It so happened that a person wanted to experience the inner silence and he found that his home was a place of disturbance — his parents, wife, in-laws (for sure), children, neighbours … everyone seemed to be blocking him from his experience of inner silence. And hence he isolated himself in his room and there too it seemed that the outer commotion was getting into the room. So he sound-proofed it and then he found that the fan was too noisy for him to experience inner silence. So he removed the fan and got installed a soundless air conditioning system. The he found the clock tick to be too noisy and had it removed. And finally he found that his heartbeat was so very noisy! So what did he do next … !?
Outer circumstances have to be handled appropriately (which is why in the Indian system there are the Niti shastras) but the inner circumstances should also be looked at. If we have an inner framework of constantly finding fault with every outer circumstance then it will be difficult to experience silence — leave alone silence it will be difficult to even be temporarily happy because there will be endless causes that will be the causes for our endless unhappiness and this results in a condition where a temporary suspension or change in the causes will cause a state of relief which is not happiness and definitely not Ananda — which is beyond duality of happiness and its opposite sorrow.
And hence for the state of inner emotional balance and for silence we direct the emotions towards the higher frequency shanta or peace through guiding emotions towards a sense of cheerful higher-purposefulness where all other purposes are steps in the direction of that higher-purpose. Emotions are there, but they never touch you. Be like a lotus leaf.
In these series of posts, Shri. Adinarayanan shares his insights on silence and the path to attaining inner silence. These posts come from a deep understanding of sound and silence through his 100 days of mouna tapasya in complete isolation.