The Perfume of Silence

by Francis Lucille

  Can you say something about the relationship with the teacher?

  When a truth seeker approaches a teacher, it is almost inevitable that he or she will take the teacher as a person to begin with. However, the teacher is like a vacuum, a silent empty space. There is nobody there. Therefore this projection from the truth seeker gets no support. It is like trying to catch a slippery fish. We come away empty-handed. As a result of the lack of support for the personal entity, the student begins to feel the presence of a loving, impersonal friendliness that arises in relation to the teacher. This is the experience of the real nature that we all share. Often we first experience this in the company of the teacher and this then becomes the model for all our other relationships.

  The response that does come from the teacher is not directed towards the person. It is directed towards consciousness, the real nature of the truth seeker. It is a movement from consciousness to consciousness. It is a movement within consciousness. The truth seeker may not be aware of this. In fact he may feel that he is being addressed as a person. However, even if the answer is taken at the personal level, a seed will have been sown in the back of the truth seeker’s mind. In due course this seed will sprout, and a process of higher reasoning will begin. This in turn will lead the student to the understanding that the teacher is not a person. From this point on it is this impersonal friendliness that the teacher and the student share that becomes both the means and the expression of the teaching.

  The word impersonal suggests something so distant and unintimate to me.

  By “impersonal” I simply mean not based on the thought or feeling that we are a separate person. It is this thought and feeling that actually prevents true intimacy and lovingness. Whenever we love, we disappear as a person. When we say that the teacher is impersonal or that there is nobody there, we are not implying that the teacher is without a character or that he is not animated. Not at all. We simply mean that the thoughts, feelings, and activities of such a teacher do not hinge around the notion of being a separate entity.

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  When I get stuck in my head I let it go and move into my body and then the “stuckness” in the head goes. Is this a “doing”?

  It depends what you mean by “letting it go.” If it is spontaneous, in other words if there is no doer of the action, if it is the silence that, without any will or intervention on your behalf, gradually permeates your body, that is one thing. On the other hand, if you somehow channel silence through your body, that is a different story. The mind can create all kinds of strange states, especially when we reach deep levels of relaxation. The silence that is referred to here is not the silence of the mind. It is the presence of consciousness. It is always present, even in the presence of thoughts, feelings, and bodily activity. It is behind and beyond all the states of dreaming, sleeping, and waking. This silence is not objective, it is not perceived. It is that which perceives. It is known as consciousness, “beingness,” or “I am-ness,” and later on as happiness, love, and beauty.

  We should just let everything that is objective flow, almost without noticing it. We should be indifferent to all states, including states of the body. You may go through states in which not only your mind is silent and your body transparent, but also your body is totally expanded and full of light, and it can be very pleasurable. However, even if that happens, it is still a state in the body; it is still something that has a beginning and an end. It comes and goes, so it’s not worth a penny!

  Don’t Leave the Throne

  You spoke of there being nothing to do, no desire for great experience. Later, I was playing music with friends and afterwards there was a profound stillness. It seemed as though the practice of attending to the beat and rhythm brought about this stillness. I find that not doing or not looking for anything is so intangible, especially in the light of such an experience.

  When you were in that stillness, did you have any goal?

  No.

  This absence of working towards a goal is what is meant by non-doing. It doesn’t mean that the body or the mind is not active. Non-doing simply refers to the absence of striving. When we are in the now, devoid of any intention, the happiness that is inherent in our true nature reveals itself. When we focus our attention on some kind of activity the mind moves away from the past and the future, from thinking, and we are completely present to the experience. At some point, the objective aspect of the experience loses its attraction, because ultimately bodily sensations are boring. Then, that which is always in the background and between the beats reveals itself as stillness, as peace. It is important to understand this process, to understand that playing music hasn’t in any way caused the stillness. If you think that this stillness is derived from playing music then, the next time you play, it won’t appear. This peace is causeless. The causeless is beautiful because it is entirely independent of circumstances. We can have it everywhere because we are always the same, everywhere. It is natural.

  Stop thinking that you are a beggar. However, it is useless just to think, “I am a king.” We have to understand who we are and discover that we are the king. Merely to think it is a superimposition. Be open to the possibility that you are without limit, that consciousness is infinite, beyond space and time.

  If we think that consciousness is within, and by “within” we mean within the mind, we shrink the experience and it vanishes. It loses its perfume of infinity. It is “within” in the sense that it has an intimate quality of “I-am-ness,” but on the other hand it contains everything within itself. This is what Pascal meant when he said that its center is everywhere and its circumference nowhere. After the experience of our true nature, we shrink it by thinking that “I” as a person had the experience. That eclipses it. Don’t think, “I had the experience,” but rather, “I am the experience.”

  Although there is nobody that can do anything about the understanding, at the same time, samsara just seems to continue. So the understanding seems to be lacking.

  Don’t give up easily to samsara. Don’t let samsara lure you into thinking that there is samsara. It is only if you think that there is samsara that there is samsara. Don’t accept it. You are always the Self. Don’t leave the throne. However, if you want to leave the throne, you are free to do so because you are the king and the king can do as he pleases.

  It seems to require an effort, because it appears that we are pushed off the throne. In this situation there is a delicate balance between not reacting and watching.

  Yes, but see that it is your freedom. Understand that if the king wants to play beggars, the entire court is going to play along and kick the king, just to please him!

  But the king is thinking, “I wish I wasn’t playing a beggar.”

  To play the beggar is to identify with the body and the mind. The identification with the body-mind creates the beggar. If we think we are this body-mind, we are playing beggars, but we don’t have to. There is samsara only if we identify with the body-mind. From the vantage point of the Self, there is only a beautiful display of energies. There is of course absolutely nothing wrong with the body-mind. On the contrary, it is a beautiful tool of celebration. It is only our exclusive identification with it that makes us feel like beggars.

  Too often the beggar is the starting point.

  The feeling of being a beggar cannot appear without consciousness, no matter how wretched the feeling. Consciousness was present before the feeling of being a beggar appeared. It is present during the feeling and it is present when the feeling vanishes. Therefore, consciousness is the starting point, not the beggar. We are this awareness which is not an object. We are that in which this body-mind and all other body-minds, all other objects, appear. We are much bigger than a body-mind. Keep returning to this understanding.

  A time comes when we no longer need to question the validity of feeling and knowing that we are not the body-mind. Whenever the image or the thought that we are the body-mind appears, we drop it immediately because we know that it is not
the truth. Whenever we have doubts, we can go back to the understanding that we are the awareness in which all objects, including the body-mind, appear. Reason alone is not sufficient to stabilize us in this experience. We also need to feel that we are not the body-mind.

  In order to feel that we are not the body-mind, we have to investigate the true nature of the body, and this is done by welcoming bodily sensations. It is not enough to assume that the body is an object, or simply to think it. We have to have the experience that the body is an object. All feelings, all bodily sensations are completely allowed in this contemplation. Allowing them to be as they are, without interference, reveals the space in which they appear and, as a result, we no longer stick to them. When we are no longer tied to them in this way they are free to unfold and dance. Also, since we are not rigidly tied to them, they do not take us with them in their ups and downs. We are the changeless background and they can dance. As long as we think that we are one of them, they will take us with them wherever they go.

  We have to include the body, our feelings, in our meditation. When we find ourselves immersed in the world of objects, we have to pause and try to discover what is at the origin of this chain of thoughts and feelings. Eventually we find a very subtle feeling in the body. It is not a big thing. This feeling triggers the thought that I am separate, from which desires and fears originate. These desires and fears generate tensions and contractions in the body. However, the origin of the feeling of separation is very subtle and inconspicuous. This I-feeling in its nakedness is like nothing. It vanishes easily.

  This subtle I-feeling seems to require no effort to maintain itself. Is it a question of resting, waiting, surrendering?

  Who is waiting? That which is expected to vanish is that which is waiting. As long as there is waiting, how could it vanish? In true surrender there is nobody surrendering. True surrendering is not an activity. If we decide to surrender, it is an activity. It is the opposite of surrender. That is why any activity, any doing on the path, ultimately doesn’t work. We should surrender our surrendering. That is accomplished when we see clearly that we are still in expectation. Expectation is a subtle rejection of the now. The ego is a lie based on this rejection. In the now there is no room for the ego. The ego is always in the past or in the future. It vanishes when we come to the now. We are in fact in the now all the time. We cannot have any perception without it. All perceiving takes place in the now. The same applies to thinking and feeling. We have many moments during the day without the troublemaker, the I-thought. However, even when the troublemaker is present, this thinking itself takes place in the now. We are always in our true nature.

  In understanding a natural detachment takes place. When we try to understand who we are, what the nature of the universe is, how it appears and where it exists, our interest is dispassionate. There is no psychological interest, no person with a vested interest.

  How do I find out who I am?

  We find out who we are through the progressive discovery of what we are not. Once we have completely uncovered what we are not, the diamond of what we are shines. We don’t need to make it shine, but we have to eliminate the beliefs and the feelings that we are a body-mind. The way to eliminate them is to contemplate them in a disinterested way. The very act of contemplation distances us from them and reveals the fact that we are not them. We have to discover that we are peace, happiness, and fearlessness, that we are eternal. We don’t have to do anything to discover it. The diamond shines by itself. This becomes self-evident when we surrender the notion that we are a person, a body-mind. It is not something that we have to do. Contemplation may seem like a doing to begin with, but in fact it is the opposite. It is the complete absence of doing, in which all residual doing is revealed layer by layer.

  The feeling that I am the body-mind is so strong.

  Fall in love with the void, the emptiness of the now, which makes everything possible, which has room for everything. Fall in love with the infinite mirror, with the “I am.” Everything else, feelings, perceptions and thoughts, are the packaging, the box. The emptiness is the diamond inside, transparent, luminous, rare, priceless, but ever-present. In the beginning we are hypnotized by the beauty of the box, by the colors. That’s fine. Take time to contemplate the box. When our eyes get bored they revert to the diamond. When we look inside the box, we don’t see the diamond at first. We see the white satin, an absence of color, but this is still the box. The diamond is transparent. That is why we fail to see it at first. We see through it to the white satin. Later we see the diamond.

  When we remove the diamond from the box, we see the colors of the box through it and reflected within it. It is not because the diamond is transparent that we cannot see it. It is because we are the diamond. Everything we see is the box. The box only enhances the diamond, showcases the diamond, celebrates the diamond. Everything at every moment, the entire universe, celebrates the diamond.

  Could you say more about contemplation not being an activity?

  Contemplation is our true nature. It is what we are, not what we do. To contemplate means to take our stand in our true nature. Right this minute, sounds, words, sentences, understandings come to us effortlessly. Everything comes to us effortlessly. Consciousness is not something we have the freedom to turn on and off. It is on all the time. We are effortlessly aware. This effortless awareness is contemplation. It is not personal. That which sees the person is beyond the person. That which sees the body, the mind, and the world is not of the nature of the body, the mind, or the world. That which sees all things is not a thing. To treat it as a thing is a lack of respect. To understand that it is not a thing is to put it back on the shrine. To see it as a thing is the “fall.” To understand that it is not a thing is the “redemption.”

  We are talking about something awesome. We are saying that whatever it is that is seeing and understanding these words right now is divine consciousness itself. This doesn’t mean that “I” as a body-mind am understanding these words and therefore “I” as a body-mind am divine consciousness itself. That would be the “fall” again.

  Since we are not independent entities with volition and free will, why did Ramana Maharshi suggest that we ask ourselves, “Who am I?”

  When Ramana Maharshi suggested asking, “Who am I?” he meant us to find the source of the I-thought and the I-feeling. The question is, to whom was he saying that? The simplistic answer would be that it was to the one who was asking the question, to the one who thought that he or she was not the source. For this one it sounded like a suggestion to do something, to practice self-inquiry. However, the sage speaks simultaneously at different levels. In practicing self-inquiry, the mind has a bone to chew on. The mind becomes quiet as it works on the bone. In this relative quietness of the mind, whatever Ramana Maharshi said had the room, the space, and the opening to penetrate deeper to the listening presence in the heart.

  When he said, “See who you are,” he was not talking to the person. He was apparently talking to the person, but in fact he was talking to this beautiful consciousness, saying, “See who you are. You are myself. You are this beauty, this intelligence, this consciousness.”

  The action that comes from truth is efficient at many levels simultaneously. Sometimes we are told something and understand it immediately at one level, but we have a strange feeling of depth when it is said and it remains with us. Sometime later, after a few minutes or a few years, it explodes like a time bomb. If you want to practice self-inquiry when you feel that you are separate, then do so. Ask yourself, “Who feels separate?” This will lead to the higher understanding that you are this consciousness. Then there is no need to practice self-inquiry, just enjoy life and be happy. Therefore, practice self-inquiry only when you feel something is missing. When you feel happiness just rejoice. Know that it comes from your true nature, give thanks, and celebrate. That’s all!

  We can travel on the path of the individual, the truth seeker, practicing and seeking and, in parallel, on the
path of the truth lover for whom there is no need to do anything. We can move back and forth from one path to the other. More and more, we remain as a truth lover and forget the truth seeker.

  What is the prerequisite for meditation?

  There are two prerequisites for meditation: one relates to the intention and the other relates to the attention. Our intention has to be directed towards the impersonal, towards the divine. The intention to get rid of a problem, to solve a psychological issue, to acquire powers, or to become healthy, is not the kind required for meditation. Such an intention inhibits meditation. To check your motive, ask yourself, “What am I really looking for? What do I really want?” You will find the answer in the privacy of your own heart. If the intention is for anything less than the divine, for less than that which is beyond all limitations, there won’t be meditation. However, if there is such an intention, meditation is already at hand. It is potentially there.