Deepening silence
 

The meditator meditates. Maybe chanting a mantra, visualisation or breath watching helps maintain focus, making attention single-pointed. Then that doing also ceases. Sans thought, all that is, is awareness self-aware in silence.

How may this silence be deepened without any doing, since the doer has disappeared and so doing has ceased? Who or what remains, navigating the void?

I don’t see awareness deep or shallow. Once aware, there is no deepening. The depth to reach it has already been sourced.. For me, being aware, I’m aware simply means being here and now with what is. My being is aware.

Perhaps you might call this mindfulness. Just being present in the here and now. Living life aware of yourself and life around you. If my mind intercedes or jumps around, I’m not concerned. I’m not entertaining anything that is, rather just being aware of what is. I’m aware my mind or emotions might arise, but it’s not overtaking awareness. I simply observe what flows through me as a process.

If you are familiar with the term assemblage point, a point in your energy body where filaments go through to provide you with what you 're experiencing, I can inform you that there is an assemblage point position that's all inner silence.

@ Nikos ~ could you be clearer please? I don’t understand the terminology you are using - ‘assemblage point’

@ JustBe - by deepening silence, what is alluded to is a kind of melding with the void, corresponding to senses becoming unfocused from objects, inducing a switchover to inner polarity of attention, all this effortlessly, with gently flowing agendaless intent … it is not so easy to put it in words.

Yes, there's a deepening silence but only from the perspective of day to day experience, where one can notice that it is less and less the person it used to be ( and a person, or otherwise said, the labels are fading away ) and more and more pure awareness, pure presence, existence as it is, naked of all mental clothing, silence.

This is what I noticed in my experience.

@ ThatMan ~ true. That’s why when we wake up from sleep, before mind is activated, we feel blissful, since we are as yet in the heart.

Absolutely!! I noticed this and even made a habit if possible to take a nap, daily.

And I noticed that when the mind is activated, all the baggage comes back right away and so once again that silence seems to have gone away. Based on this I came to the conclusion that the waking mind is the veil that "hides" our innate nature - pure presence. I've even witnessed the mind being activated, like someone flipped a switch in the brain, literally like that.

I find it helpful to focus on my breath for ten minutes or so, just to get myself in that space. Then, as you say, the meditator disappears. At this point I tend to lose myself in the colours in front of my eyes. I don't have a sense of the meditator anymore, it's just colour and bliss. There is a definite switch as if the person I am inhabiting has ceased to be.

this sounds trite to me but anyway, who is the doer that thinks the silence needs to be deepened in the first place? If there is truly a void with silence and no doer, wouldn't whatever silence is already there be enough in and of itself? What is it that wants 'more'?

Ok I understand you better now.

I’ve experienced this but it’s not engaging and being you entirely. Well in the initial activation of becoming aware of it at the lead, it was working solo. I’ve sat at a noisy social event and experienced it as a real life moment as that deep silence. Everyone fell silent with me. It was rather an interesting moment. This was part of understanding how silence that deep was a part of me.

Nowadays it’s integrated into being. I can summon it if I needed in various forms of my awareness, but ultimately it’s a stream within being that doesn’t fade or cease, unless I get reactive in my body, which is extremely rare. Most of my processors have reshuffled into an order more aligned to being..

Yes. It is the gradual falling away of the seeker who seeks that reveals what already was and is.

Identity requires thought. Thought is preceded by a heart impulse. Why? Because the heart is not quiescent. Why is it not still? Because senses are externalised so attention oscillates. So, shifting focus within, away from duality to singularity is the ‘process’.

When I choose to dissolve the constructs I built, there I am existing as I am Eternally....

Peace

Ah yes “the assemblage point”. Isn’t that what Carlos Castenada talked about?

Practice. :icon_cool:

It seems to me there is a duality if there is silence and an observer of the silence.

The person can never escape the person because there is no person to begin with. Once the person is recognised as illusory what is left but silence.

Not silence as a concept but silence as it actually is.

There is no person here.

I am silence.

This.

Here.

Now.

@ Nathaniel ~ yes, the disappearance of identity, the ego reveals our true being. Ego is the veil, created by identification with body-mind, which makes us forget who we truly are. Silence rests thought, sans thought, ego cannot exist and thus the truth of Self in singularity is re-cognised.

I look at it as a becoming rather than a practice. In an ever present flowing orientation of silence, carrying no residue of the past and looking not in the future, we embrace and release each pulsation fully and completely, thus becoming the unending renewal itself, effortlessly. Mind applies effort, heart celebrates.

Dharana, which is what you are describing in your first paragraph, is broken one-pointed concentration; one's attentiveness keeps getting swept away from its aim via the tenacious effluence of the vasanas, and vigilance must be willfully upheld in order to bring it back to the locality of the focus. When with effort this one-pointed concentration becomes persistent and steady--or apparently so, there are still "residual flickers" of interruption--it is called dhyana. At this stage one's mindfulness of the focus is absolute. If this state of near-perfected one-pointed concentration can be made to continue indefinitely, this being possible only through the sheer dint of habituation afforded by repeated practice, then the dualistic necessity of effort will be assuaged completely and the concentration becomes spontaneous as it were, and it is then called (savikalpa) samadhi; automatic, perfected one-pointed concentration. Metaphorically speaking, the contrast between dhyana and samadhi is like the difference between needing to intentionally push against a wall to maintain constant contact with it, as opposed to being drawn into the wall as if by a magnetic force.

It's not a "who or what" that remains . Rather, the apparatus which appeared to insist/subsist on the existence of distinction simply evaporates (for lack of a better word) and there just is, without even the support of the object of concentration. And this is called nirvikalpa samadhi (manolaya/temporary manonasa). Sri Ramana Maharshi compared the object of concentration used in meditation to a stick used to push all the other wood (i.e. the thoughts/vasanas) into a fire, and when all of that other wood is burnt up, the stick itself is thrown into the flame and consumed.

From a practical standpoint, the goal of any and all effort in meditation is to attain dhyana as long and as often as you can. The resulting samadhi over time will weaken and eventually destroy the vasanas forever, and this being accomplished, the state of manonasa will become perpetual, and this is called moksha.

Interesting choice of words.:eek::laugh:

As in the sense that thought issues forth because of the vasanas. I get your point though, it's not the best word I could have chosen. ;)

Oh I don't know, seems pretty accurate to me.:laugh:

@ Wagner post 19 ~ :icon_thumright:

That thought, "How may this silence be deepened" can also be ignored. I don't think the "doer" is the true self. The true self is aware of the doing. Anything you can be aware of is not you, as you are the awareness that sees it.

"The void" is also an idea or thought.

Great topic!

Nice posts. I think those in love with their identities may have a harder time being interested in such things.

Enjoyed reading all the interesting posts in this thread.

The overall impression is that many seem to not like being a human and being in this world.

Many religions and spiritual systems teach their followers how to escape from this chaotic dualistic 3d/4d part of reality and go to paradise, Heaven, or return to what we truly are when not in the human form as if being a human is a curse.

If we have sincere joy and happiness in heart and mind, and have deep gratitude to be alive here as humans doing human things, then do we still need to meditate to have a temporary escape from this world?

We are not here randomly or by accident. We are here with divine purpose.

Free will is a very rare gift. Why are we here in the human form given free will to freely choose, left alone with minimal divine intervention for fair free will, and purposely start off “disconnected” from what some call God aka Creative Source, Prime Creator, Spirit, and many other names?

Could it be that what we do here living life as humans, making free will choices, and going through many human lifetimes of evolving reflective of our choices is all part of a much bigger and grander divine plan impacting God’s new creations to come.

We are been observed with immense interest from across this universe and beyond for what we will choose and how we will behave as humans.

And the big question is, could we as humans work our way to return to being in alliance, in unity, and in Oneness with God, and gradually transform this spiritually young world in which chaos and evil will naturally be prevalent to become a paradise. Metaphorically to bring Heaven to Earth.

We all have work to do here as humans. Working to lose our identity, melding into the void, and becoming thoughtless is not conducive to our purpose for being here as humans.

What an amazing but extremely challenging and very long term human adventure we bravely and passionately “jumped in line” for when in our true home on the other side of the self imposed Veil of Forgetfulness.

Celebrate being a human and be immensely appreciative of all the efforts and coordinations needed for us to be here as humans.

@ OldChap ~ it is not about escapism but rather about becoming conscious, becoming aware of the true nature of our being. Or, as Ramana asked ‘Who am I?’ Knowing the answer by seeing, not conceptualising.

Quick response to other observations:

I hold the view that we don’t have free will. Why? Because we are unconscious. However the limited choices we have are restricted to choice of responses offered to life events. Each choice has a consequence as far as our soul journey is concerned. Free will exists at soul level, not human level, hence soul agreements.

Resting in thought rested silence increases awareness, it does not diminish it although many cannot visualise this, being caught up in incessant thought chatter. What is meditation but resting in silence, poised attentively yet effortlessly?

About losing identity, yes, we are not the ego, this body, we merely ensoul it for a temporary experience of duality.

I quite agree about gratitude, celebrating life and as human become humane. That’s being spiritual, isn’t it?

:icon_thumleft:

I gave that a thumbs up because I feel that way but I think you were saying it as a wrong way to look at it lol. But then every sentence can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.

I think the universe puts us where we belong. So I want to change who and what I am so this is not where I belong.


Quick thoughts: I think losing our identity finds our "true" identity. I think I am more myself without an identity. And more like everybody else which is a good thing to me. I think we don't have to believe we have to be on some path leading somewhere instead I believe we are already where we need to be and if it's bad it is either our karma or ourselves causing such things. In this life or the past we probably messed up. So we reap what we sow. Starting now, be good to everybody including ourselves. Don't think or say anything negative about anybody else. Everyone is doing the best they can with what they got...which sure can be very little in some seems to me. Whoops that may have been saying a bad thing about others. I will pay for that in this life or the next!

Melding into the void, I myself have no interest in a void whatever that is imagined to be. Sounds bad to me though. A void does not sound like a happy place full of happy souls dancing, singing, laughing with a bunch of happy puppies and kittens in our laps.

I see becoming thoughtless as a good thing, not in i'm a zombie type of way, more like I'm in that room with all of the dancing, singing, laughing people with all those puppies and kittens. We are not thinking there.... we are too busy dancing, singing, and laughing! The purpose. To wake up maybe. Get out of our heads. Sit down and eat a sleeve or Oreos while watching The Last Kingdom for the 4th time! Life is short. Enjoy the now. Love as much as possible so then you belong in a loving place, not this earth place. I mean there are pockets of love here and there, but yea not on the news.

Celebrate being, yes, but any being which we have here or beyond, is temporary. So in my opinion it is not a matter of escapism, rather it is a matter of moving, consciously or unconsciously, through temporal existence.

Impermanence awaking to a more permanent, extremely intimate, and indefinable state. There is an undeniable attraction for those who begin the conscious journey. The depths of silence is always with us; we do not deepen silence rather we let go to its depths.

All the power that ever was or will be is here now in this eternal moment. We access the moment in quiet meditation. In my experience the more I go there the deeper the depths become. There is no bottom, sides, or top, in silence.

Silence is always with us, it is in the backdrop of noise, remove the noise and silence is there. Silence is omnipresent even when there is a lot of noise. The depths of silence are rich and thick with clarity. Its depths cannot be measured.

Silence has an incredible presence, a presence in which we all live within and have our being. There is no place where silence is not; its depth, height and width, are unfathomable. I am not the doer, silence deepens when I let go of myself; when I is no more.

I am a representation of perception, a center of expression for the primal substance of being. In sound there are many definitions, in silence there is but an indefinable oneness. Another word for silence is “peace.” In my opinion, silence, peace, God, is always with us.

P.S. Some tips:

Meditate in the same spot in your home regularly and the energy from your meditation will build in that spot, which will deepen your meditation. Its like going into a church, synagogue, or temple, and feeling the serene energy that has built up there from people regularly praying and worshipping in those places.

I do quiet meditation as soon as I get out of bed in the morning, or after taking a nap, before the hamster wheel in my head starts spinning out thoughts. Quiet my mind early as soon as I awaken to this world. Which for me is a great way to start the day.

If you work and have a lunch break, find a place to meditate on your lunch break. I used to go to a park, or into the bathroom at work, sit in a stall and do five or ten minutes of meditation.

Look at life’s challenges as training to stay centered and quiet inside; we can deal with the chaos better if we are calm inside. I meditate at least twice a day for 15 to 20 minutes each time. But it is not how long we meditate because the experience is timeless.

I forgot to mention Group Meditation; group mediation will deepen your meditation experience. If you do not have a group to meditate with go to a meditation center, a spiritual retreat where a group of people are at, a church or temple, and while the congregation is in prayer you can quiet your mind and meditate. The other thing is that you can go to a church or temple when it is empty, or few people are there, as previously mentioned many places of worship have a serene environment which can aid in our meditation practice.

Just like the human body has chakras or energy vortexes, the Earth also has energy vortexes or charkas. There are certain places on earth, like Stonehenge and other places, which have a very high energy concentration even without a lot of people being there. These places are located all around the globe and are wonderful places for doing meditation. I used to go camping at these designated places. Goggle or search “Earth Energy Centers” online for further info. There are major ones, the seven major earth chakras, and minor ones located all over the planet.