with God?

Before you want to know how to communicate with God, you need to tell me what is your idea of God!

If by chance you have an idea of dual power God, one the does good and one that punishes for bad deeds, then you need not read this article.

But if you strongly believe that God is good and so, all that he created is also good, then we are on the same vibrational frequency and you will understand what I am saying.

Have you ever heard God speak to his children through a megaphone that is connected with cone speakers hoisted on poles on the road side at regular intervals?

No! Ok, then you understand that God will not speak like humans but still communicate with us.
So, how does he do?

He communicates with us through silence. Because he is silent, that is the only language he knows. And to hear or feel his communication, we should also be silent. Not only we remain silent by shutting our mouth but we should also shut down our mind from making that incessant noise.

If we remain still mentally and physically, then, we are said to be in the receiving mode of God's power.

This is the only way we can communicate with God. No exceptions!