Silence--The Eternal Verbum

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"What one fails to know by conversation extending to several years can be

known in a trice inSilence, or in front of Silence - e.g. Dakshinamurti, and

his four disciples.

This is the highest and most effective language."

(Talks, no. 246; Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, 1978)

 

 

Many people have commented on, and attested to, the efficacy of Sri Ramana

Maharshi's silence. Without words to activate the concept seeking mind there

is instead the impetus to drive inwards to the source of the mind. Rather

than hanging meaning on arbitrary words, the mind, devoid of outgoing,

active content, finds the space to deliberately seek its source. This is

called Satsanga, "association with Being". Whether in the presence of one

who has realised the Self (perhaps the most common usage of the term), or in

the mental presence of that One, the effect is the same. The gross medium of

language is bypassed and the root of all thought, the primary 'I'-thought,

is stopped in its tracks. With no thought arising there is no need for

language. Neither human language nor thought are self existent. In absence

of thought universal silence spontaneously arises, or rather remains as it

is, as the

pure essence of speech. This is the Eternal Verbum, Sabda Brahman, Self.

 

Punyaraja says in his commentary on the Vakyapadiya:

"The aspirant reaches the essence of speech, the Pure Verbum, which lies

beyond the vital plane, by withdrawing his mind from external objects and

fixing it upon his internal nature. This entails the dissolution of the

temporal sequence of thought-activity. The purification of the Verbum (the

eternal light of consciousness which ever shines within the subject) results

from this and the aspirant enters into it having severed all ties with the

material objective plane. This leads him to the attainment of the internal

light and, freed from all bonds and limitations he becomes identical with

the Supreme Light - the Eternal Word Principle - the undying and undecaying

Spirit, called Sabdabrahman or

the Word Absolute." (quoted in Sastri; 1959)

 

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There is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free-will,

Neither path nor achievement; this is the final truth.