A Dynamite Quote!

I was the opening speaker, last week, at the Legacy of Significance conference organized by Brian and Jean Brault.

Brian is an entrepreneur and was at high organizational levels — including Global Chairman — of the Entrepreneur’s Organization. Jean has been involved in coaching for years and particularly loves working with the spouses and partners of entrepreneurs and CEOs.

This quote from Brian tells you about the vision they have. It is a spiritual journey though not everyone realizes it.

“We spend our lives striving for success; wanting to be impactful; seeking happiness. As I get older, more experienced, maybe wiser, I am realizing that all of these answers are already inside of me. So often we look to others to shine light on what we are searching for, while not recognizing that the answers come from within. We can shine our own light on what is there. We just need to slow down long enough and love ourselves enough to see it all.”
– Brian Brault

It was a wonderful event with great speakers and I was able to stay for the entire event.

One of the attendees was Ben Zhang. Ben is an alumnus of my course, Creativity and Personal Mastery, but I had not met him previously because he had taken the virtual version of CPM. We agreed to keep in touch, and I spoke with him again by Zoom two hours ago.

And Ben shared a quote with me that was like a stick of dynamite. One of those quotes that causes you, instantly, to go. “Of course, that is the way it is. How could I not have seen this earlier.” I have been ruminating happily on it for hours.

Ben is a doctoral student in Physics at the University of Chicago and should have Ph.D. after his name in a year or so. This, by the way, was one of my early aspirations but I could not make it happen in India and the circumstances I was in.

We were having a deep conversation when he shared his quote:

“Silence does not mean the absence of noise. Silence means the absence of you.”

And, right away, I remembered an incident in the life of Ramana Maharshi when one of the ashram inhabitants was complaining that he could not sleep because the stray dogs were barking loudly. And Ramana told him, “The dogs are not barking. Your mind is barking.”

All disturbance comes from your mistaken identification with a particular body-mind-intellect complex. You are not that complex, but you think you are. When you truly realize the error, there is no more ‘you’.

And there is no more noise.

Silence all around.

Peace

P.S.: My trusted friend ChatGPT tells me that the quote is from Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul. Get it if you do not already have it. And then, read it! Anthony DeMello also said that silence is the absence of self.