When you become stabilised in Consciousness - Understanding our True Self - Part 28
When you become stabilised in Consciousness, the continuous chatter of the mind will lessen and may stop.
Silence Beyond Thought: The Mind at Rest
When you become stabilized in Consciousness, the continuous chatter of the mind will lessen and finally stop. This is not the result of suppression or effort, but a natural consequence of resting in awareness itself. The tendency to grasp at thoughts weakens, and in its place, a quiet spaciousness unfolds.
Most people equate inner silence with the absence of thoughts, as if true stillness means a blank mind. But silence is not an emptiness devoid of activity; it is the presence that exists beneath all mental noise. Thoughts may continue to arise, but they lose their capacity to bind you. They pass like clouds across the vast sky of awareness—noticed, but no longer compelling.
The Illusion of Mental Noise
The mind is accustomed to constant movement. It leaps from one thought to another, weaving stories, reliving memories, anticipating the future, constructing identities and realities. This restless activity gives the illusion that without thought, something vital would be lost. It feels as though silence would leave us empty, undefined, or even nonexistent.
But this is a trick of the mind itself. The one who notices thought is not thought. The awareness in which thoughts appear is not bound by their presence or absence. When this is realized—not intellectually, but directly—the mind’s grip loosens.
There is nothing to suppress, nothing to control, nothing to fight against. Thought is not the enemy. It is only when we grasp at it, identify with it, or believe it to be the source of our being that suffering arises. But in the clear seeing of thoughts as fleeting phenomena, their intensity diminishes.
The Natural Stillness of Being
Imagine a river that has been turbulent for years, churning with waves, always in motion. If left undisturbed, without new disturbances, it naturally settles. The surface becomes calm, and the depths are revealed. The same is true of the mind. When attention is no longer caught in the movements of thought, the background of stillness becomes apparent.
This stillness was never absent; it was simply overlooked. It is the ground of being, the silent presence in which all experience unfolds. It does not need to be cultivated, because it is already here. The only shift that occurs is the recognition that you are this stillness, not the thoughts that appear and disappear within it.
The Illusion of ‘Stopping the Mind’
Many seekers believe that spiritual progress is measured by how quiet the mind becomes. They struggle to achieve a state of absolute thoughtlessness, assuming that this is the mark of enlightenment. But this pursuit itself is another activity of the mind, another concept to chase.
Thoughts do not need to stop. What matters is whether they are taken seriously. If a thought appears, is it immediately believed? Is it clung to as “mine”? Or is it seen as an impersonal movement within awareness, like wind passing through an open field?
When identification drops, it no longer matters whether the mind speaks or remains silent. The true silence is not in the mind, but in awareness itself—unshaken, untroubled, vast.
The Stability of Awareness
At first, this recognition may come and go. A moment of deep clarity is followed by the return of mental activity, and it may feel as though nothing has changed. But over time, the balance shifts. Awareness ceases to be a passing glimpse and becomes the stable center of experience.
This is not a forced discipline, not a rigid practice of concentration. It is the natural settling of what was always true. The more one abides in this effortless awareness, the more apparent it becomes that thought is secondary, fleeting, and without ownership.
There is nothing to attain, no state to sustain. Silence is not a goal; it is the reality that remains when there is no longer an effort to grasp or resist. And in that silence, there is peace—not a peace dependent on circumstances, but a peace intrinsic to your very being.
You are already that.
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