"Silence is golden" acknowledges the spiritual reality that is uncovered and discovered in silence. The silence that is golden is not the absence of sound, for sound can actually bring you into Essence, but the absence of mental noise, which often spills out through people's mouths as chatter. In those rare moments when the mind is quiet, the golden radiance of Essence can be experienced subtly. The world looks and feels different when the mental chatter has ceased and the silent stillness of our true nature is experienced. Then it is possible to experience life purely, without the filter of the mind. When that happens, life takes on a subtle radiance that is beautiful and peaceful.

The absence of egoism allows for the quiet Presence that we are to be experienced. Thoughts are noisy, whether they are inside our head or expressed. Thoughts attract and demand our attention, pulling it away from what is real and true about life. Thoughts are manufactured by the ego and reflect the ego's values. They demand this and that from life, complains, fuss, and fume. All this negativity is hard to ignore. It seems that attending to our thoughts is the way to silence them, but the opposite is true. Getting involved with those thoughts only keeps the noise going.

When you are identified with your thoughts, you are agitated, contracted, and ill at ease. But when you notice that there is a silent Watcher who is disengaged from them and just resting in silence apart from them, you begin to tap into the potential of your true nature for peace. You are this Watcher, not the chattering mind. You have a mind, but you are not the mind. You are the space in which thoughts appear. That space is silent, allencompassing, embracing, and allowing. It receives and allows everything that is happening without being touched by it. You are that silent, yet deeply rich and infinite, space. The space becomes filled with chatter at times, but the space remains the same: pure, unblemished, and unchanged.

When you put your attention on that space or on the silence in between the thoughts, you fall into the spaciousness of your Being. You become it, if even for just a brief second. The more you notice that space, the more familiar you become with it, and the more you are able to see the truth about it--that it is who you are. That silent, all-accepting conscious space is what you and what everyone and everything else emanate from.

Consciousness is what you are.

Credit: sunshineuni.com

Source: Newsletter