you know robert - this is a very good answer! ;-)))
tho what in the wilderness by the sea, in the yowling pines
and crashing sea - do we await for silence?
is this meant as a joke?
because of 7 billion people
how many people know real silence?
:-)))
valerie
hrtbeat7 wrote:
--- In HarshaSatsangh@y..., v <amused@p...>
wrote:
what IS it by nature we humans have in common ?
.....Silence.
"Silence cannot be explained. It cannot be known or experienced
in a
way that might be familiar to us, as we are used to experiencing
other events in our life. However, when we say beauty or love,
and
when we are meeting those two in a pure and honest place, then
we can
say that silence has come into our life.
We can only use words to point in the direction of silence, such
that
if one actually goes into the distance towards which the words
point,
one will eventually come upon silence as a fact. When silence is
beheld as a fact, all speculation, argument, and belief about that
to
which the word silence refers ends instantly and forever.
Silence is that in which everything exists, from which everything
comes, and into which everything returns. It is the unutterable
context in which the cosmos occurs, a playground of pure
consciousness.
Silence is oneness. Silence refers to a state of fundamental unified
existence, a condition of being in which all conflict, fear, doubt,
projection, memory, delusions-all subjectivity and objectivity-are
dissolved and thus resolved. Silence is an instantaneous recognition
of that which is out of time and unconditioned by cause and effect.
If one were a religious person, one could say that silence is the
soul of God, or perhaps the God of God.
If this sounds abstract, vague, or esoteric, it only sounds so
because we cannot say exactly what silence is. Some things are
so
very beyond the reach of words and metaphors, symbols and images,
beliefs and concepts that all attempts to describe them are foolish.
And yet, even as we speak foolishly and impertinently of that which
cannot be said, something within us will smile knowingly. It is
this
intuitive resonance which words can stimulate. This is the direction
we can point to and go toward, walking or running, in order for
the
recognition of the wordless to become real. But even as silence
becomes indomitably real, as taut and tense and thrilling as a
tidal
wave crashing upon us, crushing us beyond recognition-even as this
happens, we cannot speak its truth.
Any disciplined practice that involves focusing the mind will
eventually lead to silence. Spiritual methods such as meditation
techniques, chanting mantras, yoga, tai chi-all of these will lead
to
silence. Self-inquiry will lead to silence. So will martial arts,
and
dance, and art. So will rock climbing and sky-diving. So will cooking
and eating. So will playing and loving. Everything will lead to
silence, because silence is the life force behind everything. It
is
the oxygen without which everything would fall over dead, flash
frozen. Since all things lead to silence, we must follow the echoes
of silence, inward, to the source of all things within us.
Being led to silence might imply that silence is somewhere else.
This
is only a figure of speech. Silence is always the first thing and
the
last thing. It is always present, but very subtle, so we must
therefore learn to recognize it. The direction of silence is any
direction. There is no place that silence is not, although we cannot
apprehend it with our senses or with our minds.
Still, let me suggest a fool-proof way of coming into silence
quickly, so that silence becomes a fact for us. First, we must
develop the ability to distinguish one thought from another. When
we
can do this, we must then develop the ability to see clearly the
space between two thoughts. When that space becomes large and stable
enough for us to drive a truck through it, we will know silence
as a
fact.
In the very center of universal manifestation, one finds swirling
gusts of silence, vast galactic streamers millions of light years
long. If we try to understand this silence through our mind, we'll
never understand it. Silence is realized in a moment of communion,
in
a moment of losing our separation from life. The underlying truth
of
existence is silence.
Silence embraces everything and cannot be known because to know
silence, we would have to be separate from silence, and silence
would
then be an object of our perception and of our knowing. Silence
refers to that which is beyond this dualism of knower and known.
Silence becomes a fact when we and life become an inseparable whole.
Even though we are trying to define it, no definition of silence
is
accurate. We don't want to think that by defining it, we can know
it.
Silence is knowable only to itself, and we come into that knowing
through an alchemy of self-transcendence.
We can only create a definition that points to silence. The truth
of
reality is silent. It is undisturbed. It is causeless. It is out
of
time, out of space, non-dual. Silence is the preeminent nothingness
in which the universe dances in spectacular and mysterious ways.
If silence is the United States, then intuition is Ellis Island,
the
first stop of immigrants seeking asylum. Intuition is the first
hint,
the first experience of the far greater country of silence. Intuition
is not a tool, but rather an intelligence that uses us. We might
not
see this right away. Intuition is willing to be used, but only
for a
time. One day, it will require that we suspend our goals and
objectives, our plans and aspirations, for a fuller recognition
of
what intuition is, what it represents. We will come to see that
intuition is the ambassador of silence, and we must serve that
silence, for it is the soul of the world.
In the instant of intuitive perception, we are taken wholly into
that
power of knowing which is beyond the mind. In going beyond the
mind,
we go beyond all notions of self and identity, of thought and belief,
of perceiver and perceived. A photograph of the intuitive flash
would
show only light. There would be no other image, only light. The
light
of intuition is the light of consciousness. Intuition is Ellis
Island, the gateway to freedom. In order to be free, we must want
freedom, we must be willing to leave behind the old countries of
control and manipulation from which we have come. We cannot come
to
this new country with ideas of exploitation, as gangsters. We have
to
come as servants of the new freedom. We have to learn new ways
of
living. We have to become students of silence and freedom in order
to
learn how to live without fear, without violence, without cruelty."
ROBERT RABBIN
"Catalyzing Clarity, Freedom, and Joy"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HarshaSatsangh/join
HarshaSatsangh Magazine and Website is at
http://www.harshasatsangh.com
All paths go somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights,
perceptions, and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside
back into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than
the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of Awareness.
Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It is Home. Home
is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the Finality of Eternal
Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of Self-Knowledge, spontaneously
arising from within into It Self. Welcome all to HarshaSatsangha.
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