Going into the Silence means first, going away from the turmoil and stress and noise of the world. It does not mean a physical going away, but a mental going away, a spiritual going away.
There are two ways of getting away from toilings. One is to leave their physical whereabouts, and the other is to turn the attention away from them.
We have a good illustration of that, but sort of turned around, in the radio. We are everyone of us, right now, in the midst of a turmoil of radio waves. There are radio waves from many different directions passing through this space, at this moment. A sensitive receiver might pick up a dozen different sets of radio waves, but you and I, not tuned to them, are. entirely unconscious of them, insensible to them; they don’t affect us in the least. We are physically in the midst of them, but so far as our experience is concerned, they do not exist.
The philosopher of every age, has sought to make himself immune from the turmoil and stress and worries and troubles of his environment, his own life and the lives of those around him. If he has succeeded in attaining this attitude, he has left all the turmoil and stress of the world.
“When we are serene, calm, undisturbed inside, what goes on outside does not matter much.”
The hermit tries the other method, that of running from things. And many a time he finds that when he has reached his quiet cave, he has taken into that cave, most of the turmoil, because he has taken it along in his thoughts.
When we quiet our own minds, our own conscious minds, we have not very much difficulty in getting away from the turmoil of the environment. When things in our environment bother us, usually it is because something in ourselves is already bothering us.
When we are serene, calm, undisturbed inside, what goes on outside does not matter much, but when we are disturbed and in great turmoil and stress inside, then it takes very little outside to disturb us a great deal.
“We are the most important factors in our lives.”
Therefore, ‘going into the silence’ is largely a matter of quieting ourselves. It will help a bit, if we can be in a quiet situation, but when we have attained to some degree of skill, when we have mastered ourselves in this discipline, we will be able to go into the silence on a train, a crowded street car, or any other place, no matter what the noise and hurry, bustle and turmoil around us may be, for these things affect us only in degree that they find something in us to respond to them.
Many of us are so turbulent in consciousness that we find nothing with which to respond to the serene stillness of a deep forest; and occasionally, one is so calm and serene in consciousness that he finds nothing with which to respond to the turmoil of the most turbulent environment.
No matter where we are, or with what we are concerned in life; no matter what we do, we are, ourselves, the most important factors in our lives.
We are the sensitive receivers that tune in to things of the environment, or we are sensitive to only certain wavelengths as we might say, and so respond to only certain things.
Going into the silence is a matter of selecting our own wavelengths and of being able to tune out everything we do not wish to affect us. And it is even more than this, it is being able to tune out all wavelengths, being able to tune out every disturbance or activity of environment and to make ourselves sensitive to what comes from within ourselves alone.
Let us learn to quiet the turmoil of our minds, to go into the inner, secret place ; let us make ourselves so quiet inside that no disturbance outside can affect us. In order to give our efforts, point and objective, let us repeat the Master Affirmation and then meditate upon it in a very calm, serene, quiet way, so that in this very impressionable time of the silence, we will have a right thought impressing itself upon our mind.
Today is a day of realization. Today we get a firmer grasp of life, of the eternal verities that give point and objective to life. This day is a day of achievement, success, increasing health and strength.
