Can You Really Be Silent?

Swaram writes about the fourth, the silent stage in Osho’s Dynamic Meditation, the benefits of silence in our busy world and how silence can be easily reached through this meditation technique.

The fourth stage of the Osho Dynamic Meditation is silence. At the peak of activity, when the intensity of the jumping reaches its climax, all of a sudden the STOP. The first three stages of this meditation technique are a preparation for this crucial moment. But what is silence? Normally people think of silence as absence of noise. Meditative silence is something else.

Physiological Benefits Of Silence

Scientific research shows that there are multiple health benefits attached to silence, understood as absence of noise.

1. De-stress your nervous system. Noise pollution is a modern plague. Studies show that being continuously stimulated by noise raises stress levels. Noise activates the amygdala, the part of the brain which detects danger, thus stimulating cortisol (the stress hormone). So, just being in silence has relaxing and restorative effects for the brain.

2. Increase neurogenesis. Studies on mice show that silence generates new cells in the brain, so being in a quiet environment grows your brain, and suggest that silence can have therapeutic effects on neuro-degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

3. Rejuvenate your brain. The chronic overstimulation of modern life is a serious challenge to the brain’s capacity to cope with ceaseless information processing and attention demands. That’s why many people feel drained and chronically fatigued. Silence helps to restore this energy depletion and replenishes cognitive resources.

Meditative Silence Is Not Absence Of Noise

Osho says that you can be utterly silent in the midst of a busy and noisy environment. Meditative silence has more to do with the inner world, rather than external circumstances. Even if you are in a totally quite place and don’t talk, the inner chit-chat carries on relentlessly. Silence is, when mind is not. So to experience silence, is to go beyond the mind.

A Glimpse Of Silence Can Change Your Life

Osho Dynamic Meditation is a method of creating a situation in which silence can happen. Ordinarily you cannot go directly into silence. Even a split second of inner silence can show you that there is something beyond the mind and inspire you to go further, all the way to enlightenment. But how to achieve that?

From Total Activity To Total Inactivity

Osho Dynamic Meditation can help you experience real silence by exploiting the connection between body and mind. Body and mind are deeply interrelated. In the third stage you are jumping with utter intensity and all of a sudden you hear STOP. And you freeze completely wherever you are. By doing so, you break the body/mind association. The body suddenly freezes and the mind is taken aback. In that fracture, a gap is created. And that gap is filled with silence. If you become aware of that gap, you will find silence, even if just for a split moment.

Let Silence Arise From Within

Osho Dynamic Meditation is a way to experience silence without imposing it onto you. Most meditation techniques, including Mindfulness, are a sort of repression. Yes, you can create absence of noise but that is something artificial, manufactured, dead; it’s not authentic, spontaneous and alive. Silence cannot be enforced upon you, but it can arise out of utter intensity and deep catharsis. Through the extreme activity of the Osho Dynamic Meditation, you will be led to feel an inner stillness growing inside.

Real silence cannot happen by repressing inner and outer noise. It’s not enough to just not talk or remove external noise. So be as total as possible in the first three stages of this wonderful technique and let the silence happen to you, even despite of you. It’s magic and it works!

First published on Swaram’s Blog – meditarebene.it – photo Mikael Sjöberg – credit to www.expressen.se

Swaram studied Philosophy in Rome and has worked for many years as a Head of Business Development in the Health & Fitness industry. He took sannyas in 2000 in Poona, India. meditarebene.it. More contributions by Swaram on Osho News.