SILENCE
Devotee: But Swami, You
mentioned only soft prayer, meditation, worship, and breath control. Some
advanced persons adopt the vow of silence (mouna). Of what use is it? What exactly is
silence?
Swami: The illumination of the soul is
silence! How can there be silence without the Atma being illuminated? Without that, merely keeping the
mouth shut is not silence. Some adopt the vow of silence, but they communicate
by writing on paper or a slate or they point successively to the letters of the
alphabet on a chart! All this is pseudo-silence! It is only another way of
talking without interruption! There is no need to attain silence. Silence is
ever with you. You have only to remove all things that disturb it!
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Author's note
In the spiritual sessions given by the author to few sadhakas, Silence is taught as three fold.
Silence of Body
Silence of Mouth (speech)
Silence of Mind
Silencing of speech is the first stage in the sadhana about which all of us are aware.
Silencing of Body means, reducing / eliminating the needs of Body - excessive food / different tastes of food / excessive sleep / laziness / physical urge of body etc.
Silencing of mind is the most important and the last silence which has to be achieved which is important / indispensable for a sadhaka to achieve spiritual transformation. This is the silence Swami has mentioned in the above reply.
Silencing of Mind is elimination of thoughts based on likes and dislikes, based on past impressions, based on fear and at the subtlest sense, elimination of the basic thought that I am this body, mind and intellect!!! This is by far the most toughest thing to be achieved in spiritual sadhana. Without this, the other 2 silence are of no / little use.
SAMADHI
Swami: Wonderful fellow! How can there
be inquiry in samadhi?
When you sleep soundly, do you have any thoughts about the world
around you? Samadhi is
like that.
Devotee: There will be no mind in samadhi, will there?
Swami: The mind that persists in sleep
will be there also.
Devotee: They talk of a
“beyond stage (thuriya)” in samadhi. What is that, Swami?
Swami: Beyond the waking, dreaming,
and deep-sleep stages.
Devotee: Why are those stages absent there? What are the characteristics of that stage?
Swami: Those three stages are the
characteristics of I-ness. Ego (ahamkara),
the person with mind (manas),
who does all acts. That will not be present in the “beyond” stage. It would
have disappeared long ago. For them, it is all the same, with eyes open or with
eyes closed. It is all One.
Devotee: Swami, without
that “I (aham)”, how can they
talk?
Swami: What was “I” in the beginning is transformed into the true entity (swarupa) when the reality is grasped.
Devotee: So, this
undifferentiated deep communion (nir-vikalpa-samadhi) is all destruction (naasam)?
Swami: Well, my boy, all samadhis are merging (laya), not destruction. The
spiritual-aspirant stage is when you have both construction and destruction.
Author's note
Samadhi is the stage in spiritual sadhana when the "I" identity as ahamkara is transcended and the sadhaka exists as Aham / SELF.
All paths - Bhakti / Jnana - are aimed in only one thing at the end - The removal of Ego / Ahamkara.
In Bhakti - The Ahamkara / Ego gets smaller, smaller and smaller, melting in the Bhakti, like the candle melts and losses itself in the process.
In Jnana, the SELF Awareness , The AHAM, is expanded and expanded and expanded to the extent where, the Ahamkara, the little ego, is dissolved totally.
The ultimate result is the Same.
In the early stages of Author imparting spiritual sessions to few aspirants, one bright aspirant came up with a question on the meaning of a line in Nirvana Shatakam.
"Aham Bhojanam Naiva Bhojyam Na Bhokta"
(I am neither the object of experience, nor the experiencing, nor the experiencer).
or
(I am neither the object of meditation, nor the process of meditation nor the one who is meditator).
The sadhaka asked,
"Guruji, does it mean that all these three, the mediator, meditating experience, the meditated object / the ultimate goal - are destroyed / are removed in the process of sadhana??
The Guru replied (exactly the author reads the same reply in essence in Swami's answer to the devotee's question in the above para, after 7 years of giving the reply to the sadhaka):
"No, nothing is destroyed, nothing is removed, destroying word would make the process a negative one. When the ultimate goal of SELF REALIZATION is reached in meditation, then all the three - the meditated, the meditating, the meditator or the process of experience, the object of experience, the one who is experiencing, that is you the sadhaka - all these three culminate and merge in the ultimate stage in which you would be upon SELF REALIZATION, exactly like the stream of river goes and merges in the expansive ocean, never to return as river again".
Love.
