Silence is a Gate - Dada Gavand

 

In the present competitive commercial society there seems
to be no room for Silence.

Quietude and Silence are not the negation of life, but the
regeneration of it.  Silence is the means to elevate life energy
to a timeless dimension.

We have got to find this unknown dimension of life.  The
whole world is in desperate need of a new-dimensional
consciousness, so that human being can live intelligently,
creatively, spontaneously and lovingly, and not just follow
the ego pursuits mechanically.

Silence is the means and Silence is the end.
Creative Silence is the ultimate challenge.

Silence is the sap that rejuvenates life.
Silence is the source of eternal life.

Dada Gavand
East Indian Mystic

~

Find the Silence and you'll find "God."

Ramakrishna

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Full Moon 2022

Primordial Silence - a meandering...

"The key", for me anyway, one of the many "keys"
actually, is constantly "returning" my awareness or attention
to the awareness of Primordial Silence within.  I am constantly
challenged to "wake up" and remember this deep Silence at core of
 my Being...

This came out of a conversation with my husband in the face
of life's challenges that are currently occurring here personally
on an ongoing basis - for years actually - but especially 
these last 2+ years - that I feel pulling me away from the deeper
sense of intimacy with "The Silence" within - which is why I
have been posting about Silence recently - as a way to remind myself.
The Primordial Silence calls to me, like an old Friend, 
inviting me, waiting for me to respond, to come and be still -
thus the late night "window sitting" that I practiced years ago,
 where I can rendezvous with the Great Silence by being
 in the stillness and quiet of the night...

Intimacy with the Primordial Silence is what nourishes me, my
Soul - when I can be in that space.  It is the elixir of Life -
dissolving all resistance, and anxiety about what is, the way life
 is right now, what it should be, and allows the veils that keep
 me from this Divine Communion of Silence to drop away... 
But, I'm not there... 
I am riding the "Mind Bus" with its stories and fears.

It is a conscious endeavor to remember that no matter what is
going on, there is always this intimacy with Primordial Silence
within, even if not felt.  I just need to constantly return to the felt
sense of It:
The awareness of Primordial Silence within myself...

Mystic Meandering

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Window Sitting" - a meandering...

I used to have a "practice" that I called "window sitting" many
years ago, where I would sit in a chair at an open window late
at night, in the dark, leaning on the windowsill, pressing as
close to the screen as possible, breathing in the night air and
the silence.  Gazing out the window into the night was calming
and soothing, heightening my awareness of the Stillness, the
Silence that permeates everything.  It is tangible - almost
mystical.  It was a wonderful experience - basking in the silence
of the night, listening deeply to the sounds of the quiet, smelling
the night air; experiencing the soft aliveness of Nature;
opening into the Silence at the Core of my Being; feeling the
Rhythm of Existence.  It is a space where I became more *aware*
of the Inner Landscape as well.  I scribbled notes on scratch
paper in near darkness when Silence sang to my heart.  Every
fiber of my being swooned for this delicious nightly rendezvous
with The Silence of Being.  I long to hear that melody again.

Here's a "scribble" from my first night of "window sitting" back
in May 2010.

~

Nothing in nature is struggling...
Everything is at peace...

Everything in nature is the peace of the Silent Stream -
the Eternal Stillness...

The trees are peaceful.
The plants in the neighbor's garden are at peace.
The grass sleeps.

Everything is exquisitely - peaceful...

I feel myself returning to what I know to be true -
to the authentic Stillness of Being within,
allowing myself to be touched by this bliss of Stillness...
Befriending the Silence...
Recognizing this deep space of Silence as Home...

There is a feeling of intimacy,
as this still Silence wraps itself around me,
embraces everything that is,
infusing everything that lives...
It is so palpable, so Real...

Basking in the Pure Silence of the Night -
just listening,

just experiencing,
just Be-ing - Stillness.

Mystic Meandering
May 2010

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Cat window sitting :)

 

Who Are You? - Thomas Merton

Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.

Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
Are You?
Whose Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet).  Do not
think of what you are
still less of

What you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?)
Be the unthinkable one
You do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,

and all things live around you
speaking to your own being,
speaking by the Unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

I will try, like them, 
to be my own silence:
And this is difficult.
The whole world is secretly on fire.
The stones burn, even the stones.
They burn me.

How can man be still or listen to all
things burning?  How can he dare 
to sit with them when
all their silence

is on fire?

Thomas Merton
In Silence

with thanks to  Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Song is Still Here - Fred LaMotte

Spend a little time today
getting lost.
Find your way
without rudder or sail
across the mud puddle
in your back yard.

Meet me on the shore.
We will find shelter
in each other's breath.
There is a mountain
of silence inside you,
and inside the mountain
a cave of silence
where you'll find the bones
you left here
before you were conceived.
We've had other bodies, friend,
but no other song.

Listen.
The song is still here

inside the bones
inside the cave
inside the mountain of silence
inside you.

Spend a little time today
getting lost.
Find your way
without rudder or sail
across the mud puddle
in your back yard.
Meet me on the shore.
We will find shelter
in each other's breath.
There is a mountain
of silence inside you,
and inside the mountain
a cave of silence
where you'll find the bones
you left here
before you were conceived.
We've had other bodies, friend,
but no other song.
Listen.
The song is still here
inside the bones
inside the cave
inside the mountain of silence
inside you.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Inner Guru - Nisargaddatta

All that a Guru can tell you is: "My dear Sir, you are quite
mistaken about yourself.  You are not the person you think
yourself to be."

Trust nobody, not even yourself.  Find out, remove and
reject every assumption till your reach the living waters
and the rock of truth.

[.....] if you stay with the idea that you are
not the body nor the mind, nor even their witness, but
altogether beyond, your mind will grow in clarity, your desires -
in purity, your actions - in clarity and that inner distillation will
take you to another world, a world of truth and fearless love.

[.....]  Confide in your inner self.

The greatest Guru is your inner self.  Truly, he [she] is the supreme
teacher.  He [she] alone can take you to your goal and alone meets
you at the end of the road.  Confide in him [her] and you need no
outer Guru....

Nisargadatta

~

Silence is the Guru,
all the rest is imagination...

Eric Baret

~

With thanks to Love Is A Place

~

I have come to realize that the "Great Silence" is
my Friend and Teacher/Guru.  And through meditation I rely on the
Great Silence within to reveal what I need to see and know...

MM

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Silence is Not a Practice - Fred LaMotte

Trying to practice silence, imposing stillness on the mind,
is not meditation, but a subtle form of violence.

  To control thoughts, force them out of the mind, or concentrate
 on one thought to the exclusion of others, is not meditation but 
oppression.  And to repeat an affirmation over and over again is
not truth: it is control and denial.  The affirmation tries to will
away a feared condition by drilling down into a description of its
opposite.  But behind the affirmation is the fear that the opposite
is true, and this fear tacitly empowers what it fears.

We pride ourselves in our techniques of "self-discipline."  But
 self-discipline is the inward idol of the authoritarian mind.  Who
 is the self that disciplines the mind?  Who disciplines that self
An infinite regression of selves to be disciplined, until one finally
surrenders...

True meditation is the weary traveler who lets go of the quest, 
takes off her clothes, leaves the path, and slips naked into a forest
pool.  She washes the journey from her glistening brown body.

Just so, the mind slips off one veil of thought after another,
 sinking deeper into more luminous layers of silence, until the
 dark effervescent stillness beyond thought immerses her.  It is a
 stillness that can only be discovered, never imposed.  No thought
can produce the vast tranquility that lies between thoughts, just 
as no star, however bright, can contain the vast night around it.
In this divine darkness, she joyfully drowns...

True meditation doesn't require hours of sitting.  For just a few
minutes, one dives into the secret pool of eternity, then emerges
totally refreshed, re-created, reborn from the womb of amazement.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

The Silence of emptiness pervades all forms.  It is the primordial
Silence of God, gushing tears from the spring of bliss in the
womb of creation.  True Silence is the mother of poetry, the
mother of art, the mother of music.

Fred LaMotte
Excerpt From - "True Silence"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Solace of Solitude...

My Soul needs the solace of Solitude,
finding Its Rhythm again
in the deep silent space of "Home";
The Sacred Silence within...

The comfort of the deep Silence
brings everything into perspective;
an inner stability...

I breathe into my Soul
and my Soul breathes into me...
a mutual breath...

I fall into the slumber of a deeper
Rhythm of the Sanctuary of the Soul -

and rest...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 25, 2022

~

Photo - Mandala Art
Meditating Monks
Mystic Meandering
2013

 

A Deeper River - Dada Gavand & Angeles Arrien

You cannot meet God through the mind,

nor experience the timeless through time.

Thought cannot touch the transient.
Only the freedom from thought
and from mental cravings and ambitions
does the energy become
whole, tranquil and pure.

Such inner purity and humility
will invite the hidden divinity.

The pure consolidate energy
with its silence and fullness within
awaits in readiness to meet the divine,
to experience that which is beyond the mind.

There across the region of time
beyond the frontiers of the mind,
within the sanctuary of silence,
resides the supreme intelligence,
the timeless divine.

Dada Gavand

~

I trust the Mystery.  I trust what comes in silence
and what comes in nature where there's no diversion.
I think the lack of stimulation allows us to hear and
experience a deeper river that's constant, still, vibrant,
and real..

Angeles Arrien

~

The Silence of Source is the deepest River.
I must find the deeper River within again,
and listen to Its Voice.

MM  4-20-23

~

Photo from the Internet