Modern humans have lost touch with their inner ‘true self’. Silence and stillness are a means of recovering happiness and contentment. In the modern world, silence has practically ceased to exist. Silence is the absence of ambient audible sounds, the emission of sounds of such low intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sound; this latter sense can be extended to apply to the absence of any from of communication, whether through speech or another medium.
Sometimes the speaker falls silent when they hesitate in searching for a word or interrupt themselves before correcting themselves. Discourse analysis shows that people use brief silence to mark the boundaries of the prosodic unit, in turn-talking, or as reactive token. Relatively prolonged intervals of silence can be used in rituals, In some religious disciplines, people maintain silence for protracted periods or even for the rest of their lives as an ascetic means of spiritual transformation.In reality, silence is one of our greatest friends and can if it's allowed to reveal itself to us have a powerfully beneficial effect on us.
The True Self
Ultimately, the most serious consequence of both this inner chattering and the noise and activity of the modern world is that they separate us from our true selves.
Our ‘true self’ might be called the ground, or the essence, of our beings. It’s the pure consciousness inside us, the consciousness-in-itself which remains when we’re not actually conscious of anything. It’s what remains when our the activity of our senses and the activity of our minds cease. The sense-impressions we absorb from the world and the thoughts which run through our minds are like the images on a cinema screen, but our ‘true self’ is the cinema screen itself, which is still there even when there aren’t any images being projected on to it.
Experiencing this ‘consciousness-in-itself’ can have a massively therapeutic effect. It brings a sense of being firmly rooted in ourselves, of being truly who we are. We also have a sense of being truly where we are, realizing that before we were only half-present, and everything we see around us seems intensely real and alive as if our perceptions have become much more acute. But above all, we experience a profound sense of inner peace and natural happiness. As the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have always held, the nature of consciousness-in-itself (which means the consciousness inside us and the consciousness which pervades the whole universe) is bliss.
Getting into contact with the pure consciousness inside us enables us, therefore, to experience this bliss. Indeed, it could be said that it’s only when we do this that we can experience true happiness. Usually what we think of as happiness is hedonistic or ego-based that is, based around pressing instinctive ‘pleasure buttons’ or around receiving attention and praise from others and increasing our self-esteem.
But the kind of deep and rich happiness we experience when we’re in touch with the ground or essence of our beings is natural, spiritual happiness, which doesn’t depend on anything external, and doesn’t vanish as soon as the thing which produced it is taken away. It’s a happiness which comes from experiencing the divine inside us and also the divine inside everything else, since the pure consciousness inside us is the same pure consciousness inside everything else, and the pure consciousness of the universe itself.
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