When you are conscious of silence, it is noise || On Upanishad (2016)
Acharya Prashant (AP): What do we talk about?
Questioner (Q): Silence.
AP: We can talk a lot in Silence. Talking about Silence will always be a little round-about; beating around the bush. But in Silence, which is our nature, we can talk a lot.
We can even be silently noisy. (Smiles)
We can have a lot of words in Silence.
We can have wordlessness in Silence.
Silence is the pure Self – that is Silence.
Q2: Sir, when we say we are silent, then there is no God.
AP: That is God.
Q2: Why is it written in this phrase that you are the substratum behind the manifested universe?
"You are the substratum beneath the manifested universe."
AP: You are the substratum beneath the manifested universe. You not being there, will the universe be there? You not being there, would that be there which you take as yourself? Here, you refer to the pure Self – which is the source from where the body and the mind originate. And then, from them, the whole universe comes into being. So, you are the foundation of the whole universe.
Q2: So, in your videos when we refer to Source, we refer to pure Self?
AP: (Nods in affirmation)
Q2: Sir, what does Sansara mean? In the bracket, it is written the cycle of transmigratory existence.
AP: (Points towards everything around)
Q2: Everything?
AP: All this that keeps rising and falling. And rising again; again falling.
Q2: Don’t call it good; don’t call it bad.
AP: It is there. It is there.
Q3: Can you say a little bit more about one of your quotations that says, “Right action happens voicelessly, it comes from nowhere and it goes into nowhere”?
AP: Comes from nowhere means, it has no cause behind it. You have not calculated; you have not reasoned it out.
Goes into nowhere means, it bears no fruits. There are no expectations or hope attached to it.
It has no cause means it is not coming from thoughtful decision-making.
It has no future, it goes into nowhere, means it just disappears. It does not carry forward in time.
Often, what we do is carried forward in time, carried ahead, why? Because the action is accompanied by an expectation and the expectation is now using the time to wait for the result. The action was not important for you, the result was important, so you are still not through with the action. You are waiting for the result.
