Habits of Highly Spiritual People--5

Jai Sai Ram! We start the new topic of our discussion with a silent prayer that may the Lord bestow His bliss and joy to everyone, for, once we know the value of that joy and bliss, we would be restless and agitated to immerse ourselves always in that bliss--this is called the highest yearning, which is satisfied only with the merger of Atma with Paramatma. We made a silent prayer because the topic of our discussion and the next habit we are going to discuss is silence. It is one of the most sought after virtues that should be present in a spiritually enlightened person, and also is a desirable quality that needs to be developed in people who are looking to tread along with the path of spirituality. Silence is the mark of the wise, and Swami often says that "Silence is Gold". It is indeed gold and its quantity is boundless; so if you have the quality of silence in you, you are one of the richest persons in the world! Okay, we shall start the main topic of this discussion and hope you would like it.

Habit 5--Silence

Silence is hailed as one of the topmost virtues in all the people who reach at the top of any walk of life. Silence gives a sort of relaxation and time for introspection which is often crucial for certain things that we do in our life. Silence is the speech of learned ones, they say. A person who is able to maintain his silence in chaos is believed to have great control over his body, mind, and senses. At the very physical level, it restores your energy and allows your body to maintain its composure. Often, people feel deflated and ended-up when they have to speak a lot throughout the day; they invariably say that they need peace from noise--silence. On a very general level, if a father comes home after day's work at office or at some other site, the mother forbids her children to make [too] much noise in his presence, and also not to switch on the TV, and similar things. It shows that silence and peaceful setting at home is required after the father comes home tired from work. This directly indicates that noise or silence-less-ness tires the mind and we need to get away from it. Apart from all these very trifle looking and insignificant reasons behind the value of silence, there are many other factors that we shall discuss.

Before dilating more on this topic, we would like to differentiate between two types of silence. The first of them is the one that is apparent--meaning keeping mum. When you do not speak any words or do not make any sound, you are keeping silence. Many people practice this habit of keeping quiet to relax their mind. However, it is noticed virtually in all the instances that when people try to calm their mind through silence, their mind become more agitated--they are not able to silence their mind's activities. This is very crucial factor in relaxing our mind, and if we are able to achieve the power of silencing our minds, it helps us a lot. ZYL--zip your lip! This is a very common phrase that young people use in their conversation; however, Swami often emphaizes the point that we need to achieve silence in our mind--mere outer silence should not be our goal. If we are not able to silence our mind, we can't achieve peace. However, we can't deny that keeping quiet is a very good practice to establish your calm, composure, and conservation of your physical energy. In the discussion, however, we will focus more on silence related to our mind, and take few examples to expound our points.

Silence is a broad term to describe many intricate and smaller qualities that are inherent in its meaning--removal, stopping, and controlling are some of them. We remove the harshness in the sound that we produce through our mouth and become very pleasing in our conversation, which helps us to avoid making noise (in the sense of the term)--and thus, we attain silence; we stop our sound totally and attain silence; we control speaking too much and attain silence. This same pattern is also applicable to mental silence. When someone is on a path to attain mental calm or peace, one has to remove many vices and other obstructing residents of the mind, so that some free space can be gained--this free space allow fresh air of good thoughts to enter the mind and sooth it--it allows our mind to be allured by the shouting pulls of many vices. Mental silence is also achieved by stopping our mind from going and running towards sense-objects or paying heed to the vagaries of our senses. This is where your intellect and wisdom allow you to feel distinguised from your body-mind complex. You feel that you are not the body, you are not the mind, for, you can think independently from them--you can control them or stop them from doing something that your faculty of reason does not approve to. This is where highly spiritual people distinguish themselves from common men, for, they have this control over their mind--they can make an independent decision, which is not propelled by the pulls of their senses or is mind-dependent. Controlling the mind is one of the prime practices that any spiritual person would like to do. Swami describes the nature of our mind to be like of a monkey. Monkeys by their intrinsic nature are very active and industrious animals--they love to do something all the time; they do not prefer to sit and calm their mind. This is what we have with our mind--it does not allow us to calm down and is always making some plans, creating some doubts, or posing new problems before us that we should fear from or solve. Their are many techniques that are described to control our mind, and no wonder that verbal silence is one of them--Swami often says that in the silence of your mind, you can hear the sound of God! So, He Himself proposes a sort of silent sitting in some part of the day, which will allow you to calm your mind at least for that much time--this time period can be achieved and can lead to the practice of meditation.

Okay, we have discussed a lot about the qualitative aspects of silencing mind and the benefits that it can yield to our personality, namely, peace. But how to attain that silence and what actually are the signs of such a state? --How the state of mental peace have been described by ancient literature and what we can expect from such a state? These are some of the questions that we would be discussing now. The contributors believe here that the readers understand the difference between common spirituality and higher aspects of spirituality--it is necessary to understand the difference because once the higher aspects of spirituality are understood nothing else remains. There is no want, no wish, or nothing that remains in a person--he just becomes silent and listen to the melodious quietude of its soul. In the beautiful verses of Narada's Bhaktisutras (The aphorisms on the details and processes of Bhakti--devotion), the sage describes the state of a person who has achieved devotion thus:

यल्लब्ध्वा पुमान् सिद्धो भवति, अमृतो भवति, तृप्तो भवति।।

यत्प्राप्य न किञ्चिद्वाञ्छति, न शोचति, न द्वेष्टि, न रमते, नोत्साही भवति।।

यज्ज्ञात्वा मत्तो भवति, स्तब्धो भवति, आत्मारामो भवति।। (Canto 4, 5, & 6, Narada Bhakti Sutras)

These verses of the scholarly work describes the nature of a person who has achieved highest devotion. It says:

Canto 4: By finding which the person becomes fulfilled, becomes immortal, and becomes completely satisfied!

Canto 5: By getting which he does not desire anything else, he does not grieve over anything, he does not have any grudge towards anybody, he does not get attracted to anything, and he is left with no enthusiasm!

Canto 6: By knowing which he becomes intoxicated by the divine, he is stunned into silence, and he enjoys the bliss of his own being!

The sage has described the state of devotion in a very clear and comprehensive manner. These aphorisms are for people like the Gopis of Vraja. In fact, it is after seeing their devotion to Krishna, Narada went on to compose this treatise. The person is not concerned about his/her body, mind or anything else that surrounds it--it is totally susciated by its own self, for, he/she has realized that the soul is the real source of joy. We will take the 6th canto for our discussion and would particularly emphasize on the words where the sage says that the person is stunned into silence.

The condition of being stunned into silence is the one when our mind is at the loss of further thought--at that jiffy, it does not have the potential to criss-cross the threads of conceptions, ideas, fears, doubts, and other similar elements that it stores in it. It is rendered clueless or so to say; why, simply because of the reason that its mortality has been shattered--it has been shown the path, the light from where all the illumination comes and it finds itself dumbfounded and agape. The beauty of the reality is the most enchanting one. Reality is stranger than fiction, they say; and they say it truly, for, nothing is more stranger than truth itself. And when after years of struggle and wain pursuit of senses the mind comes face-to-face with its own reality, it is rendered speechless and has nothing to say. This is the condition that is described as mind-less-ness. We will support the attributes of this condition with more examples. Lord Krishna says in Gita:

विषया विनिवर्तन्ते निराहारस्य देहिनः ।
रसवर्जँ रसोअप्यस्य परं दृष्टवा निवर्तते ।। (Canto 57, Chapter 2)

The Lord says that the person who does not succumb to the calls of senses is able to isolate himself from the materials; however, the essential cravings of the senses still remain, which too vanishes when the supreme is beheld. Or so to say, when one comes face-to-face with its own innate reality. All the ideas, doubts, thoughts, tastes, and likings of the person vanishes and it comes to enjoy the bliss of its own soul. This is the condition where the pool of our mind is stilled into silence and we can see the clear reflection of our own reality.

We take more examples from the words of revered Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa--the famous master of Swami Vivekananda:

He cites the examples of bees who make buzzing sounds when they are in search of flowers and their juice. If you have seen a beehive, you can well imagine the disturbance that is there. However, once they find the flowers and sit on them sucking the sweet juice of the flowers, there is no sound--the bees just collect the juice and enjoy its sweetness. So is with the mind of a devotee--it makes noises of many thoughts, doubts, fears, experiences, and calculations; however, when it reaches its goal, it just loses itself in that bliss and becomes silent. The rising doubts, the scorching fears, and the experience of this world that are not so encouraging for any spiritual endeavour just die down in the vastness of that vacuum that is filled with the nameless name of God! In this example, we can co-relate the beehive as the world that is full of disturbance, and indeed everybody is in search of God--the final abode. The flowers represent the Lord, which is bliss personified and attracts the devotees.

Another example of Sri Ramakrishna:

He says that when a jug is dropped into water, it makes gurgling sounds when the water starts filling in it. But when it is completely filled with water, it stops making sounds and is drowned into that source. Similarly, when the devotee dives into the ocean of God's name, the mind makes loud noises of doubts, fears, and conceptions about the vastness and depth of that ocean; but once it is filled totally with God's name from toe to neck, it does not make any noise and feels itself drowned into the very source, namely, God. The mind is stilled from its fickleness.

Both these above examples clear the path and the conditions of the person that has embarked on to the path of spirituality. And no wonder that once the person attain those conditions, we can easily call him a highly spiritual person.

You might have felt a bit of impracticality in the above-discussed topic, as you might feel that unless you do not know how to attain that mental silence, how can you revel in its benefits and value. Well, we would discuss now how to attain or how to work for the attainment of such a silence.

Of course, the first and foremost of these efforts would be to pray to God. If He wills, the path can be eased and you easily embark on it. Prayer serves a clear indication of your intention that you are ready to tread the path of single-minded devotion, where you will not be affected by your outer circumstance. Prayer can easily concentrate the rays of grace of the Lord to burn the useless material in your mind so that the place can be cleaned. Once you show your intention and supplicate to the Lord for His grace, He will rush forward to grant you your desired object. They say it very poetically:

प्रेम के बस एक पग तुम लीजिओ, सौ पग दौड़ के आयो।

That if you take a single step towards Him, He runs for hundred steps towards you.

So, we should engage in continuous and unrelenting prayer to our God to grant mental silence so that we can hear His very own voice.

After this first step that we invariably need to take, there are certain other helpful measures that you can take. Of course, silent sitting is very important and can be placed on the first podium among these helpful measures. Swami often recommends silent sitting, and this is the easiest practice that even newbies into the world of spirituality can undertake. There is no hard postures that you would need to adopt and there would be no strict regulation of breath--just sitting! So, many people find this practice very conducive and of course it serves as the very first step for meditation.

Walking in some natural green place, or sitting at the bank of a river, canal, or any water source is also a very pleasing experience. The eerie experience of those strange natural sounds would make your mind to stop making noise and forget itself in those lullabies. The sound of water is particularly a very pleasing one. Apart from these general measures there are some specific measures that you can incorporate according to your convenience and liking:

1) Avoid watching excess TV.
2) Read some good books that can relate some stories about the people who have tasted success in some spiritual endeavour. This would strengthen your faith and would also give you joy.
3) Avoid high-intensity music. Indian Raga based music has been found out to be very good for such matters through many studies and research works. You can choose from a wide number of instruments to get some taste of it. It is very soothing, relaxing, and enjoyable to the ears.
4) Avoid extremities in food--too much hot, too much cold, too much salty, too much spicy food should be avoided.
5) Try to spend some part of the day in some spiritual activity like singing hymns, or doing some spiritual practice like meditation, Yoga-asanas, or worship of any chosen deity.

Conclusion:

We hope you liked this conversation though this was a bit tough one and was related to other aspect of the title. However, we felt the need to dedicate a full-fledged post for this habit of spiritual people, as it is almost indispensable by any means. As ever, your suggestions and valuable feedback is always welcome and we would feel our work done worth its efforts if you would like to suggest us our shortcomings and faults. Jai Sai Ram!