Advaita Post - 14-2 - Go into the silence of the night...

Volume 14 No. 2 (January 27, 2013)

Text satsang

Silence

 An Advaita talk with Douwe Tiemersma, Schiermonnikoog, February 1, 2003

You all know what the theme is this week: silence. Here, it's the same as it has always been: silent. Nothing has changed. Between the last time and now lies a busy life. Now, that falls away in the silence. Just let it fall. Then you notice that the silence has never disappeared. When you're alert, it's very clear.

What happens in the silence? We arrive on a wintry night, with storm and snow, to a distant island and it's deathly still. What happens there with the people in the night, in the snow, at the end of the world? In the silence of the night, in the snow, in the real silence, everything dissolves, the entire group dissolves.

Take a look very precisely at how it is with yourself, there, where everything dissolves in the silence. Listen to the silence, listen. When the listening finds something to listen to, then there is a clear relationship between yourself on the one hand and that to which you listen on the other. Now there is the snow that keeps falling in the dark night, the snow that silently and steadily falls, and you listen. But, there is nothing that answers to the listening. There is the intention of the listening and that continues, but the silence of the snow, everywhere in the darkness, is infinite. The intention of the listening becomes infinite. You put everything into that listening for the infinite so that nothing remains. Take a look to see exactly how it is. The listening has no grip. The energy of listening evaporates in the snow. What are you? Through listening to the sound of the snow, you are just listening. As listening, you dissolve into the silence, you become the snow. There is no sound of your Self. The infinite silence remains. See how the silence dissolves everything.

They are still searching for the people of that group on the island, but haven't found them yet.

See how the silence goes beyond the contrasts of sound and silence. Usually, sound and ordinary silence alternate. You affirm now that there is sound and then again silence, then again sound. But Silence precedes this exchange. It is the original silence from which the ordinary silence and noise arise. There is a period of sound and a period of the absence of sound. Sound emerges as a phenomenon, and silence emerges as a phenomenon. The source silence is always there, continuous, independent of sound and absence of sound. Go into the silence of the night, the silence of the falling snow. It's important this first evening that the original dimension of the Silence reopens.

Take note, this dimension of Silence is open now. So silence precedes the sounds and the silence. It precedes, just as your self precedes, all phenomena. When Silence appears, you experience that it is never different from your own self-being. Silence is not a phenomenon (third person), because you are Silence (first person). When you are listening from your own self-being to the silence, you are 'listening'. Then listening coincides with the original silence; you coincide with the original silence. In that original sphere, you as silent listening, are not different from the Silence. That is meditation. Silence that listens to silence: you are That.

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