Regular practice of meditation can lead to experiencing brief flashes of inner silence and inner peace.
As you progress with your meditation, and as meditation gets steadier and deeper, these brief moments get longer and deeper.
At first, these experiences might last for just a split second, but in time, the inner silence and inner peace will get longer, and you might experience them not only while meditating but also in your everyday life while working, studying, reading, and at any other time.
What Is Inner Silence?
A state of inner silence is not a passive state of indifference, numbness, or lack of energy. It is also not a state of being unconscious or unaware of the world around you.
On the contrary, when this state is present, you become more aware of the world and of your surroundings. This happens because there are no restless thoughts that distract the attention.
- It is a state of calmness, peace of mind, and inner strength when thoughts subside and stop claiming your attention.
- It is an uplifting and blissful experience, brought about when the mind and the thinking process slow down or stop their restless activity.
- While experiencing inner silence, you do not lose your consciousness or enter into a trance. You are fully aware but without the compulsive need to think and occupy your mind with thinking.
- In this state, you are completely conscious and alive, blissful and peaceful, without thoughts, mental boundaries, or limitations.
In moments of inner silence, you experience a sense of expanded consciousness-awareness. There are no thoughts such as “I am not thinking now,” “My mind is silent” or “I am experiencing emptiness.” You just feel peaceful and blissful and forget your personality, ego, and thoughts.
The Experience of Inner Silence
This experience of inner silence is accompanied by a sense of bliss, inner peace, and inner happiness. You feel as if you have awakened from sleep, with a feeling of being very much alive.
In addition, you will also experience a feeling of freedom and lightness, as if you have freed yourself from a heavy load.
While experiencing inner silence, your mind is free from thoughts. Actually, this is the main condition for experiencing inner silence since thoughts prevent you from experiencing it. This means that if you want inner silence, you need to learn to calm down the nonstop activity and chatter of your mind.
After experiencing this state, you will want it to stay in it. However, the moment you start thinking about it, or try to force it to continue, you get out of it. This is because when you start thinking, and shift your awareness back to your thoughts, ego and the external world. This snaps yourself out of this inner experience.
Your thoughts hide this inner state, which exists beyond the mind, just as clouds hide the sun.
It is not easy to explain this inner silence in words, since the mind does not participate in this experience. It has to become calm and silent during the experience.
Words can only point the direction, give an approximate understanding and use comparisons. The best way to know and realize what inner silence means requires that you experience it yourself.
This might not appeal to most people, because they need the activity of the mind. It makes them feel alive, and they are afraid that inner peace and inner silence might make their life boring. This is completely untrue! As much as this might seem strange, it will make you feel more alive and happy.
How to Experience Inner Silence
If you wish to experience the happiness, peace and bliss of inner silence, you need to learn to calm down your mind, control your thoughts, and stop the constant chatter of the mind.
The constant and nonstop chatter that goes on in the mind does not allow you to experience peace and inner silence.
The main tools for quieting down the mind are concentration, meditation, and a few other techniques.
At first, after gaining some ability to quiet down your mind, you might savor the sweet taste of inner silence for just a split second. The experience will be short and sporadic, but as your ability to silence your mind grows, the depth, duration and frequency would grow.
Well-advanced people can even live in this state of inner peace and inner silence, even while living their day-to-day life.
This inner experience can turn into a habit and become the usual everyday consciousness.
You can then live in this state while living your day-to-day life, working, interacting with people and carrying out tasks.
As you strengthen your concentration power and learn to calm down the restless activity of your mind through meditation.
Little by little, you will begin to experience inner happiness, inner peace, and a sense of bliss and inner freedom.
Related: Inner silence quotes.
You can find more information and guidance on this topic by clicking on the links below:
Meditation
Concentration
Making the mind quiet
