Have you ever wondered why silence is considered important in every spiritual tradition? It does not matter whether the tradition is ancient or new, whether it is religious or non-religious, is conventional or rebellious — they all advise silence as an essential practice. Why?

One of the main reasons is that to find who we are, we have  to go deep within us. There is no spirituality without getting closer to knowing our essential nature. For this, we have to quieten the noise that keeps on going boom-boom in our minds. To get any glimpse of our real self, it is necessity to go beyond the continuous streams of thoughts, emotions, and other mental constructs. 

Without this inner silence, we can never really touch the core of our true self. At times, when we get tired of our mind’s busyness, we are forced to give it some rest, and in those spontaneous moments of relaxation, we sometimes get a glimpse of the inner peace, but those glimpses are generally brief and elusive.

In today’s world, getting into silence has become increasingly difficult. Our upbringing and our society prioritises constant activity. More active and more productive a person is the more dynamic is he considered. But this continuous immersion in activity keeps us away from ourselves, making our mind more and more restless.

The proliferation of social media has further exacerbated the situation. There is now societal pressure to showcase our achievements on a regular basis. We do a large number of things just to show others that we are also cool and living a dynamic life. It increases our restlessness and brings a feeling of hypocrisy within us. It is no wonder that many psychologists attribute a lot of psychological problems to our presence and addiction to social media.

To compensate for all this busyness, we often force ourselves into periods of silence, because deep down we know that we need go beyond this peripheral restlessness. But when this silence is driven by mind — as a reaction, it brings us no peace. In fact it increases our disturbance as it not real silence. It is merely forced silence.

At times this desire for silence is also driven by our ego, we want to prove to ourselves that we can also get into silence. Or at times, we want to flaunt our spirituality to the world. That is why many of us make such a big deal of our getting into the silence retreats by advertising it on the social media. But when we are honest to ourselves, we find that there was no genuine change within us after this forced silence. We find ourselves to be exactly the same that we were before we got into the silence.

The true silence can neither be imposed nor be forced; it can only arise naturally and spontaneously. It is not a temporary state, and it not a practice reserved for specific times, it is something that gets integrated into our daily lives. That is why silence has to be approached in a sacred manner – slowly, gently and with total awareness.

At Shanti Meditation School, we blend modern active meditations with ancient time-honoured techniques to facilitate a smooth transition into our inner silence. That is the only way we  can create a deeper connection with our true selves and enjoy the greater sense of wholesomeness and inner peace.