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Sound
Bites from Silence
by Robert Rabbin
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I experienced my first awakening
when I was eleven years old. As an echo of that
awakening, two questions took root in me and began to
slowly grow from the secret soil of my deep mind into
the deeper soil of my soul: Who am I? And What
is real?
A few years later I began wandering
throughout the world in search of answers. I traveled
for years, often quite far from the well-worn paths of
convention. I read many books. I met many people. I had
many experiences. After all of this I was still restless
and unfulfilled. Nothing had satisfied me. So I kept
traveling, exploring, searching. Europe, Scandinavia,
the Middle East, and finally India. It was there in
India that I met my teacher, Swami Muktananda. I stayed
with him for ten years.
In a place beyond reason and time, he
ignited an inner firestorm of awakenings. That is what I
had been searching for. When the wild intensity of those
awakenings abated, there was nothing but stillness—the
stillness that is the echo of Silence. As with all
echoes this one evaporated back into its source, into
Silence, and took me with it. In the world of Silence,
my twin questions—the ones that had grown within me as
renegade cells—dissolved and disappeared. I
experienced a freedom, clarity, and joy that I
recognized as my true Self and as the very essence of
reality.
This world of Silence begins where
everything else ends, where all ideas fail and where
words fade like a memory that has slipped into oblivion.
All that remains is stillness. In this stillness are
wonder and beauty and peace. Like a jewel with infinite
facets and faces, Silence enchants without end.
What I have just said is true, but
there is something truer that must be said, and in
saying this truer thing I must pause and point to the
great irony of Silence: none of the above is true, nor
did it ever actually happen. This is the irony, the
paradox, of Silence: no sooner do we say something than
Silence comes roaring in like gale-force winds to smash
and scatter the words all over creation. And yet that
creation includes words and truth, events and
occurrences, time and place—as much as it includes
firestorms of awakening, eternity, dimensions utterly
unfathomable to us, oceans teeming with creatures like
bliss, ecstasy, and disappearance-of-self. Such is the
realm of Silence that it spans distances and dimensions
too numerous and weird to mention. Nonetheless, like
Tibetan lamas pouring their sand paintings, we must
bring our whole heart and attention and care and love
and diligence to our lives, becoming impeccable and
breathtaking, even as we are whipped by Silence into the
vast nothingness from which we come and towards which we
go and in which we live. And so I tell my true story in
the midst of the greater truth of Silence.
About a year ago I began writing
"sound bites," brief statements reflecting
life as I now know it, a life lived in Silence. Silence
itself imposed a discipline on me: each sound bite must
be no more than 200 words. One could argue that is too
few words, that more words are needed to answer all our
questions and to fully explain the nature of Self and
reality. But within Silence even one word is risking
much, let alone 200. Silence uses words to invoke
Silence, not to provide the answers and explanations our
minds crave. We have become used to the way the mind
uses words to stimulate thinking, to create concepts,
and to build imaginary worlds of noise and clamor, but
in those clamorous worlds we cannot touch truth, we
cannot touch life, we cannot feel love. Only in Silence
can truth and life and love come into us as the real
owners of theses bodies and minds and souls.
These words come from that Silence,
and they have the power to ignite the Silence within
each cell of your body. Whether you understand the words
or not, whether you agree or not, whether you believe or
not is completely beside the point. Let these words and
the Silence surrounding them enter you fully, let them
roam freely wherever they will, and the Silence will
spread like a fire cell to cell until nothing remains
but that white-hot Silence—which is your own Self. As
Silence, you exist as all of existence, and all of
existence exists as you—multitudes of beings in your
one being, and your one being in multitudes of beings.
In Silence you can live in perfect
ease and joy, which is your natural state of being. It
is who you are before you begin thinking you are
something else.
Read these words slowly, with soft
eyes and steady breath. Read with your whole being. The
words are a façade. Don’t stop at the walls of my
words, go through and beyond them, where you will be met
by something marvelous. It—that marvelous something—will
take you farther than my words can. It will take you
into the very heart of what they mean.
Within Silence you will enjoy perfect
clarity, serenity, and wisdom. Silence will give you
many gifts of fulfillment. From within the eternity of
Silence, you will know how to live and what to do.
Silence will take you from this world, and return you to
this world. It is a journey we all must take. Upon
returning, we will know that we and the world are one,
and we will work to restore harmony and beauty in all
the dark places of our human forgetting.
Here is a selection of Sound Bites.
May you enjoy them and experience the peace that exists
within you. And may you then become a beacon of peace
for others.
beaches at twilight and dusk
We walk along a beach in that
beautiful time of twilight and dusk. As we walk, our
thoughts and concerns leave us one by one. We walk
further and we become still without even noticing it,
until we step out of time. We are no longer walking on
the beach. We are no longer looking at the sky or
sinking sun. We are no longer watching the birds or
running away from the surf. In our walking, something
has happened: we have walked out of ourselves into
everything. We have become everything. We don’t know
if the birds are circling and diving out there, or in
here. We are the birds. We are the waves, the sand, the
cool air, the fading light, the setting sun. We are the
animating presence within everything. We are all of
this, without so much as a single thought or word to
confirm it. There is no center, no boundary, no
self-consciousness. There is no effort, no concern, no
problem, no intention, no ambition—and yet everything
is happening: walking, breathing, flying. Something is
aware. Someone is aware. What? Who? No one can say.
There is too much Silence for thoughts and words.
to be truly alive
To be truly alive is to be deeply
in love with this moment. Not the moment that we
imagine, not the moment of our thoughts and beliefs
about this moment, but this moment as it is. This moment
of suddenness and energy and surprise; this moment of
wonder and awe; this moment of light and stillness; this
moment of beauty and Silence. To be truly alive is to
listen very, very deeply, not with our ears but with our
whole being, and not just with our whole being but with
the whole being of creation. Listening like this, we
have no center, no beginning, no ending—our center is
everywhere—so we begin and end here, and there, and
here again. Listening with the enormous ear of creation
itself, we hear life breathing. To be truly alive is to
be open—just that: open as the sky, even more so. As
open as the heavens, even more so. In this openness
there is no fear, no hiding, no secrets, nothing to
protect. Why would there be? To be alive is to be an
openness in which everything lives without prejudice,
without hatred, without violence towards anything. This
moment is Silence.
one truth
There are not many truths, there
is one truth , and that truth is Silence. All other
truths come from Silence. All other truths exist as
Silence. All other truths return to Silence. There is
only one truth, and that truth is Silence. Enter Silence
and you will see the world that God created. Enter
Silence and you will see that you are that God, the
creator. Enter Silence and you will see that you are
also that world, the created. God, the world, and you
are one and the same in Silence. God, the world, and you
are refracted colors of the one light of Silence. When
you enter Silence, you leave yourself behind in the
rubble of thoughts and time and death. Enter Silence and
become the creator and the created. Enter Silence and
life is suddenly real, beautiful, and perfect in each of
its curves and angles. This is called awakening into
truth. This is the perfect world of Silence, the one
truth: the mind, heart, and soul of the creator of all
worlds.
the view from Silence
In Silence we can see the whole of
existence. But this view from Silence cannot be recorded
by camera or camcorder. It cannot be captured by mind or
memory.
It cannot be pictured by sign or
symbol. That is because Silence is both seer and
seen, both eye and object—and everything in
between. In Silence there is just one thing everywhere,
and that one thing has no name or form, and yet it is
all names and all forms. Silence knows that manifest and
unmanifest are not separate or different, form and
formlessness are not separate or different, that worldly
life and spiritual life are not separate or different,
that small self and big Self are not separate or
different. Silence is both the creator and the creation.
This is the view from Silence.
forgetting Silence
How do we forget Silence? How do
we neglect, forget, and betray our own soul? We love
lesser things, flat things without depth. We give
ourselves to superficial loves and lovers. We turn away
from the deep well-water of this moment. What is this
moment? It is the intersection of time and eternity, a
collision in which no thoughts concepts and beliefs
survive. This moment is the pure state of the heart
opened wide towards all, filling us with wonder and awe,
freeing us from self-obsession, worry, anger, and doubt,
where the Silence of our soul lives without break or
bend. This is all we need: to find the true and unbroken
soul within us, within this moment, and love it all the
time. Do not give yourself to lesser loves. Do not
betray your own pure soul. Do not betray this moment.
Love your own Silence. Let your Silence consume all
loving of lesser things. Love what comes from within you
Silently to orbit the world and you, orbiting the world,
will re-enter the world as a shower of sparks in the
unbroken soul of Silence.
pairs of opposites
In the realm of the mind,
everything is known in relation to its opposite. We
understand "tall" in relation to
"short"; "smooth" in relation to
"coarse." The mind cannot account for anything
without its implied opposite. Nothing can stand alone.
Except Silence. Silence is beyond the pairs of
opposites. Silence is not intuitive, for that is part of
a pair. The other part is rational. Silence is not
sacred, for that is part of a pair. The other part is
secular. Silence is not transcendent, for that is part
of a pair. The other part is manifest. Silence is not
eternal, for that is part of a pair. The other part is
ephemeral. Silence is not even absolute, for that too is
but part of a pair. The other part is relative. Silence
is beyond the pairs of opposites.
epiphanies
Epiphanies are sudden intuitive
perceptions of the nature of reality, an experience
impossible to describe, though such words as oneness,
love, and perfection come to mind. Over time—like
water wearing away granite—epiphanies dissolve the
hard shell of our separate self, they make smooth and
soft our rough edges and hard exteriors until there is
nothing left: no epiphanies, no self, no water or
granite. Nothing. Nothing except Silence. And within
this Silence we come to life again, but in a new world,
one of soft shells and deep waters and Silence and more
Silence. Wave upon wave of Silence, each wave drowning
the one before it, dying in the one after it, just waves
and waves of Silence. This is the new world, the world
of Silence and perfect beauty.
essence
Our essence is a glowing presence,
a shimmering light around everything.
It is indescribably beautiful, and in
the midst of this beauty we fall in love with all
things. whether we see it nor not, the light of this
presence shines within us. If we would just sit quietly
by the open window of our heart for a few minutes each
day, soon that light would be evident to us, and soon
that awesome and awakened light would heal, inspire, and
enlighten us. We would see reality and become lovers and
servants of reality, of love. The love of our essence is
not possessive love. It is not dependent love. It is not
fearful or jealous love. It is not demanding love. It is
simply the magical soma of Silence, which nourishes all
of creation
beliefs
In Silence one sees that beliefs
are melodies of thought sung over and over again within
the mind until one is completely entranced by the
circular chants. In this trance we dream. We dream
ourselves. We dream others. We dream the world. We dream
life and death. We dream past, present, and future.
There is no end to our dreaming. We even dream that we
awaken from dreaming. But that is also a dream. This is
why we must return the mind to Silence, so that we may
awaken from these delusional dreams. When the mind is
given back to Silence, we awaken into life as when we
awaken from night to day and from sleep to waking. When
we return the mind to Silence, we awaken into a
dream-free life. And then, on that morning, we know life
for the first time.
friends with Silence
We should become friends with
Silence because Silence is the heart of all things. To
become friends with Silence is to become Silence itself.
As Silence, we alternate like a well-timed current
between being and non-being, between fullness and
emptiness, between knowing and not knowing. As Silence,
we realize that coming and going happen each moment,
that each moment is a full lunar cycle of birth and
death. And we also realize that behind each moment’s
cycle of birth and death is neither birth nor death. As
Silence, we realize we live in time and eternity in
equal measure and all at once. As Silence, we realize
there is no beginning and no ending to what we are. We
should become friends with Silence.
before words
Words are made deep within us.
Have we seen this place , this kiln that fires the clay
and dries the glaze on the words we use? To see this
place is the essential meaning of
"enlightenment" and other such words. To see
this place within us where words are made, where words
come from, is to experience things as they are, not as
we name them. The world that we name with words is not
the real world. Our name is not our real self. All the
words that have ever been spoken added to all the books
that have ever been written do not equal one second of
truth. Truth exists, but before words are fired and
glazed in the kiln of Silence.
the wind
we can create trouble for
ourselves by thinking that Silence looks a certain way
With this idea in mind we might judge
ourselves and reject ourselves if our
"experience" doesn’t conform to our idea.
Silence doesn’t look a certain way.
In fact it can’t ever even be
seen, only its effects can be seen, felt, and known.
Have you ever seen the wind? No, of
course not. We know that wind is present because leaves
run around in circles, or flags strain at their tethers,
or your hat flies from your head. So it is with Silence.
We only know its presence by its effects in our life,
and those effects include joy, spontaneity, and peace.
But these are the changing colors of freedom within the
kaleidoscope of Silence. Keep your attention on the one
invisible light of Silence, not on one or another of its
many colors. In this way you will remain free to enjoy
whatever aspect of Silence might manifest in any given
moment. And when no wind is blowing, when all is still
and nothing moves, when no colors can be seen, we know
that Silence is resting, and we simply rest with it.
feeling
Just beyond the thinking mind is
an unending field of love and quiet beauty. One can lie
down there and live in eternity. This field cannot be
seen by the eyes, it cannot be known by the mind, it can
only be felt and found with the heart. The thinking mind
cannot know this kind of beauty and wonder. The thinking
mind has no feeling, it has no soul. It can only
calculate distance and weight and price. The thinking
mind does not love, it does not laugh, it does not cry.
The thinking mind only argues and defends; it justifies
its soulless existence with violence. That is why we
must live in the heart, not in the thinking mind. That
is why we must learn what that life is like lived within
the heart, lying in the fields of beauty where we can
feel the soul and Silence of existence. And now we can
cry and laugh and love. And now we live in this field of
eternity where the thinking mind is just a single flower
barely visible in the midst of tall grasses under blue
skies and hundreds of suns whirling and spinning within
and without.
© Copyright 2003 Robert Rabbin. All Rights Reserved
Robert Rabbin is a
contemporary mystic and catalyst for clarity. He began
practicing meditation and self-inquiry in 1969 and
subsequently spent ten years studying with meditation
master Swami Muktananda.
Since 1985, Robert has been leading Truth Talks,
lecturing, and advising professionals and corporate
executives. He has written three books, coauthored
three others, and published over fifty articles. He
was also interviewed for The Awakening West, a
collection of conversations with contemporary
spiritual teachers.
For additional information,
please visit Robert’s web site: www.robrabbin.com.
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