Chapter 9
Music and Silence
I knew a musician who was not at all his equal but was still a very good musician, and he used to compose. He composed operas, musical comedies, and music for… well, not concert music. In front of a sheet of paper… you see, he had a large sheet of paper and on it he wrote the names of the different instruments; and beside each one he wrote simply, just like that, what it had to play. He was a friend of mine, you know, I used to see him at work. It was as though he was writing equations, like that. When it was finished, it had only to be given to an orchestra, it became something magnificent. Sometimes even… The other man, you noticed how he played his theme on the piano, didn’t you? He played a few notes, almost nothing, it seemed just two or three notes, like that: it was his theme. And on this theme, then, suddenly he began to write. But this man usually did not even play his theme on the piano, he wrote directly. It is a particular cerebral formation. There are others who compose exclusively on the piano and someone else has to write for them. Another person has to do this work of giving the different notes and organising the notes to reproduce the harmony created. But this man I am talking about – great musicians like Saint-Saëns, for example, the musicians of his time, gave him their compositions for orchestration. They wrote them, you see, as one writes for the piano, for two hands; and he changed that into orchestra music. He orchestrated just as I said, like that, separating the different groups of instruments and putting down beside each the part it had to play. (Silence)
Mother, when one hears music, how should one truly hear it?
For this – if one can be completely silent, you see, silent and attentive, simply as though one were an instrument which has to record it – one does not move, and is only something that is listening – if one can be absolutely silent, absolutely still and like that, then the thing enters. And it is only later, some time later, that you can become aware of the effect, either of what it meant or the impression it had on you.
But the best way of listening is this. It is to be like a still mirror and very concentrated, very silent. In fact, we see people who truly love music… I have seen musicians listening to music, musicians, composers or players who truly love music, I have seen them listening to music… they sit completely still, you know, they are like that, they do not move at all. Everything, everything is like that. And if one can stop thinking, then it is very good, then one profits fully…. It is one of the methods of inner opening and one of the most powerful.
Chapter 10
Be Calm: Meaning of Silence
Someone has asked me what I meant by these words:
“One must be calm.”
It is obvious that when I tell someone, “Be calm”, I mean many different things according to the person. But the first indispensable calm is mental quietude, for generally that is the one that’s most lacking. When I tell someone, “Be calm”, I mean: Try not to have restless, excited, agitated thoughts; try to quieten your mind and to stop turning around in all your imaginations and observations and mental constructions.
One could justifiably add a question: You tell us “Be calm”, but what should we do to be calm?… The answer is always more or less the same: you must first of all feel the need for it and want it, and then aspire, and then try! For trying, there are innumerable methods which have been prescribed and attempted by many. These methods are generally long, arduous, difficult; and many people get discouraged before reaching the goal, for, the more they try, the more do their thoughts start whirling around and being restless in their heads.
For each one the method is different, but first one must feel the need, for whatever reason it may be – whether because one is tired or because one is overstrained or because one truly wants to rise beyond the state one lives in – one must first understand, feel the need of this quietude, this peace in the mind. And then, afterwards, one may try out successively all the methods, known ones and new, to attain the result.
Now, one quickly realises that there is another quietude which is necessary, and even very urgently needed – this is vital quietude, that is to say, the absence of desire. Only, the vital when not sufficiently developed, as soon as it is told to keep quiet, either goes to sleep or goes on strike; it says, “Ah! no. Nothing doing! I won’t go any farther. If you don’t give me the sustenance I need, excitement, enthusiasm, desire, even passion, I prefer not to move and I won’t do anything any longer.” So there the problem becomes a little more delicate and perhaps even more difficult still; for surely, to fall from excitement into inertia is very far from being a progress! One must never mistake inertia or a somnolent passivity for calm.
Quietude is a very positive state; there is a positive peace which is not the opposite of conflict – an active peace, contagious, powerful, which controls and calms, which puts everything in order, organises. It is of this I am speaking; when I tell someone, “Be calm”, I don’t mean to say “Go and sleep, be inert and passive, and don’t do anything”, far from it!… True quietude is a very great force, a very great strength. In fact one can say, looking at the problem from the other side, that all those who are really strong, powerful, are always very calm. It is only the weak who are agitated; as soon as one becomes truly strong, one is peaceful, calm, quiet, and one has the power of endurance to face the adverse waves which come rushing from outside in the hope of disturbing one. This true quietude is always a sign of force. Calmness belongs to the strong.
And this is true even in the physical field. I don’t know if you have observed animals like lions, tigers, elephants, but it is a fact that when they are not in action, they are always so perfectly still. A lion sitting and looking at you always seems to be telling you, “Oh, how fidgety you are!” It looks at you with such a peaceful air of wisdom! And all its power, energy, physical strength are there, gathered, collected, concentrated and – without a shadow of agitation – ready for action when the order is given.
I have seen people, many people, who could not sit still for half an hour without fidgeting. They had to move a foot or a leg, or an arm or their head; they had to stir restlessly all the time, for they did not have the power or the strength to remain quiet.
This capacity to remain still when one wants to, to gather all one’s energies and spend them as one wishes, completely if one wants, or to apportion them as one wants in action, with a perfect calm even in action – that is always the sign of strength. It may be physical strength or vital strength or mental strength. But if you are in the least agitated, you may be sure there is a weakness somewhere; and if your restlessness is integral, it is an integral weakness.
So, if I tell someone “Be calm”, I may be telling him all kinds of things, it depends upon each person. But obviously, most often it is, “Make your mind quiet, don’t be restless all the time in your head, don’t stir up lots of ideas, calm yourself.”
Chapter 11
Immobility and Power
But you see, there is no explanation which can give you that; you must have the experience. As long as one has not had the experience, one can’t understand what this means…. And it is the same for everything: the head, the little brain, cannot understand. The minute one has the experience, one understands – not before. One may have a sort of imaginative idea, but this is not understanding. To understand, one must live it. When you become conscious of your immortal spirit, you will know what its strong immobility is – but not before. Otherwise, these are mere words.
You don’t understand how one can be immobile and strong at the same time, is that what is bothering you? Well, I reply that the greatest strength is in immobility. That is the sovereign power.
And there is a very small superficial application of this which perhaps you will understand. Someone comes and insults you or says unpleasant things to you; and if you begin to vibrate in unison with this anger or this ill-will, you feel quite weak and powerless and usually you make a fool of yourself. But if you manage to keep within yourself, especially in your head, a complete immobility which refuses to receive these vibrations, then at the same time you feel a great strength, and the other person cannot disturb you. If you remain very quiet, even physically, and when violence is directed at you, you are able to remain very quiet, very silent, very still, well, that has a power not only over you but over the other person also. If you don’t have all these vibrations of inner response, if you can remain absolutely immobile within yourself, everywhere, this has an almost immediate effect upon the other person.
That gives you an idea of the power of immobility. And it is a very common fact which can occur every day; it is not a great event of spiritual life, it is something of the outer, material life.
Chapter 12
Speaking and Silence
I must say the second method does not interest me very much, and that very often when the question or the subject dealt with does not give me the possibility of entering into an interesting state of consciousness, I would infinitely prefer to keep silent than to speak; it is a sort of duty to be fulfilled which makes me speak. I am just telling you beforehand, for it has often happened that I have cut short our conversation – if it could be called a conversation – and abruptly passed on to meditation; it was in cases like this. But still, someone has happened to ask me to explain this difference and so I am speaking to you about it this evening.
Chapter 13
Story of an Indian, Lover of Silence
Yes. It liberates, precisely. It’s just that. One practises it for that, don’t you see, for liberation, in order to be free from attachments, free from reactions, free from consequences. Those who understand the Gita in this way, tell you that – they don’t understand much further than that – they tell you, “Why do you want to try and change the world? The world will always be what it is and remain what it is, you have only to step back, to detach yourself, to watch it as a witness watches something which doesn’t concern him – and leave it alone.” That was my first contact with the Gita in Paris. I met an Indian who was a great Gita enthusiast and a very great lover of silence. He used to say, “When I go to my disciples, if they are in the right state I don’t need to speak. So we observe silence together, and in the silence something is realised. But when they are not in a good enough state for this, I speak a little, just a little, to try to put them in the right state. And when they are in a worse state still, they ask questions!” (Laughter)