Guidance on Education

SILENCE OF MIND

Practise silence of mind, it gives power of understanding.

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With words one can at times understand, but only in silence one knows.

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All that you know, however fine it may be, is nothing in comparison with what you can know, if you are able to use other methods.

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The best way to understand is always to rise high enough in the consciousness to be able to unite all contradictory ideas in a harmonious synthesis.

And for the correct attitude, to know how to pass flexibly from one position to another without ever losing sight even for a moment of the one goal of self consecration to the Divine and identification with Him.

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The important point is to know that the mind is in capable of understanding the One Supreme  that is why all that is said and thought about it is a travesty and an approximation and is necessarily full of irreconcilable contradictions.

That is also why it has always been taught that mental silence is indispensable in order to have true knowledge.

31 August 1965

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How does one teach a student to think correctly?

Mental capacity is developed in silent meditation.

23 March 1966

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How to get rid of mental inertia?

The cure is not in trying to wake up the mind but in turning it, immobile and silent, upward towards the region of intuitive light, in a steady and quiet aspiration, and to wait in silence, for the light to come down and flood your brain which will, little by little, wake up to this influence and become capable of receiving and expressing the intuition.

I shall try to work with the help of intuition. Help me in my efforts.

Calm the vital.

Silence the mind.

Keep the brain silent and still like an even surface turned upwards and attentive.

And wait....

29 September 1967

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How far can "intellectual culture" help us on our path?

If intellectual culture is carried to its furthest limit, it leads the mind to the unsatisfactory acknowledgement

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that it is incapable of knowing the Truth and, in those who aspire sincerely, to the necessity of being quiet and opening in silence to the higher regions which can give you knowledge.

27 September 1969

Mother, a free, quiet, silent mind is such a nice thing; I would like to have more of that. I want to be free from the constant whirlwinds of thoughts and emotions within me, tossing me like a toy.

It comes progressively.

Do not strain.

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Please help me to distinguish between the bubbling of ideas and an inner vision of necessities.

The mind must be quiet and silent before you can receive an inspiration from above.

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A very very quiet head is indispensable for a clear understanding and vision and a right action.

How to stop discussions in the mind?

The first condition is to talk as little as possible.

The second is to think just of what you are doing at the moment and not of what you have to do or of what you have done before.

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Never regret what is past or imagine what will be. Check pessimism in your thoughts as much as you can and become a voluntary optimist.

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In Your Conversations You have said that the intellect is like an intermediary between the true knowledge and its realisation here below. Does it not follow that intellectual culture is indispensable for rising above the mind to find there the true knowledge?

Intellectual culture is indispensable for preparing a good mental instrument, large, supple and rich, but its action stops there.

In rising above the mind, it is more often a hindrance than a help, for, in general, a refined and educated mind finds its satisfaction in itself and rarely seeks to silence itself so as to be surpassed.

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