“Listen in deep silence. Be very still and open your mind…. Sink deep in to the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world.” (From “A Course in Miracles”)
Truth is Hidden in Silence (by Sri. Ulpiano Manlangit)
….Harmony is the key that opens the door to the realm of inner silence. Harmony in the physical plane, harmony in your feelings and harmony on your thoughts are the essential requirement for achieving true silence. Once you create harmony within yourself you will be filled with the sense of well-being. As long as your whole being is not attuned and is out of harmony it is no use expecting to receive anything from heaven; you will always be deprived of its blessing.
Silence, peace and harmony are simply different expression of the same reality. You must not think that silence is mute and empty. No; silence is alive, vibrant and dynamic; it speaks and sings……
Dr. Sydney Savion
….A foggy mind impairs judgment, memory and our ability to think clearly. Bottom line is we live in a hectic world which opens the door for unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits, lack of exercise, financial stresses, escalated work demands and information overload. This blocks the pathway to bliss and creates an internal stream of fear, stress, hurries, worries, and life land mines and negatively affects the mind…. Quiet the mind and slow down your hectic life…
Learning to Sit Alone, in a Quiet Empty Room (by Leo Babauta)
…Think about some of the problems of our daily lives, and how many of them would be eased if we could learn to sit alone, in a quiet empty room, with contentment.
If you’re content to sit alone quietly, you don’t need to eat junk food, to shop on impulse, to buy the latest gadget, to be on social media to see what everyone else is talking about or doing, to compare yourself to others, to make more money to keep up with the Joneses, to achieve glory or power, to conquer other lands or wage war, to be rude or violent to others, to be selfish or greedy, to be constantly busy or productive.
You are content, and need nothing else. It solves a lot of problems….
Susan Cain (Power of Introverts- TED talk)
…….when it comes to creativity and to leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best. A third to a half of the population are introverts -- a third to a half. ……..introversion is….different from being shy. Shyness is about fear of social judgment. Introversion is more about, how do you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation. So extroverts really crave large amounts of stimulation, whereas introverts feel at their most alive and their most switched-on and their most capable when they're in quieter, more low-key environments. Not all the time -- these things aren't absolute -- but a lot of the time. So the key then to maximizing our talents is for us all to put ourselves in the zone of stimulation that is right for us.
But now here's where the bias comes in. Our most important institutions, our schools and our workplaces, they are designed mostly for extroverts and for extroverts' need for lots of stimulation. And also we have this belief system right now that I call the new groupthink, which holds that all creativity and all productivity comes from a very oddly gregarious place…..
…..Okay, same thing is true in our workplaces. Now, most of us work in open plan offices, without walls, where we are subject to the constant noise and gaze of our co-workers. And when it comes to leadership, introverts are routinely passed over for leadership positions, even though introverts tend to be very careful, much less likely to take outsize risks -- which is something we might all favour nowadays. And interesting research by Adam Grant at the Wharton School has found that introverted leaders often deliver better outcomes than extroverts do, because when they are managing proactive employees, they're much more likely to let those employees run with their ideas, whereas an extrovert can, quite unwittingly, get so excited about things that they're putting their own stamp on things, and other people's ideas might not as easily then bubble up to the surface…..
….Now in fact, some of our transformative leaders in history have been introverts. I'll give you some examples. Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi -- all these peopled described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy…..
…..And this is because solitude is a crucial ingredient often to creativity……
Now of course, this does not mean that we should all stop collaborating…
Hinduism
o …The late Swami Nirmalananda of Karnataka had served the Army Postal Service in Europe during World War II. He later held various government posts in India. He travelled the globe and studied well the world's religions and philosophies. In the end, his burning search for truth culminated in silence. "If you desire to live in peace," he said, "hear all that falls on your ears, see all that appears before your eyes, realize that everything is in accordance with the eternal law of nature, and be silent." He did not speak for eleven years, and thereafter spoke sparingly. When he did, it was with clarity and conviction. "Wisdom to me is not a set of words, but freshness and emptiness of the mind. Empty the mind by self-observation, self-awareness and inner attention. Thus make the mind shine like a mirror. Then nothing is seen or known but the limitless radiance of eternity. This is a wonderful source of ever-renewed joy and inspiration beyond words."…. (Prema Pandurang)
J. Krishnamurti
o contentment is not the contentment which is produced by a system of thought; but it is that contentment which comes with the understanding of what is. That contentment is not the product of the mind -the mind which is disturbed, agitated, incomplete, when it is seeking peace, when it is seeking a way away from what is. And so the mind, through justification, comparison, judgment, tries to alter what is, and thereby hopes to arrive at a state when it will not be disturbed, when it will be peaceful, when there will be quietness. And when the mind is disturbed by social conditions, by poverty, starvation, degradation, by the appalling misery, seeing all that, it wants to alter it; it gets entangled in the way of altering, in the system of altering. But if the mind is capable of looking at what is without comparison, without judgment, without the desire to alter it into something else, then you will see that there comes a kind of contentment which is not of the mind.
The contentment which is the product of the mind is an escape. It is sterile. It is dead. But there is contentment which is not of the mind, which comes into being when there is the understanding of what is, in which there is profound revolution which affects society and individual relationship. (The Book of Life)
o Truth is not to be had through books, through devotion or through self-immolation, but it is known when the mind is free, quiet; and that freedom, that quietness of the mind, comes only when the facts of its relationships are understood. Without understanding its relationships, whatever it does only creates further problems. But, when the mind is free from all its projections, there is a state of quietness in which problems cease; and then only, the timeless, the eternal, comes into being…. (Collected Works, Vol. VI,135)
Reference;
1. http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/about-the-book/
2. Truth is Hidden in Silence by Sri. Ulpiano Manlangit
3. http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/livingablissfullife/2014/01/26/quiet-the-mind-how-to-slow-down-your-hectic-life/
4. http://drsydneysavion.com/about.php
5. http://www.houseofhumble.com/2013/05/its-ok-to-be-happy-with-a-quiet-life/
6. http://zenhabits.net/creative-habit/
7. http://zenhabits.net/alone/
8. http://zenmoments.org/nothing-and-no-one/
9. http://www.keytostressfreeliving.com/the-zen-habit-of-quietness/
10. Quiet; The power of introverts by Susan Cain.
11. http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily-quote/
12. http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=4881
13. http://press.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/09/daily-calm-365-days-serenity-photos-wisdom/