The Power Of Silence - Steve Taylor

[Guest guest]

The Power of Silence

By Steven Taylor

 

Modern humans have lost touch with their inner " true self " . Silence

and stillness are a means to recovering happiness and contentment.

 

In the modern world silence has practically ceased to exist. The

human race has stamped its authority over the planet Earth not just

by covering its surface with concrete and destroying its plant and

animal life, but also by burying the natural sounds of the Earth

beneath a cacophony of man-made noise. We live our lives against the

background of this cacophony, with the jagged mechanical sounds of

urban-industrial society continually assaulting our ears: the roar of

cars, aeroplanes and trains, the clanging and thudding of machinery,

the noise of building and renovating, the chatter of radios and TVs

in other people's cars and houses, and pop music blaring from every

conceivable place. But nothing, of course, has done more to

obliterate silence than the car. In the modern world it's very

difficult to go anywhere where there's no possibility of being

disturbed by the sound of passing cars, and the only chance that city

or town dwellers get to experience something of the quietness which

existed everywhere in the pre-car world is sometimes on Sundays, when

the mad rushing to and fro of modern life slows down. This quietness

seems so foreign now that it seems difficult to believe that a

hundred years ago and before it was everywhere all the time. Back

then this quietness would even have filled the busiest city centres,

which would have probably had a noise level equivalent to that of a

modern small village.

 

There's also more noise than ever before inside our houses. It's

unusual to go into a house nowadays where there isn't at least one

television set chattering away somewhere, even if the residents

aren't actually watching it, and other forms of home entertainment

compete against TV to produce the most noise: radios, CD players,

computer and video games etc. In fact the only sound which is largely

absent from people's houses nowadays is the voices of their occupants

actually talking to one another.

 

Living in the midst of all this noise is bound to have a bad effect

on us. All man-made noise is fundamentally disturbing—we find the

sound of birds singing or of wind rushing through trees pleasing, but

mechanical noise always jars and grates. And since we live our lives

against a background of mechanical noise it follows that there's

always an undercurrent of agitation inside us, produced by the noise.

This noise is certainly one of the reasons why modern life is so

stressful as well. In modern life our senses are bombarded with

massive amounts of external stimuli—our fields of vision are always

crowded with different (and constantly shifting) things, and our ears

are bombarded with a bewildering variety of sounds, all of which

clamour for our attention. Our senses have to absorb and process all

this material, which takes up a lot of energy, and means that we're

liable to become drained of energy or 'run down' easily. We can get

out of this state by removing ourselves from all external stimuli and

letting our energy-batteries naturally recharge themselves—i.e., by

relaxing. But there's so much external stimuli around in the modern

world and people are so unaccustomed to the absence of it, that we

may never be able relax properly, which could mean living in a

permanently 'run down' state.

 

This lack of quietness has also meant is that people are no longer

used to silence, and have even, as a result, become afraid of it.

Along with inactivity, silence has become something which most people

are determined to avoid at all costs, and which, when they are

confronted with it, unnerves them. People have become so used to the

frantic pace and the ceaseless activity of modern life that they feel

uneasy when they're left at a loose end with nothing to occupy their

attention even for a few moments, and they feel equally uneasy when

the noise they live their lives against the background of subsides.

Why else is it that they need to have their radios and televisions

chattering away in the background even when they're not paying

attention to them?

 

In other words, in the modern world silence has become an enemy. And

this is a terrible shame, because in reality silence is one of our

greatest friends, and can—if it's allowed to reveal itself to us—have

a powerfully beneficial effect on us.

 

Inner Noise

It's not just the noise outside us which causes us problems, though,

but also the noise inside us.

 

In the same way that the natural quietness and stillness of the world

around us is always covered over with man-made noise, the natural

quietness of our minds is constantly disturbed by the chattering of

our ego-selves. This chattering fills our minds from the moment we

wake up in the morning till the moment we go to sleep at night—an

endless stream of daydreams, memories, deliberations, worries, plans

etc. which we have no control over and which even continues (in the

form of dreams) when we fall asleep. This 'inner noise' has as many

bad effects as the mechanical noise outside us. It actually creates

problems in our lives, when we mull over tiny inconveniences or

uncertainties which seem to become important just because we're

giving so much attention to them, and when we imagine all kinds of

possible scenarios about future events instead of just taking them as

they come. It means that we don't live in the present, because we're

always either planning for and anticipating the future or remembering

the past—'wandering about in times that do not belong to us and never

thinking of the one that does' as Blaise Pascal wrote. And this

constant inner chattering also means that we can never give our full

attention to our surroundings and to the activities of our lives. Our

attention is always partly taken up by the thoughts in our minds, so

that wherever we are and whatever we're doing we're never completely

there.

 

It's probably possible to say that there's also more of this 'inner

noise' inside human beings than there's ever been before. The hectic

pace and the constant activity of our lives, the massive amount of

external stimuli we're bombarded with, and the barrage of information

which the mass media sends our way, have made our minds more restless

and active. We've got to juggle dozens of different problems and

concerns in our minds just to get by from day to day, and every new

thing we see or every new piece of information which is sent our way

is potentially the beginning of a whole new train of thought to

occupy our minds.

 

The True Self

Ultimately, the most serious consequence of both this inner

chattering and the noise and activity of the modern world is that

they separate us from our true selves.

 

Our 'true self' might be called the ground, or the essence, of our

beings. It's the pure consciousness inside us, the consciousness-in-

itself which remains when we're not actually conscious of anything.

It's what remains when our the activity of our senses and the

activity of our minds cease. The sense-impressions we absorb from the

world and the thoughts which run through our minds are like the

images on a cinema screen, but our 'true self' is the cinema screen

itself, which is still there even when there aren't any images being

projected on to it.

 

Experiencing this 'consciousness-in-itself' can have a massively

therapeutic effect. It brings a sense of being firmly rooted in

ourselves, of being truly who we are. We also have a sense of being

truly where we are, realising that before we were only half-present,

and everything we see around us seems intensely real and alive, as if

our perceptions have become much more acute. But above all, we

experience a profound sense of inner peace and natural happiness. As

the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have always held, the nature of

consciousness-in-itself (which means the consciousness inside us and

the consciousness which pervades the whole universe) is bliss.

Getting into contact with the pure consciousness inside us enables

us, therefore, to experience this bliss. Indeed, it could be said

that it's only when we do this that we can experience true happiness.

Usually what we think of as happiness is hedonistic or ego-based—that

is, based around pressing instinctive 'pleasure buttons' or around

receiving attention and praise from others and increasing our self-

esteem. But the kind of deep and rich happiness we experience when

we're in touch with the ground or essence of our beings is a natural,

spiritual happiness, which doesn't depend on anything external, and

doesn't vanish as soon as the thing which produced it is taken away.

It's a happiness which comes from experiencing the divine inside us—

and also the divine inside everything else, since the pure

consciousness inside us is the same pure consciousness inside

everything else, and the pure consciousness of the universe itself.

 

Making Contact with the True Self

Whether we're in touch with this 'true self' or not depends on how

much external stimuli our senses are taking in from the world around

us, and on how much activity there is going on in our minds. If there

is a lot of noise, movement and activity taking place around us then

we can't help but give our attention to it; and in the same way, when

there is a lot of 'inner noise' taking place we have to give our

attention to that too. And when our attention is completely absorbed

in this way—either by external stumuli on their own, such as when we

watch TV; by 'inner noise' on its own, such as when we daydream; or

by both of them at the same time—it's impossible for us to be in

contact with our 'true self' to any degree, in the same way that it's

impossible to see a cinema screen in itself when it's full of dancing

images. Being in contact with our 'true self' is a state of

attentionless-ness, when our minds are completely empty.

 

What we have to do if we want to get into contact with this part of

ourselves is, therefore, to withdraw our attention from these things.

And this is, of course, what we do when we meditate: first of all, we

remove ourselves from external stimuli, by sitting in a quiet room

and closing our eyes. And then there's only 'inner noise' standing

between us and consciousness-in-itself, which we try to quieten by

concentrating on a mantra or on our breathing. If we manage to stop

the inner noise (and therefore stop our attention being absorbed in

it) pure consciousness immerses us and we become our true selves.

 

And this brings us back to the most serious problem caused by the

massive amount of external stimuli (including noise) which our senses

are bombarded with in the modern world, and by the intensified 'inner

noise' which modern life generates. It's not just a question of

completely closing yourself off to external stimuli and shutting

down 'inner noise', so that you can experience a state of total

immersion in pure consciousness. It's possible to have a foot in both

camps, so to speak—to live a normal life in the world, being exposed

to external stimuli and experiencing inner noise, and at the same

time still be rooted in your real self. That is, it's possible to be

partially immersed in consciousness-in-itself, and for your attention

to be partially absorbed by external stimuli and inner talk. But this

can only happen when there is just a moderate degree of both of the

latter.

 

It would probably have been quite easy for our ancestors to live in

this way, because they weren't exposed to a great deal of external

stimuli and because their lives were relatively slow-paced and stress-

free, which would have meant that their attention needn't have been

completely absorbed by external stimuli and inner talk. Perhaps this

even partly explains why native peoples seem to possess a natural

contentment which modern city dwellers have lost—because their more

sedate lives mean that they're able to be in touch with the ground of

their being as they go about their lives, and that they can therefore

continually experience something of the bliss of which is the nature

of consciousness-in-itself.

 

For us, however, this has become very difficult. There's always so

much noise and activity both inside and outside us that our attention

is always completely absorbed, so that we can't be in contact with

our real selves. We spend all our time living outside ourselves, lost

in the external world of activity and stimuli or in the inner world

of our own thoughts. We're like a person who plans to go away for a

few days but finds so much to occupy them in the place they go to

that they never go home again, and never again experience the peace

and contentment which lie there. This is certainly one of the reasons

why so many people nowadays seem to live in a state of

dissatisfaction—because they've lost touch with the natural happiness

inside them. That natural happiness has been buried underneath a

storm of external stimuli and what Meister Eckhart called 'the storm

of inward thought'.

 

As a result of this it's essential for us, in the modern world, to go

out of our way to cultivate silence ourselves. Circumstances may

oblige us to live in cities, and our jobs may be stressful and

demanding, but we're still free to remove ourselves from external

stimuli and to try to quieten our minds by meditating, going out into

the countryside, or just by sitting quietly in our rooms. We don't

have to fill our free time with attention-absorbing distractions like

TV and computer games, which take us even further away from

ourselves. We should do the opposite: stop our attention being

absorbed like this so that we can find ourselves again.

 

We need silence and stillness to become our true selves and to be

truly happy. 'Be still,' said Jesus, 'and know that I am God.' But he

might have added, 'and know that you are God.'

 

The Power Of Silence - Steve Taylor

http://www.steventaylor.talktalk.net/powerofsilenceessays.htm