The Power of Silence of the Mind

We are habituated, particularly in the modern world, to the mind constantly interacting with its environment, with sensations, with media and with ideas. We are also addicted to the activity, the energy, of the mind’s engagement and when the mind is not engaged somehow, we either sleep, or seek distraction. Modern technology provides us the distraction and many people nowadays are addicted to their devices, television, cinema, radio, or internet and social media. We are also enticed to attend to the sights and sounds and pressures of the modern economic world around us, with blaring sounds everywhere, flashing lights, enticements to shop and buy.

If we try to sit quietly, engage in reflection or meditation, we find our minds are jumping in all directions, attending to the sensations, sounds, impulses from the senses, and then running after random ideas that move through the mind unbidden.

Thus, to conceive of a silence and immobility of the mind and intellect, and to find that status to be a desirable one, we have to overcome many years of conditioning and the actual habits of the mind that result from that conditioning. The first time we experience anything close to silence of the mind, we generally respond with fear that we are losing our ability to think! Yet the future of the evolution of consciousness lies in transcending the operations of the mind as the primary vehicle of understanding and action, just as the mind transcended the operations of the vital as the leader of our nature, transforming the world as it did so.

Once we determine that silencing the mind is a positive move, it becomes necessary to determine how to do this. While this can happen ‘serendipitously’ almost any time, through the action of the Grace, or through particular circumstances or environments, for the most part, such events are transitory and thus, not the stable status that is required for the transformational changes to take place fully.

A good first step is to undertake observation of the ‘mind stuff’. In his lectures on Raja Yoga, Swami Vivekananda describes the chitta, the ‘mind stuff’ and indicates that it should achieve a status of calm, like a body of water without any ripples in it. This corresponds to Sri Aurobindo’s statement below about the mind being entirely still. When we first begin to pay attention to the state of the ‘mind stuff’ we find that there are various statuses and reactions that take place essentially automatically, subconsciously, and subliminally. We can observe when the mind is clear, when it is concentrated and focused, when distracted, when reacting to sense impressions, and when craving input due to addiction to being occupied, and when sleepy, cloudy or dull. As we gain experience in observing the state of our ‘mind stuff’, we can then begin to take steps, undertake practices, to prepare for bringing the needed attentive state of silence to the mind.

There are numerous methods available, and each individual needs to find the method, or methods, that work best in his situation at any point in time. Some people use a mantra to drive out extraneous thoughts, for instance, and fill the mind with the mantra while maintaining a receptive attitude to hold the ‘meaning’ of the mantra in the being. Eventually the effect of the repetition of the mantra and its potential calming influence can bring the mind to a state of quiescence, at which point, the mantra itself can be released.

Others observe thoughts as they try to enter the mind and simply reject them, or at least, do not allow the attention to follow them. Eventually, this can lead to a state where the awareness is free of thought.

Still others follow the methods of Raja Yoga as set forth by Patanjali and as described, with detailed commentary, by Swami Vivekananda. There are also those who follow the path of devotion and through one-pointed devotion, they are able to calm the mind and bring it to a state of quiescence. Some use practices such as focus on a single point of illumination until the consciousness passes to another status, a practice called tratak.

In the end, we recognise the uses and value of mental development, particularly for the transformation of the external life, but it needs to be balanced and integrated with the development of the next phase of the evolution of consciousness, and not given free rein to do whatever the mind wants, but to be under the guidance and direction of a higher wisdom and higher force of conscious awareness.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “… for the knowledge of the Self it is necessary to have the power of a complete intellectual passivity, the power of dismissing all thought, the power of the mind to think not at all which the Gita in one passage enjoins. This is a hard saying for the occidental mind to which thought is the highest thing and which will be apt to mistake the power of the mind not to think, its complete silence for the incapacity of thought. But this power of silence is a capacity and not an incapacity, a power and not a weakness. It is a profound and pregnant stillness. Only when the mind is thus entirely still, like clear, motionless and level water, in a perfect purity and peace of the whole being and the soul transcends thought, can the Self which exceeds and originates all activities and becomings, the Silence from which all words are born, the Absolute of which all relativities are partial reflections manifest itself in the pure essence of our being.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XV Quiet, Calm, Peace, Silence, pp. 121-122