People are often uncomfortable with silence. We live our lives surrounded by lawnmowers, traffic, TVs, sirens, MP3 players, and horns. We are not accustomed to hearing silence and subtleties in ourselves. How could we be?
Many find comfort in constant noise and keep the TV on for long hours. Do we like distractions to avoid the experience of silence? Do we try to escape silence to avoid vulnerability? Our feelings more readily surface in quiet moments. What do we hear in the silence? Do we hear our consciousness? Experience innermost thoughts? Feel our emotions?
Mystics and spiritual leaders have long revered silence and recommend listening to "the sound of silence" as an ancient technique.
"Silence is the altar of God."
"Be still and know that I am God."
"When we go into the inner chamber and shut the door to every sound that comes from a life without, then the voice of God will speak to our soul, and we will know the keynote of our life."
Focused inner listening amplifies the sounds of our heart, circulatory, and respiratory systems, and the many frequencies that travel throughout our body. Pursuing these subtle sounds has excellent benefits. In addition to an inner massage from the energy of silence, we can watch our feelings come up and release any we no longer wish to hold on to.
Exercise:
Listen to the sounds within your body. Find a quiet place, close your eyes, relax, and make sure there are no external sounds.
Bring awareness to the inside of your head and listen for a high-pitched sound, similar to a high-pitched sound on TV but even higher.
When you are stressed, this pitch goes up until it becomes ringing in your ears. Most of the time, it is in the background.
What kind of sounds do you hear???
Soft, loud, shrill, mellow, waving, or flowing sounds?
Does the sound have a color?
Temperature?
What thoughts arise when listening? Is there a message?
Do you get specific emotions when listening? Does it have an emotional message?
Do you hear more than one sound? Harmonious? Dissonant? Harmonizing and listening to these sounds has been reported to have a healing and harmonizing effect!
Mystics profess that, as a soul's journey to enlightenment, a series of subtle, internal sounds in quiet meditation may be heard. These sounds are heard within the body and do not appear in the environment.