Questioner: What is Silence?
Acharya Prashant: Silence is that which you want, really-really want, when you move from one type of noise to the other type. That is Silence. But because all your experience has only been about noise, so even when you are thirsty and craving for Silence, all you can deliberately move towards is some kind of noise, apparently a more pleasant kind of noise, apparently a more agreeable kind of noise, a newer kind of noise. But Silence is the thirst of your mind.
Silence is that which is your essential state, that which you deeply do know.
And because you know it, because your familiarity with it is very-very intimate, hence you cannot forget it. You will keep looking for it. Stuttering from one kind of noise to the other, and then to the next kind, and then to the next kind, you would always be searching for Silence, always. Like a man who has been trained in noise. So, he is changing one radio station after the other, and never feeling satisfied with any particular channel or station.
He does not know what he is really wanting. And he does not know why no channel pleases him. He listens to songs, the songs don’t please him. He listens to news bulletins, they don’t please him. He listens to the commentary of match, that too does not please him. He listens to a talk show, it does not please him. And he is changing one channel after the other. And it does not occur to him that all he wants is – freedom from these channels. He wants freedom from noise. He wants Silence. It cannot occur to him because Silence is not a thought.
