The Highest Language

‘Silence’ – Odilon Redon, 1911 – WikiArt

In our language, the word ‘silence’ is defined as the complete absence of sound, or the abstinence of speech. Yet silence has fascinated us beyond these elementary descriptions to evoke the unknown and the mysterious. Something in silence speaks to us, and is a presence beyond its apparent nature as absence. Spiritual teachers from all traditions have abundantly used the word for its richness of meaning and its powerful evocative dimension. So pregnant and profound is this experience of silence that the word has often been likened to awareness or the nature of god’s silent being. Among others, Ramana Maharshi has often pointed silence as being the ultimate teacher in these matters, and Krishnamurti has described it in supremely effective and graceful words just below. This page is dedicated to their many expressions of silence:

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“The experience of silence alone is the real and perfect knowledge.”
~ Ramana Maharshi (‘Be as You Are’)

“It was a lovely evening, cool, silent and the sky was immense, no tree, no land could contain it; somehow, there was no horizon, the trees and the endless flat earth melted into the expanding sky. It was pale, delicate blue and the sunset had left a golden haze where the horizon should have been. Birds were calling from their sheltering trees, a goat was bleating and far away a train was whistling; some village folk, all women, were huddled around a fire and strangely they too had fallen silent. The mustard was in flower, a spreading yellow and from a village across the fields a column of smoke went straight up into the air. The silence was trangely penetrating; it went through you and beyond you; it was without a movement, without a wave; you walked in it, you felt it, you breathed it, you were of it. It was not that you brought this silence into being, by the usual tricks of the brain. It was there and you were of it; you were not experiencing it; there was no thought that could experience, that could recollect, gather. You were not separate from it, to observe, to analyse. Only that was there and nothing else.”
~ J. Krishnamurti (‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’)

“Keep silence, that you may hear Him speaking
Words unutterable by tongue in speech
Keep silence, that you may hear from that Sun
Things inexpressible in books and discourses.
Keep silence, that the Spirit may speak to you.”
~ Rumi (‘Masnavi i Ma’navi’)

“In this silence, this quiet, the Word is heard.
There is no better method of approaching
this Word than in silence, in quiet:
we hear it and know it aright in unknowing.
To one who knows naught it is clearly revealed.”
~ Meister Eckhart

“Welcome whatever appears in the now from moment to moment. Allow whatever arises spontaneously in the now to flow through you without trying to grasp it, resist it, or memorize it. That which comes unexpectedly in the now always comes from grace, from silence. That which comes from silence resonates with silence in us. It reveals silence.”
~ Francis Lucille (‘The Perfume of Silence’)

“In nature nothing is at stand-still, everything pulsates, appears and disappears. Heart, breath, digestion, sleep and waking — birth and death everything comes and goes in waves. Rhythm, periodicity, harmonious alternation of extremes is the rule. No use rebelling against the very pattern of life. If you seek the Immutable, go beyond experience. When I say: remember ‘I am’ all the time, I mean: ‘come back to it repeatedly’. No particular thought can be mind’s natural state, only silence. Not the idea of silence, but silence itself. When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every experience or, rather, every experience happens against the background of silence.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“There are different kinds of silence,
but the silence we are talking about,
the quietness of a mind, that silence
is not to be bought or practised.”
~ J. Krishnamurti (Public Talk 4, Madras 1974)

‘Christ in Silence’ – Odilon Redon, 1897 – WikiArt

“Be silent that the Lord who gave thee language may speak,
For as He fashioned a door and lock, He has also made a key.”
~ Rumi

“To understand that consciousness is divine implies that it lies beyond the personal mind. It implies that the mind cannot comprehend or apprehend it. The mind has to abdicate, to renounce any effort to know. Then something will happen, something out of the blue. Perhaps just a sound, something that comes fresh and reveals its origin. It is as though the silence becomes alive. It is like nothing becoming something and everything else becoming nothing.”
~ Francis Lucille (‘The Perfume of Silence’)

“The quotation explains how you really understand anything said by the Guru about the ultimate Truth. You understand only when you are beyond the words, language, ideas, central idea, speaker or listener. At the time of understanding, the teacher as teacher and the disciple as disciple are both absent, both having risen to the ultimate background in apparent silence. Experience occurs only when the expression stops.”
~ Atmananda Krishna Menon (‘Notes on Spiritual Discourses’)

“That which should be adhered to
is only the experience of silence,
because in that supreme state
nothing exists to be attained
other than oneself.”
~ Ramana Maharshi (‘Be as You Are’)

“Silence is the main factor [to makes us progress].
In peace and silence you grow.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj (‘I Am That’)

“Silence is our real nature. What we are fundamentally is only silence. Silence is free from beginning and end. It was before the beginning of all things. It is causeless. Its greatness lies in the fact that it simply is.”
~ Jean Klein (‘The Book of Listening’)

“What one fails to know by conversation extending to several years can be known instantly in silence, or in front of silence. […] This is the highest and most effective language.”
~ Ramana Maharshi (‘Be as You Are’)

“There can be no silence as long as there is a seeker.
There is the silence of a still mind only
when there is no seeker, when there is no desire.”
~ J. Krishnamurti (‘Commentaries on Living’, Series II – Ch. 46)

‘Closed Eyes’ – Odilon Redon, 1899 – WikiArt

“Keep silence, keep silence, for by virtue of the command “Be!”
that silence of bewilderment has augmented beyond all speech.”
~ Rumi (‘Mystical Poems of Rumi’)

“Others say that Truth is transmitted through silence or samadhi. Here, silence also is only a medium like language and serves the same purpose as language itself, only pointing to the Ultimate, and disappearing at the point of experience.”
~ Atmananda Krishna Menon (‘Notes on Spiritual Discourses’)

“Joy comes from silence. Silence expresses itself in many ways and joy is one of them. We cannot experience the silence as an object, but when we direct our heart towards silence, one of its responses is joy. It fills us up with joy.”
~ Francis Lucille (‘The Perfume of Silence’)

”Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.”
~ Wendell Berry

“Know that ultimately everything is silence.”
~ Francis Lucille (‘The Perfume of Silence’)

“The pure state of being attached to grace [Self], which is devoid of any attachment, alone is one’s own state of silence, which is devoid of any other thing. Know that one’s ever abiding as that silence, having experienced it as it is, alone is true mental worship [manasika-puja]. Know that the performance of the unceasing, true and natural worship in which the mind is submissively established as the one Self, having installed the Lord on the Heartthrone, is silence, the best of all forms of worship. Silence, which is devoid of the assertive ego, alone is liberation. The evil forgetfulness of Self which causes one to slip down from that silence, alone is non- devotion [vibhakti]. Know that abiding as that silence with the mind subsided as non-different from Self, is the truth of Siva bhakti [devotion to God].”
~ Ramana Maharshi (‘Be as You Are’)

“Sound which comes from silence is music. All activity is creative when it comes from silence. It is constantly a new beginning. Silence precedes speech and poetry and music and all art. Silence is the home ground of all creative activity. What is truly creative is the word, is Truth. Silence is the word. Silence is Truth.”
~ Jean Klein (‘The Book of Listening’)

“In total silence, there is nothing; you are nothing.
If you are something, there is no silence but noise.”
~ J. Krishnamurti (Public Talk 4, Ojai 1975)

‘Closed Eyes’ – Odilon Redon, 1899 – WikiArt

“As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible frame-work and foil. All sounds are her servants and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after. They are so far akin to Silence, that they are but bubbles on her surface, which straightway burst, an evidence of the strength and prolificness of the under-current; a faint utterance of silence, and then only agreeable to our auditory nerves when they contrast themselves with and relieve the former. In proportion as they do this, and are heighteners and intensifiers of the Silence, they are harmony and purest melody.”
~ Henry D. Thoreau (‘A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers’)

“The silence of the mind is experienced as emptiness;
The silence of the heart is experienced as fullness.”
~ Rupert Spira (Garrison, oct. 2021)

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Quotes by Collective

Paintings by Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

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Read this article ‘An Invitation from Silence’ from the blog…

Bibliography:
– ‘You Are the Happiness You Seek’ – by Rupert Spira – (Sahaja Publications)
– ‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (Krishnamurti Publications of America, US)
– ‘Commentaries on Living, I, II & III’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (Quest Books,U.S.)
– ‘The Perfume of Silence’ – by Francis Lucille – (Truespeech Productions)
– ‘The Book of Listening’ – by Jean Klein – (Non-Duality Press)
– ‘I Am That’ – by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (Translated by Maurice Frydman) – (Chetana Pvt.Ltd)
– ‘Notes on Spiritual Discourses of Shri Atmananda: Volumes 1-2-3’ – Shri Atmananda Krishna Menon (Taken by Nitya Tripta) – (Non-duality Press)
– ‘Be As You Are’ – by Ramana Maharshi (Edited by David Godman) – (Penguin Books)
– ‘Mystical Poems of Rumi’ – by Jalal al-Din Rumi (trans. by A.J. Arberry) – (University of Chicago Press)
– ‘The Masnavi i Ma’navi of Rumi’ – by Jalal al-Din Rumi (trans. by E.H. Whinfield) – (Independently published)
– ‘The Peace of Wild Things: And Other Poems’ – by Wendell Berry – (Penguin Books)
– ‘A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers’ – by Henry David Thoreau – (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)