Speaking of Silence

'In meditation, silence is Mother.' ~Amma Karunamayi

'Silence is supreme administrative power.' ~Maharishi

'I love your silences. They are like mine.' ~Anais Ninn

Let us speak of true silence. No, it is not a negation. Not the silence of suppressed speech, which is no silence at all. Suppressed speech, or repressed thought, is a scream. And the more we repress, the louder our voiceless keening.

Let us tell of the inmost silence, omnipresent, effective, whether we speak or not. Silence infusing the best words with their Truth. Silence in a real mantra, guiding the mind to the hollow in the seed, through Winter root, Spring flower, or Autumn leaf.

'Mantra' means, in its Sanskrit origins: 'manna' meaning 'mind'; 'tra' meaning 'vehicle,' whence our suffix 'tron,' as in 'electron.' As the electron is a vehicle that carries electricity, so the mantra is a vehicle that carries the mind inward, to silence.

The silence of emptiness pervades all forms. It is the primordial silence of God, gushing tears from the spring of bliss in the womb of creation. True silence is the mother of poetry, the mother of art, the mother of music.