True Silence
In True Silence words disappear. Sounds are still happening but the silence is undisturbed. The stillness transcends everything, all the words, sounds, thoughts.
In True Silence nothing can be found and nothing will be lost. Life is seen as having no purpose other than its own end. No idea will be held to impose anything on life, since everything is already perfectly included in the stillness that you are.
In True Silence what you are is revealed as true silent being. You’re not trying to be silent but you know yourself as that True Silence. And then all your ideas about it dissolve back into your own being, into True Silence.
In True Silence the world stops. No desires and no fears arise. The stories of your life are being laughed at. You as this all-pervading silence feel at peace without any notion of yourself.
In True Silence nothing is being pulled or pushed, nothing is held onto, nothing is to attain, since everything and everybody is seen as pure silent being.
In True Silence every concept of God, of yourself and others, of how to be in the world, is collapsing, since any idea is seen as a temporary movement within this vast immovable silence that you are.
In True Silence your being is met. Only here is it fully met. All of your becoming could never meet yourself. When you move as what you are, as silent being, only then do you meet what you truly are.
In True Silence, you meet yourself.
You just need an instant to correctly identify yourself as That.
—As it is in this moment.
No teaching
- Student: So many teachers, so many books, I don't know what to do, whom to trust, how to find peace.
- No teacher: The true teacher is within you. If by grace of the universe your inner teacher is revealed to yourself, sometimes the form of a teacher is showing up. Don't be attached to the form. Look within.
- Student: How to look within?
- No teacher: Be quiet. Find the space before you utter the word 'I'. Let the mind find the root of your own self.
- Student: So I'm asking 'Who am I'?
- No teacher: Yes. Who and what is this 'I'? Can you find this 'I'? Ask yourself who's the one who's seeing the 'I'? And even deeper: Who's the one who's seeing the seer?
- Student: But all the techniques, all the events, all the teachings?
- No teacher: Ask yourself who's the one who's going to meditate? What is it good for to meditate if (before meditating) it never occurred to you to ask who's the one who's gonna be meditating now?
- Student: Nobody would attain a teaching that is 'no teaching'.
- No teacher: Since there's only the teacher within you, where would you go looking for a teaching that's outside of you.
- Student: I looked for the 'I' and I couldn't find it. Just ideas, thoughts, reflections of the body.
- No teacher: Who's seeing the seer of all of your experiences, including the reflections of the body and all the thoughts that you have about yourself? Be very quiet and look within. Who's the one who's looking within now?
- Student: I can't find anything special. Thoughts arise. Ideas arise. Feelings of the body. But there's a sense before all that. Nothing that I could really grasp. It's empty there.
- No teacher: This emptiness is more than anything you could ever imagine. You could say it's a total emptiness, totally full of emptiness. It's so empty that it includes all the fullness in this world. Just keep quiet and ease into the grace of this moment. You don't need anything. Feel yourself as pure presence. No teacher. No teaching. Just still empty presence of this moment.
Awakening want I: The Ultimate Inquiry
You’re telling yourself I want awakening. And by that want you’re objectifying what you’re looking for. Everything that you’re making into an object is leading you away from what you’re looking for. What you’re looking for is that that is looking. You’re looking for the I, your own self, the subject. And you can’t find it because you’re looking away from that I, by having it outwardly made into some hopefully satisfying object. What would happen if you were to reverse the want of I want awakening?
Now, Awakening want I.
So you’re just allowing the I to become an object. Just for a moment. Allow your Self some moment to search for it-self. Where does the Self look for it-self?
The mind will show up, asking the question Where is this self? Allow this answerless question, this open inquiry. Before the question, was there anything? Then, the question has arisen. Then, another thought might be popping up. Then, what? Stay with the first thought: Where is this self? It means the same as asking Where and what is this I? Who is the seer?
Out of consciousness the mind is introducing itself in consciousness, by asking the questions Where is this self?, Where and what is this I?, Who is the seer?
You’re not looking for any object out there but for that inner subject that you experimentally make into an object for a while. So you’re not looking for what might be seen out there. You’re looking for the one who’s seeing. You’re looking for the seer it-self.
You’re looking and the I cannot find it-self. Since there’s nothing to find but silence, the mind will then become quiet again. From beyond the mind you’ve already known the answer. Fearful of asking the question, the answer is quietness. The same quietness that is before the question is being asked, that is while the question is being presented, and that is after the questioning. All the time the thoughts Where is the self? or Where and what is this I? or Who is the seer?, they were never to leave this quietness, not even for a moment.
What you are is interacting with the mind as its own creation (or more accurately, is giving some space for the mind to show up). Then the mind, by asking the questions, is trying to objectify you who gave birth to the entire questioning. Finding no answers, the mind will be returning to where the questions were coming from. Not able to define the subject (that is you) in any way, you’re recognizing yourself as empty of any definition.
The Truth is, there’s no self. No I, no self, and no mind. Just the mind is using the opportunity of its arising to play around with more thoughts about it. Just see that it all is just a play in consciousness, by consciousness, and then returning to this empty aware silence.
Before I and without I, you simply are this awareness, and, after looking for I, you still just are the same awareness. I looked for it-self. What was not there couldn’t find itself by looking for this nothingness. It was and is just empty. What is empty couldn’t find itself, since it is emptiness itself which is looking for emptiness.
No answers have been found, no answers have been needed, and all the questions have dissolved back into silence.
Being aware of the awareness within awareness in this instant and at all times, you are simply resting in your own silent ground of being, untouched and undisturbed.
And even that ground of being is before any thought, word or notion about it. The depth of this silence is unknowable. The truth of this instant is fathomless.
Being is then simply enough.
Be still and feel this infinite freedom.
