Rumi in Silence

Vic Shayne
author
13 Pillars of Enlightenment: How to realize your true nature and end suffering

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī was a 13th-century Persian poet, mystic, and revered Sufi master. His poetic writings have enjoyed a widespread resurgence in recent times as a great number of people across the world have become interested in subjects such as self-enquiry, self-discovery, spirituality, and enlightenment. Some say his original words have been skewed by mistranslations and inaccurate interpretations, but the essence of Rumi’s sentiments still shines through with a singular Truth that has never changed.

One of the greatest themes of those considered to be enlightened spiritual teachers is that of Silence. It’s paradoxical that so much has been said about silence, given that silence can never be explained in words or images. So what we are really talking about is the idea or non-phenomenal realization of silence, and not silence itself, which remains ineffable.As soon as we begin to speak of silence it is no longer silence.

Is silence nothing or is it everything-ness?
Prior to all movement, sound, consciousness, seeing, knowing, and even being, is an eternal Silence. We may say that silence is the nature/essence of the great void, or space, out of which all things spontaneously appear to exist.All that we perceive exists within this space, from the planets to the stars to a flower occupying its space in a garden or meadow.

There is a point between sleep and wakefulness in which silence can be realized, yet while in the midst of it there is a void, a nothingness, a stillness; a stateless state devoid of expressions or forms.

What are the implications of realizing this Silence? The question asks whether you can recognize that Silence is what you really are once you have stripped away the egoic self and consciousness and are left with nothing. But is Silence nothing or is it everything-ness? When there is no mind then there is nothing; but when the mind is engaged then there is everything.

Rumi wrote, “When you are everywhere you are nowhere. When you are somewhere you are everywhere.”

Misled and misguided by the egoic self
Most of us go through life perceiving actions, words, and phenomena through the lens of the egoic self. This self is the person we take ourselves to be, based solely on thoughts, ideas, memories, fears, beliefs, and images. When we say “I,” we are usually referring to this egoic self. From the earliest age we accept secondhand ideas and fashion them into our own personas so that an accretion of thoughts called “me,” or “I” become the false center from which we regard ourselves and all others. Rarely in a single lifetime do people snap out of this delusion of the self and actually uncover what they are at the core. This can be achieved only through silence.

Rumi wrote, “The quieter we become, the more we can hear.” But what do we hear? We hear something other than this image of ourselves and of all else. And the hearing is not limited to a physical hearing; we can hear even what the ears cannot hear, and we can see what the eyes cannot see. We hear until the sound becomes the Silence, where hearing and the Silence are one.

Looking back into the void
There are various entries into this Silence of which I write, and one that I have occasionally mentioned is through the experiments of Douglas Harding and his protegé Richard Lang. Harding showed that when you point your finger at your own face, where you consider your head to be, you may wake up and fully realize that you are pointing to a void. You can try this, but when you do you must remove all thoughts, suppositions, preconceptions, ideas, and beliefs and just look only in the Now.

While all things that we experience day after day are “out there,” they are emanating from this void “in here.” The idea is to turn the attention around from the seen to the seer, from the known to the knower, from the objective to the subjective. And then you may realize that the subjective is a void out of which everything arises and in which everything is contained; nothing is separate from you, because all is you. You are the container of all that exists; you are consciousness. This truth, well-known by Rumi, prompted him to write, “The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself. Everything that you want you already are.”

But, wait, there’s more!

Silence comes before consciousness
Consciousness is both the container and the contained. However, Silence is that out of which consciousness arises. Silence is that which permeates all. It is not the creator, but it mysteriously gives birth to the creator.

If you are still enough, and if the mind can come to rest, then Silence IS. To reiterate with different words, “I am” is consciousness; “I am this or that” is the egoic self; and when there are no thoughts, words, sensations, or definitions, you will realize Silence.