One Must be Ripe for Silence

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Questioner: I have come to be with you, rather than to listen. Little can be said in words; much more can be conveyed in silence.
Maharaj: First words, then silence. One must be ripe for silence.
Unselfish work leads to silence, for when you work selflessly, you don't need to ask for help. Indifferent to results, you are willing to work with the most inadequate means. You do not care to be much gifted and well equipped. Nor do you ask for recognition and assistance. You just do what needs to be done, leaving success and failure to the Unknown.

Questioner: But thinking, reasoning is the mind’s normal state. The mind just cannot stop working.
Maharaj: It may be the habitual state, but it need not be the normal state. A normal state cannot be painful, while a habit often leads to chronic pain.

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.

I Am That