Letters On Yoga - Parts 2,3

The Foundation of Sadhana - II

The words "peace, calm, quiet, silence" have each their own shade of meaning, but it is not easy to define them.

Peace—śānti.

Calm—sthiratā.

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Quiet—acañcalatā.

Silence—niścala-nīravatā.

Quiet is a condition in which there is no restlessness or disturbance.

Calm is a still unmoved condition which no disturbance can affect—it is a less negative condition than quiet.

Peace is a still more positive condition; it carries with it a sense of settled and harmonious rest and deliverance.

Silence is a state in which either there is no movement of the mind or vital or else a great stillness which no surface movement can pierce or alter.

Quiet is rather negative—it is the absence of disturbance.

Calm is a positive tranquillity which can exist in spite of superficial disturbances.

Peace is a calm deepened into something that is very positive amounting almost to a tranquil waveless Ananda.

Silence is the absence of all motion of thought or other vibration of activity.

Calm is a strong and positive quietude, firm and solid—ordinary quietude is mere negation, simply the absence of disturbance.

Peace is a deep quietude where no disturbance can come—a quietude with a sense of established security and release.

In complete silence there are either no thoughts or thoughts come, but they are felt as something coming from outside and not disturbing the silence.

Silence of the mind, peace or calm in the mind are three things that are very close together and bring each other.

Quietness is when the mind or vital is not troubled, restless, drawn about by or crowded with thoughts and feelings. Especially

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when either is detached and looks at these as a surface movement, we say that the mind or vital is quiet.

Calmness is a more positive condition, not merely an absence of restlessness, over-activity or trouble. When there is a clear or great or strong tranquillity which nothing troubles or can trouble, then we say that calm is established.

These [tranquillity and stillness] are general words, of a general, not a special yogic significance. Quiet, calm and peace can all be described as tranquillity: silence is akin to what is meant by stillness.

It is the silence of the mind and vital—silence implying here not only cessation of thoughts but a stillness of the mental and vital substance. There are varying degrees of depth of this stillness.

The first is the ordinary fundamental calm of the individual Adhar—the second is the fundamental limitless calm of the cosmic consciousness, a calm which abides whether separated from all movements or supporting them.

This is the calm of the Atman, the Self above, silent, immutable and infinite.

Peace is more positive than calm—there can be a negative calm which is merely an absence of disturbance or trouble, but peace is always something positive bringing not merely a release as calm does but a certain happiness or Ananda of itself.

There is also a positive calm, something that stands against all things that seek to trouble, not thin and neutral like the negative calm, but strong and massive.

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In peace there is besides the sense of stillness a harmony that gives a feeling of liberation and full satisfaction.

Shanti is peace or calm—it is not Ananda. There can of course be a calm Ananda.

Peace is a sign of mukti—Ananda moves towards siddhi.

The peace need not be grave or joyless—there should be nothing grey in it—but the gladness or joy or sense of lightness that comes in the peace must be necessarily something internal, self-existent or due to a deepening of experience—it cannot like the laughter of which you speak be conveyed by an external cause or dependent upon it, e.g. something amusing, exhilarating etc.

The joy also should be deep within, then it will not conflict with the deeps of peace and inner consciousness.

They [peace and patience] go together. By having patience under all kinds of pressure you lay the foundations of peace.

It [purity] is more a condition than a substance. Peace helps to purity—since in peace disturbing influences cease and the essence of purity is to respond only to the Divine Influence and not to have an affinity with other movements.

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Purity is to accept no other influence but only the influence of the Divine.

Purity means freedom from soil or mixture. The divine Purity is that in which there is no mixture of the turbid ignorant movements of the lower nature. Ordinarily, purity is used to mean (in the common language) freedom from sexual passion and impulse.

The Divine Purity is a more wide and all-embracing experience than the psychic.

Purity or impurity depends upon the consciousness; in the divine consciousness everything is pure, in the ignorance everything is subject to impurity, not the body only or part of the body, but mind and vital and all. Only the self and the psychic being remain always pure.

A pure mind means a mind quiet and free from thoughts of a useless or disturbing character.

A quiet mind is a mind that does not get disturbed, is not restless and always vibrating with the need of mental action.

What you are talking about is a concentrated mind, concentrated on something or on a subject. That is quite different.

Do you imagine that a quiet mind cannot reject anything and it is only the unquiet mind that can do it? It is the quiet mind that can best do it. Quiet does not mean inert and tamasic.

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That is absurd. Doing nothing with the mind is not quiet or silence. It is inactivity that keeps the mind thinking mechanically and discursive instead of concentrating on an object—that is all.

Passive peace is not supposed to do anything. It is by the complete solid presence of peace alone that all disturbance is pushed out to the surface or outside the consciousness.

It is not the usual character of passive peace that it can only concentrate in inaction. It can be there and concentrate in or behind action also.

It is this quiet and spontaneous action that is the characteristic divine action. The aggressive action is only, as you say, when there is resistance and struggle. This does not mean that the quiet force can't be intense. It can be more intense than the aggressive, but its intensity only increases the intensity of the peace.

Yes, certainly, there is a mental peace, a vital peace, a peace of the physical Nature. It is the peace of a higher consciousness that descends from above.

It is the same peace—but is felt materially in the material substance, concretely in the physical mind and nervous being, as well as psychologically in the mind and vital or subtly in the subtle body.

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Certainly, peace, purity and silence can be felt in all material things—for the Divine Self is there in all.

It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported.

It is from the Silence that the peace comes; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence.

In a more outward sense the word Silence is applied to the condition in which there is no movement of thought or feeling etc., only a great stillness of the mind.

But there can be an action in the Silence, undisturbed even as the universal action goes on in the cosmic Silence.

The passive silence is that in which the inner consciousness remains void and at rest, makes no reaction to outer things and forces.

The active silence is that in which there is a great force that goes out on things and forces without disturbing the silence.

Rest of the being from effort, disturbance etc. The Spirit is eternally at rest even in the midst of action—peace gives this spiritual rest. Tamas is a degradation of it and leads to inaction.

In the entirely silent mind there is usually the static sense of the Divine without any active movement. But there can come into it all the higher thought and aspiration and movements. There is then no absolute silence but one feels a fundamental silence behind which is not disturbed by any movement.

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You always seem to think that because the silence is there in the consciousness, the whole consciousness must be equally affected by it. The human consciousness is not of one piece like that.

It is not possible for the spontaneous silent condition to last always at once but that is what must grow in one till there is a constant inner silence—a silence which cannot be disturbed by any outward activity or even by any attempt at attack or disturbance.

The condition you describe shows precisely the growth of this inner silence. It has to fix itself eventually as the basis of all spiritual experience and activity. It does not matter if one does not know what is going on within behind the silence. For there are two conditions in the yoga, one in which all is silent and there is no thought, feeling or movement even though one is acting outwardly as others do—another in which a new consciousness becomes active bringing knowledge, joy, love and other spiritual feelings and inner activities, but yet at the same time there is a fundamental silence or quietude. Both are necessary in the development of the inner being. The absolutely silent state, which is one of lightness, voidness and release, prepares the other and supports it when it comes.