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Swan
India
256 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 29 2012 : 1:04:24 PM
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Now that I am practicing AYP for some time, and experienced momentary rise of silence in daily life, it seems that I have experienced silence in the past also, in rare occasions (background – AYP is my first and only spiritual practice). However, rather than feeing any bliss, I think I got actually scared of it – like mind is going numb or something like that.
I will describe one incident that is coming up from memory pretty often. It was some 10 years ago when I was in my first year of college. We went for a weekend trip on a sea beach. It was in the morning when people who were to enjoy the sunrise have mostly left the beach may be for a breakfast, and those who wanted to surf or swim have not yet crowded the beach. The sea was quite calm, the morning was refreshing, and I was merrily swimming towards the deep sea and kept moving far from the beach.
I kept swimming until the beach was almost out of sight, and looked like only a very thin green line atop a thin white line when I paused and looked back once in a while. That view was also interrupted most of the time as the calm blue waves around me were high enough to cover that thin line. The 360 degree surrounding view was only blue – the clear sky and the sea. It was around 9:00 in the morning in east coast of India, so the sun was in front of me, and there were thousands of tiny little sun waving as the sun reflected on the waves. And there was an utter silence, almost a tangible one.
That’s when it hit me. Suddenly it felt like the continuous waves with the thousand glittering sun are actually still, like the big one in the sky in front of me. The silence is very real and alive, and it has got me in its grip and I felt the quiet surging within me. It seemed to be the answer of all question and I started to listen to the silence. It looked or felt like this is the true form of this world, this is how it was before creation, this is how it still is beyond our sight, and this is how it would look should there be a destruction. All activities back there on the shore seemed to be jokes in front of it. I stayed spellbound in front of the massive and profound view for a while.
And believe me I got scared! Not of drowning, not of death, not of getting lost, nothing in particular but it was a deep and sudden discomfort of mind that I told myself ‘it’s time to get the hell out of here’. As soon as I decided that I am going back to the beach, turned and started swimming, I found my composure as if nothing has happened. It took a while to reach the shore, I got there, felt alright, questioned my sanity, laughed at myself, and decided to keep it to myself as I don’t want my sanity to be questioned by anybody else (Besides I do not have language to describe it, I just believe that you guys will get it) and joined my friends for a meal.
But the view is still with me, in the sense that I can remember that scene vividly. These days it is coming up more often in my mind as if it has been bookmarked.
I believe that in that my inner silence also merged with the outer silence in that unbound environment, but I was scared as I did not have any idea what the hell (or heaven?) it was.
If you have any such encounter with silence, or any view or observation, I will be very interested to hear.
Love and light …
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gatito
United Kingdom
179 Posts |
Posted - Jan 29 2012 : 1:46:56 PM
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Fear certainly can appear as well.
By the way, that's a beautiful description of what cannot be described 
With Love
gatito |
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Swan
India
256 Posts |
Posted - Jan 30 2012 : 12:14:13 AM
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Thanks gatito,
Actually I am asking more about fear of silence in particular than fear of something in general. I found it little ironical and funny that when I met silence in the past (in couple of other instances also, though not as powerful as this one) I wanted to run away, and now I am practicing sincerely to cultivate silence
I wanted to know if it is only me who was afraid of silence and tried to run away from it.
Love ...
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1534 Posts |
Posted - Jan 30 2012 : 12:52:32 AM
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In my opinion this fear of silence occurs because we go to a lot of trouble to forget Who We Really Are from birth and our hold on this unreal reality / this "forgetting" is very shaky but it is important to remain "forgetful" to live in this dual world. Anything that threatens this, makes us scared.
Sey |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jan 30 2012 : 03:21:31 AM
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| I love that silence. Once when I was caving I decided to let the rest of the team carry on to the lower streamway while I stayed in the dry upper passages. They were gone for around an hour. Lying there in the silence and darkness was incredibly peaceful. It felt like I was floating in the vastness of space with infinite distance and the cessation of time. It was hard to tell if I was actually awake or asleep. |
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Swan
India
256 Posts |
Posted - Jan 30 2012 : 07:12:35 AM
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Hi Sey, what you said is resonating with me. As I reflect more on the incident, I remember that a feeling of timelessness and purposelessness was surging within me with the stillness. I was living totally in that moment in the still blue unbound surrounding and presence of the world as I know was fading from my mind (which I have never experienced before). I think as soon as I recognized the fading, I started to feel very uncomfortable. May be the mind suddenly went on high alert and started fighting back to keep it’s hold.
Karl, it’s great to hear that. Now that I am looking for silence, if I experience something similar, I think I would surrender totally and I am kinda sure that I will love it. I am looking forward to find myself again in a place where outer silence may merge with inner silence. But I am not sure if it will work that way if I plan some trip for this purpose, cause I have been in several trips but was rarely hit like that.
Many thanks for sharing ...
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jan 30 2012 : 08:41:06 AM
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| There was an experiment in which a group were kept apart and isolated in cells without any way of knowing the time ( even meals were delivered without a reference to time) and in complete silence. It was interesting, one of the group went straight into meditation and had no issues throughout the experiment, the others varied in how much the experiment disturbed them. One only managed about an hour before they were screaming to be released. |
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gatito
United Kingdom
179 Posts |
Posted - Jan 30 2012 : 1:01:16 PM
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quote:
Thanks gatito,
Actually I am asking more about fear of silence in particular than fear of something in general. I found it little ironical and funny that when I met silence in the past (in couple of other instances also, though not as powerful as this one) I wanted to run away, and now I am practicing sincerely to cultivate silence
I wanted to know if it is only me who was afraid of silence and tried to run away from it.
Love ...
My pleasure Swan
I was replying specifically to your question about fear of the "Silence".
I understand that it's a fairly common response. (It has certainly happened to me - the fear.)
It sounds like what some teachers refer to as an "invitation". It is suggested - by them - that when it happens again, you should accept the invitation.
With Love |
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lufa1212
India
45 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 01:58:29 AM
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Hi swan,
Encountering the silence the very first time can be disturbing to some. I too had got scared of the absolute silence the very first time it embraced me during one of my Deep meditation sessions. I almost scrambled back to this me 
But once I realized it is the mind ego which is trying to hold itself out I started looking forward to such dissolutions...
Love
Lufa
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1534 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 02:54:54 AM
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In Seychelles, you can always hear the ocean, no matter where you are on the island - nights, it sounds like the surf is right outside my door. I live 3 mins walk from the beach. Silence is easily found; it is found within the sound of the surf. The funny thing is - you cannot hear the silence until it is not there, then you realise something is missing; like when I travel.
Sey |
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Swan
India
256 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 03:53:57 AM
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Thanks karl, it says a lot One question out of curiousity about your caving experience - when you met silence there, had you already heard or learnt about inner silence?
gatito, I got it now  . To me it has been like someone is lying on sofa, remembering old days and suddenly sprung up and shouted to self "heck! she loved me, and I did not get it then." 
I am really looking for another invitation.
lufa, thanks for sharing, sounds like we took it the same way on our first encounter. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 05:02:41 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Swan
Thanks karl, it says a lot One question out of curiousity about your caving experience - when you met silence there, had you already heard or learnt about inner silence?
gatito, I got it now . To me it has been like someone is lying on sofa, remembering old days and suddenly sprung up and shouted to self "heck! she loved me, and I did not get it then."
I am really looking for another invitation.
lufa, thanks for sharing, sounds like we took it the same way on our first encounter.
No, it was a long time before I started anything spiritual. I have always had this same feeling at the top of a mountain when no one is around. Sometimes at a very noisy waterfall or standing on the sea shore when the waves are really pounding. It just goes quiet.
These song lyrics really capture that feeling.
Send "Wish You Were Here
I dig my toes into the sand
The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds
Strewn across a blue blanket
I lean against the wind
Pretend that I am weightless
And in this moment I am happy... happy
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I lay my head onto the sand
The sky resembles a backlit canopy
With holes punched in it
I'm counting U.F.O'S
I signal them with my lighter
And in this moment I am happy... happy
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
Wish you were here
The world's a roller coaster
And I am not strapped in
Maybe we should hold with care
But our hands are busy in the air saying;
I wish you were here
I wish you were
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
Wish you were here
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jeff
USA
971 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 08:25:42 AM
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Hi Swan,
Feeling the silence from the perspective of the "Ego" is often very scary. The ego can die in that silence, so one often can has the "flight" response. It is unconscious and very hard to fight. As other's have described, just relaxing or "letting go" is the key. If you find that difficult, I have a suggestion... Try "just listening" to relaxing music. In pure listening, you can slide into the silence and sneak past the response. Your first sign that it is working is that the music will get louder...
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kaserdar
91 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 09:11:40 AM
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Not sure if what I experience is silence but when it happened for the first time, I too was so scared and trying to come out of it like trying to reach the surface of a sea from deep within to breath again. It felt like, I was deep in meditation was having dream like, images and thoughts without mantra and suddenly I got awake and everything else disappeared I was alone and tried to come out of it as soon as possible. Now when this happens, I'm Ok not scared any more. As I said it might not be silence since it is a not a blissful state or trance like or any ting I read of. It just feels nice. There are too much confusion for me around the word "silence". Because there are too many words for it. Being conscious, witness, samadhi. Not sure if all of these are the same things. I would like to hear your comments.
Thank you
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gatito
United Kingdom
179 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 10:53:47 AM
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I think we're all singing from the same hymnn sheet here.
These "events" can be viewed as pointers that we are on the right track. They can also be a problem if we actively seek them. I now think of them as a gift of beautiful scenery. If they happen, they happen. If they do not, it doesn't matter.
What matters is to cultivate the Silence with Deep Meditation.
With Love |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 11:26:16 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by gatito
I think we're all singing from the same hymnn sheet here.
These "events" can be viewed as pointers that we are on the right track. They can also be a problem if we actively seek them. I now think of them as a gift of beautiful scenery. If they happen, they happen. If they do not, it doesn't matter.
What matters is to cultivate the Silence with Deep Meditation.
With Love
Yes, agreed, it's scenery. |
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gatito
United Kingdom
179 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 2:24:54 PM
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quote:
Yes, agreed, it's scenery.
That's not quite what I was intending to convey.
With Love
gatito |
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Swan
India
256 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 11:03:34 PM
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Hi Sey, looks like we cross posted. Inner slience along with outer silence was some experience, however, these days (post AYP) rise of silence does not mind noisy environment also. One instance I remember is I was standing on the open door of a running train. With the passing scenery and noise of the train and air passing through my hairs and ears - the situation was audiovisually dynamic. However, suddenly silence erupted within me right there and though every sound and scene continued to exist or pass, something about them became very still, rhythmically still.
Karl, that is cool man! And thanks for sharing the song – a nice one for humming sometimes.
Jeff, thanks for your suggestion, I would try that. It’s a coincidence that I just got an album of peaceful music from my friend yesterday. However, I think that I was scared more because I did not know or heard anything about silence. If I face the same now, I will rather be thankful towards it.
Would you tell me what you meant by “just listening”? One observation, when I listen to music, at home or through earplug – music gets louder and I keep reducing the sound.
Kaserdar, I fully agree on the limitation of words. Still I think silence is more recognizable among others.
Gatito, do you mean that I should not seek for the experience? Well this is somewhat similar to what I feel about it, given that it came without any effort, and if it meant to, it will come the same way. However, if it is inner silence, then maybe I should seek it actively because the practices are about cultivating silence. I am little confused here and some hint will be very helpful.
Thanks and love ...
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jan 31 2012 : 11:31:17 PM
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Thanks for sharing your first post Swan. loved it. :-).... You were blessed with the taste of stillness... At times, people associate the stillness with the object that made them experience it. They don't realize, that the stillness was experienced because for those few min the mind was silent and we experience the gap between thoughts... then the min the mind jumps in there is either fear or falling in love with the object that helped us get there. People at times will go back to a vacation spot or relive moments over and over again to experience the love they felt for the moment... but it generally does not work, because by now the mind has defined it and labeled it... what people don't realize is that to relive the experience, they just have to go back to the gap.
The vastness of stillness can be scary to us when we are not ready... you are right. That is why, when I first came to the US, it was so silent in the apartments (came here from Mumbai, where silence is unheard of  )... I would keep my TV on all the time, just in case the silence caught up with me and made me get in touch with the stillness in me.. he he... and now... I can sit for hours in silence. So yes, you are right, when we are not ready, silence can be deafening and/or scary.
Thanks again. |
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gatito
United Kingdom
179 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2012 : 12:30:54 AM
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quote:
Gatito, do you mean that I should not seek for the experience? Well this is somewhat similar to what I feel about it, given that it came without any effort, and if it meant to, it will come the same way. However, if it is inner silence, then maybe I should seek it actively because the practices are about cultivating silence. I am little confused here and some hint will be very helpful.
Hi Swan
You ask really difficult questions
Yes, my own experience is that seeking this "experience" is counterproductive.
The way I'd conceptualise it - if you forced me to!!! would be to suggest that it arose from the silence, was made out of the silence and dissolved back into the silence - like a wave made of the sea.
But this was your "experience" - not mine and I only intended to comment on the arising of fear in connection with it and the beauty of your description of the indescribable.
Ultimately, anything said about what I think you're talking about cannot be true, it can only be a pointer. (And even that's not really true).
So I'd say leave it to be whatever it was - and definitely keep on meditating!
It's more productive to concentrate on what's happening in the present and to analyse that - in my experience.
With Love
Edit: - It also occurs to me to say that there probably wasn't the normally perceived subject/object split, so there wasn't experiencer and experience - only seamless experiencing which was made of silence and that it was timeless.
my own take is that this is not scenery in the normal sense but that it's easier to file it as if it was in order to avoid trying to make up these kinds of stories about it. Hope that finally makes some sense. |
Edited by - gatito on Feb 01 2012 01:57:02 AM |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2012 : 03:54:03 AM
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Gatito,
You were right in calling it scenery.
It isn't scenery when we are 'that' silence, but it is when we experience the silence. It has to be scenery because is is the experience of temporary silence. During meditation we go into the gap without experience, it's not so much silence as no-thing and often we are only aware that we were beyond, there was no sense of time, it very well could have been infinite as there is no reference point.
I split this into silence and stillness, they are related, out of stillness comes the silence that will be filled. Like a blank sheet of paper generated by a word processing program. The sheet does not stay pristine for long, but at times we can access it when the mind is so fully occupied by an external experience, for a moment it forgets to think. It is caught up completely in the moment and we unfold into whatever we are experiencing. For a moment we become the experiencet. Then we name it and the spell is broken. |
Edited by - karl on Feb 01 2012 03:55:47 AM |
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gatito
United Kingdom
179 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2012 : 10:47:46 AM
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Dear Karl
I'm afraid that I am the judge of my experience, just like you are the judge of your own experience and Swan is the judge of her own experience.
So I think that we'll have to agree to differ on this one. It is not my experience that silence is temporary. It only appears to be so if one believes in the existence time. The sheet is always pristine. We are the silence and the silence is everything and nothing. There are not two or more, that is only an appearance.
What Swan appears to describe seems to be a classic timeless non-dual glimpse of reality and any splitting is the mind trying to grasp it, own it and make it dual. Time can't reappear because time can't go anywhere.
If the present moment, which is all there is, is examined carefully, all these concepts fall away and we are left with everything and nothing about which nothing can be said. (And even this is just another story .)
Nevertheless, the enquiry can be undertaken and this can be seen.
With Love. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2012 : 12:36:35 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by gatito
Dear Karl
I'm afraid that I am the judge of my experience, just like you are the judge of your own experience and Swan is the judge of her own experience.
quote:
Originally posted by gatito
What Swan appears to describe seems to be a classic timeless non-dual glimpse of reality and any splitting is the mind trying to grasp it, own it and make it dual. Time can't reappear because time can't go anywhere.
Who did you say was the judge.? |
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gatito
United Kingdom
179 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2012 : 5:24:12 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by karl
quote:
Originally posted by gatito
Dear Karl
I'm afraid that I am the judge of my experience, just like you are the judge of your own experience and Swan is the judge of her own experience.
quote:
Originally posted by gatito
What Swan appears to describe seems to be a classic timeless non-dual glimpse of reality and any splitting is the mind trying to grasp it, own it and make it dual. Time can't reappear because time can't go anywhere.
Who did you say was the judge.?
Dear Karl
My only response to this is profound sadness
With Love
gatito |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2012 : 6:14:19 PM
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Gatito,
Please don't be sad... at times it is hard to express our experience of stillness, love, connections in words. Going through life, being true to what we feel and being open to the knowing that it will all change is the key. I have enjoyed what you have written and do agree with you...
quote:
It is not my experience that silence is temporary. It only appears to be so if one believes in the existence time. The sheet is always pristine. We are the silence and the silence is everything and nothing. There are not two or more, that is only an appearance.
What Swan appears to describe seems to be a classic timeless non-dual glimpse of reality and any splitting is the mind trying to grasp it, own it and make it dual. Time can't reappear because time can't go anywhere.
If the present moment, which is all there is, is examined carefully, all these concepts fall away and we are left with everything and nothing about which nothing can be said.
Thank you for sharing with us.
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gatito
United Kingdom
179 Posts |
Posted - Feb 01 2012 : 6:30:34 PM
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Dear Shanti
There's no problem with sadness. I promise!! I'm a big boy
It's just a shape that silence sometimes appears to take and sometimes emotions, not words, hold the answers that we sometimes seek.
This was just the response that appeared.
No harm caused.
With Love
gatito |
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Did not know silence, got scared
