Silence, inner and outer, is the gateway to true knowledge, whilst the masterful use of words, both in talking and in listening, is the gateway to freedom. Silence and words are but the two sides of the same coin, namely communication – the unspoken word often conveying even more than that spoken.
Genius develops in quiet places.
Seeing is a true inner silence within which something of the self extends outward to meet and identify with the form of that which is under observation.
I have often been asked about the Toltec view on meditation. However, in order to understand the Toltec view it is important to have grasped the concept of the dreamer. Meditation is not circling thought, nor is it the random repeat of a mantra, because this boils down to internal dialogue. True meditation consists of complete inner silence – a silence in which there is only awareness. This awareness is of course the dreamer, and when that state is entered the social being is quite literally en rapport with his dreamer.
The important point here is that when the warrior has acquired sufficient intent he will be able to silence the internal dialogue, which will in turn enable him to break the fixation of his awareness and to make his assemblage point fluid. Once this has been accomplished the warrior not only enters the awareness of his dreamer, but he also becomes at-one with his dreamer, which is of course his real self.
By not concentrating on her problem, but upon the world instead, Anna is in effect neatly side-stepping the rational mind’s compulsion to engage in internal dialogue. It is in fact this simple but highly-effective technique which forms the basis of that ritual known as the right way of walking but, unlike the ritual, this technique can also be used whilst sitting in an office, driving a car, in the middle of a shopping mall, and so on.
In order to understand how this works, it must be remembered that the rational mind is to all intents and purposes nothing more than a magnificent computer. But like any computer, it can only perform one function at a time. In focusing upon the world around her, Anna is in effect flooding her rational mind with a wealth of new information.
This simple but completely natural act forces the rational mind into silence, because instead of being used to perpetuate the internal dialogue, the rational mind is now thoroughly occupied in assessing all the new information flooding into it through the physical senses. The stilling of the internal dialogue obviously means that Anna also cannot uphold her view of the world, or at least not whilst she keeps her attention focused upon the outer world.
You will not silence your internal dialogue by denying it or suppressing it! You must learn to shift the focus and thereby starve the internal dialogue of intent. Only in this way will it begin to wither and die. By suppressing the internal dialogue you inadvertently feed it. Acknowledge it and move on, and it dies like anything neglected for long enough.