What is Silence? Our day-to-day understanding of silence means no sound, no noise. Pin-drop silence means complete silence—no noise or sound whatsoever. In Vedanta, Silence has a much broader meaning: no sound, no visual images, no smell, no taste, and no touch. A complete absence of any sensory input from the five sense organs. In a way, the mind is completely blank or empty—no thoughts or experiences. Is this type of silence even possible? What does this type of silence even mean? Our five sense organs—eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin continuously interact with external objects, and we experience these objects in our mind. There is a continuous bombardment of sensory inputs from the five sense organs. So how does one understand Silence as taught by Vedanta—the complete negation of thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and experiences in the mind?

If you take a deep dive into your day-to-day functioning, you will find instances where you experience Silence as taught by Vedanta.

1. As mentioned earlier, we have a continuous stream of thoughts; it does seem never-ending. If you think about it, when one thought finishes and the next one starts, there must be a blank between the two thoughts. There is a silence between two thoughts, where no sensory inputs are present. An analogy to understand this is that of a movie on TV. We all know that a movie is made up of still frames, usually around 60 frames per second. At 60 frames per second, the movie does look continuous, and we do not notice the collection of still frames. We do not notice the gap between frames. The time duration is so small that you will not notice the gap between frames. But the fact is that there is a gap between two frames.

In the same way, there is a gap between two thoughts. This seems only logical; one thought ends and the next thought begins. There must be a gap between thoughts. However, the duration is so small that we do not notice it, and it is impossible to measure the time gap between two thoughts. This gap is the silence between two thoughts. There is a complete absence of any sensory input during this gap. This silence between two thoughts raises many unanswered questions. What is present, if anything, during this period of silence? Of what is this silence made—what are the ingredients of silence? Interesting questions! We will try and answer these questions in this essay.

2. All of us have three states of experience. We have experiences during the waking state, dream state, and deep sleep state. The bulk of the experiences take place in the waking state. The five senses are active; they interact with the external world. The mind is active full-time, with all the perceptions, emotions, and feelings.

During the dream state, the five senses become inactive; we have no clue about the external world. The internal memory is active, and we experience a random sequence of events in our dreams.

The deep sleep state is interesting—nothing much happens here, but it does reveal a lot. In the deep sleep state, the five senses are inactive, and the mind is also inactive. We experience nothing during deep sleep. The mind is totally blank; it is totally empty; we have no experiences during deep sleep. The mind is silent. Does this mean that this nothingness is the silence we are looking for? We also achieve this state of nothingness in the mind when we are unconscious or have been administered anesthesia by the doctor. Do we need to go into deep sleep or become unconscious or be under anesthesia to experience Silence?

If you properly analyze deep sleep, you will conclude that this state of nothingness, emptiness, is not an accurate statement. There is always something present in the mind. What is present in the mind during deep sleep is Ignorance. We experience Ignorance during deep sleep. This is the same Ignorance we have discussed in many different essays, including in my book, Science Meets Vedanta. When we forget our Real Self of being SatChitAnanda, this Ignorance pops up and covers up our Real Self.

This Ignorance is present in the mind. Since this is Ignorance, there is no way you can experience it. You can experience something which is known; you cannot experience Ignorance. You can never be aware of Ignorance. This Ignorance is the reason why we are not aware of anything during deep sleep. Besides, this Ignorance reveals itself only during deep sleep and it does not show up in our experiences during the waking and dream states.

So, this nothingness, emptiness, in the deep sleep state is not the correct conclusion of silence. This emptiness is because of our Ignorance, hiding our Real Self.

3. There are many reasons for meditation, but the ultimate goal is to reach Samadhi. To reach Samadhi, one must merge with the object of meditation. It is not easy, but it is the final goal of meditation. In Samadhi, there is no separation between the object and the meditator. They merge as one entity. For example, as a beginner you start your meditation on an image of God or any object of your choosing. In the beginning, your mind will wander; in such a situation, the role is to bring the mind back to the object of meditation. Keep doing this. With repeated practice you will reach the next stage, where you can focus on this single object for an extended period. Other sensory inputs will not disturb you. This is progress in the right direction. In the final stage, the separation of the meditator and this object keeps reducing, and finally they merge as one unit. The meditator and object of meditation become one entity. This is the state of Samadhi. There is complete Silence in Samadhi. There is a complete negation of all sensory inputs. There are no sensory objects present in Samadhi.

An interesting question—if there are no sensory inputs, then what is left in the mind? Does this mean that there is nothingness, that the mind is completely blank, a state of shunya (zero)? That conclusion is incorrect. The mind can never be empty. The scriptures teach us that you can never negate everything in the universe. Vedanta teaches us that Awareness is always present. You simply cannot negate Awareness. Awareness was there in the past, it will be there in the future, and it is present right now. So, in Samadhi, you can negate all the sensory objects, but you can never negate Awareness. So, Awareness is always present in Samadhi. In Samadhi, you are not aware of any objects, but you are aware of Awareness. Awareness is always present in Silence. Silence would mean that there are no sensory objects, but Awareness is always present. This is the correct understanding of Silence.

It seems that if you want to experience Silence (or Awareness), you must undergo the rigorous practice of meditation and achieve Samadhi. This is the only way to negate sensory objects and achieve Silence or Samadhi. This is not an easy practice; only a minuscule number of people experience Samadhi. Even if they reach this Samadhi, in most cases this state is temporary. It does not last. Once the meditation is over, one is back among all the worldly objects. The scriptures teach us that permanent Samadhi is possible with the complete dissolution of the mind within Awareness. To achieve this requires more effort and training.

Is Samadhi the only way to understand and experience Silence? Is there a simpler way to understand and experience Silence? Fortunately, there is an alternative way. In this method, it is critically important to correctly understand the makeup of objects. Most of us do not have a correct understanding of objects. The culprit for this is what science has taught us. Scientists are struggling to understand objects. They have little clue about the construction of objects. The discovery of subatomic particles is great, but this knowledge does not help discover the reality of objects.

There must be a better way to understand objects. Let us start with what happens in the mind.

Mind and Objects

All perceptions, feelings, thoughts, and everything happens only in the mind. We experience external objects in the mind alone. All experiences happen only in the mind; they cannot happen elsewhere. So, what is an experience? If you think carefully, you will realize that an experience is made up of the following two components:

Experience = Awareness + Form

1. Awareness: We are always aware of our experience. We can never say we had an experience but are not aware of it. This is simply not possible, because awareness is a critical prerequisite and ingredient of any experience. You have experience because you are aware of it. If there is no Awareness, there can be no experience. Awareness is the substratum of any experience. We have discussed Awareness in almost all the essays. Understanding Awareness is critical. If you properly understand Awareness, you will understand everything in the universe. As we have discussed, Awareness is made of Subject, Object, and Intelligence, and it has three different powers—Knower, Known, and Knowing.
• Awareness = Subject + Object + Intelligence
• Power of Awareness = Power of Knower + Power of Known + Power of Knowing

The three powers of Awareness are the most powerful forces in the universe. Everything depends upon these powers. This topic has been discussed in detail in my book, Science Meets Vedanta. It is strongly recommended to understand these three powers of Awareness.

2. Form: The form is superimposed on Awareness to complete the experience. The form part of the experience is always different and keeps changing. It comes from the five senses: eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin. Sometimes it is visual, sometimes it is auditory, and sometimes it is based on memories. The forms keep changing; the experience keeps changing.

There is Awareness, and the object form is superimposed on this Awareness to complete the object. This does indicate that Awareness is the content of all objects. All objects are made up of Awareness and the form is superimposed on this content—just like pot forms are added to clay to give a variety of pots. The content will always be clay for all the pots. In the same way, if you are aware of any object, then the content of that object must be Awareness. This logic is simple, and it is the only truth.

1. If you are aware of the car outside your window, it is because the form of the car is superimposed on Awareness. This Awareness takes the shape of the car.
2. If you are aware of the music from your device, it is because the form of the music is superimposed on Awareness. Awareness becomes the lyrics and music of the song.
3. If you are aware of the taste of chocolate, it is because the taste form of chocolate is superimposed on Awareness. This way you are aware of the taste of chocolate.

People may argue that the subatomic particles are the content of objects. A question—what is the content of these subatomic particles? Science predicts that it may be the vibrating strings. What is the content of these vibrating strings? No one knows. This cycle of finding the inner layer can continue endlessly. Ultimately, the innermost layer must be Awareness; it is the substratum of every object. This truth is logical and must be accepted by science.

Experiencing Silence in Objects

We have just seen that Awareness is the content of all objects and that form is superimposed on Awareness. So, it seems that there are two components to an object—form and Awareness. The question is how we should approach these two components.

Ever since we are born, we are conditioned to focus on the form part of any object. This habit is deep-rooted. We only see object forms. Look anywhere and we are aware of the object forms. It could be visual, sound, taste, smell, or touch. We are convinced that object forms are the only reality. In this process, we completely ignore Awareness, which is the content of all objects. Unfortunately, this is a major error we make while understanding objects.

Awareness is the only content of all objects. Object forms are superimposed on Awareness. These object forms have NO independent existence. They cannot exist without Awareness. If there is no Awareness, no object forms can exist. You are aware of the tree with all its leaves and fruit because the tree is filled with Awareness. This Awareness must take the exact shape of the tree. You cannot have any part of the tree, which is not filled with Awareness, otherwise you will see an incomplete tree. Awareness is the only reason we are aware of the tree. From the above, one can conclude that wherever there are objects, Awareness is present. In fact, there is only Awareness, nothing but Awareness. You cannot separate object form from Awareness; this means that everything is Awareness.

If you think about it, Awareness is hiding in plain sight. Awareness does not make any attempt to conceal itself. So, the correct way to perceive an object is to focus on the Awareness part of the object and not on the form part of the object. If you say, “I am aware of the car,” focus on Awareness and not on the car form. The trick is to shift the attention from the car form to Awareness. Initially it may seem odd and unusual. One thing is clear: you are always “aware” of your surroundings. You can never say “I am not aware” of my surroundings. Pay attention to Awareness. A good way is to practice “I am Aware” with feeling and not repeating it mechanically. Slowly, you will feel this Awareness everywhere—inside you and “out there.”

With regular practice, you will realize that everything “out there” is only Awareness. Object forms have no independent existence. Whenever your focus is solely on Awareness, you will experience Silence. This is the most direct way to understand and experience Silence. In Samadhi, you keep negating sensory objects to reach Awareness. This process is more complex and tedious. If you properly understand that the content of objects is Awareness, you can directly reach Silence.

You can also support this practice by meditation. Meditation teaches us to focus on an object of meditation—it could be our breath, an image, or a mantra. You can easily bypass this process and focus directly on Awareness, which is within you. Why do you follow an indirect journey of focusing on an object to reach the destination of Silence or Awareness? If you want to travel from Delhi to Chennai, you will not go Srinagar first and then to Chennai. It is an indirect journey; it is much easier to travel directly to Chennai. In the same way, why focus on an external object to reach Awareness? Focus directly on Awareness and not on the object of meditation.

If you want to understand silence and experience silence, the most direct way is to properly understand the makeup of objects. The next time you look at objects, please focus on Awareness and not on the object forms.