This inspired film by Jeff Scher is an example of silence. It’s funny how even in silence we find noise, but many a time the only way we can find silence is to have noise. So why silence? And why noise? Lets start with silence. But first please click on the image and explore this short and powerful piece.

Silence is the space in between all our thoughts. Like the space between the rain drops and the sound between the notes of a piano. Silence is where our wisdom and intuition reside. This wisdom is the collective power of our whole body system, and thus is the accumulated efforts of our subconscious. The subconscious is infinitely more powerful than the conscious mind, because it is not restricted to form but instead understands the universe in a logical, but non-linear fashion. It doesn’t require lines, labels and definitions of the forms that it is working with. Anything and everything exists in all time and space and so it is in silence that our complete biological system realizes its full potential of the computing power of its entire energy structure which enables it to fully understand this world.

We recognize this world through our feelings and subtle images, not through the incessant self-talk that churns through our thought space, distracting us from a greater thought. This incessant talk is noise. But it is a chaotic noise; it is a reaction to our experiences. A noise without structure it bubbles up haphazardly from the stories we have of ourselves from our multiple identities of who we believe ourselves to be. These stories constantly reaffirm our reality, ensuring that we keep to the illusion of who we are. We have these identities so we can feel safe, so we can be in control, so we can know what is and what isn’t. But this noise does not serve us. We need noise to give shape to the world and help us know what is from what isn’t through the use of words and thoughts but often this is merely a distraction and for the most part a farce. Noise forms us but doesn’t necessarily serve us. However noise has another role if we condition it through our breathing, through a mantra, a repetitive motion or any other meditative form you desire. By using this structured noise we can quiet the chaos and create a space in which we can connect to the silence. We remove the typical overbearing chatter that drowns out the subtler feelings that contains so much wisdom.

Silence exists in the present moment. Whenever you are thinking of the past or the future you are in a space of thought. Thoughts of who you were and who you should and could be. In the present moment you can create a white place; a clean slate. It is from this place free of the untangled world of the past and the future that there are no preconceptions, existing forms and ideas that you have to adhere to in order to create. Instead your canvas is free to create afresh and anew any world that your deepest self dreams to be true.

This space, induced by structured noise, is often associated with slower frequencies in our brain. When considering sleep, the slower our frequencies get the deeper we are into sleep and the less our conscious faculties are in play. Early on in sleep we often reach a stage in which our waves slow to what is called Alpha frequency. This stage is a powerful stage as it has been to show that we can operate powerfully without the use of our conscious mind getting in the way. We often use our conscious mind to understand things, which are great for when we are first learning something so we can build the necessary neural connections, but then we continue to rely on this conscious mind rather than trust the wisdom that exists beneath this conscious process. A much more powerful processor. There is research which shows how mind when wandering or day dreaming we often reach our greatest moments of inspiration, so too in that period just before we wake, where we look at the world in the borderland of our sleep and waking worlds. It is in this space that we are in the Alpha wave state and it is in this period where we have shut down enough of our conscious faculties to open ourselves to the power of silence.

Find a moment to yourself when you are ready to discover yourself or something in your life. Take a breath and then take another and listen and feel what happens in your breath and between the breath. Listen to the rain and see the rhythm of it in motion or stop for a moment and play this piece and find the peace you need to move to a powerful place. So don’t think you need to think your way through life all the time, but instead take a moment and access the space of silence. And remember, “Silence is Golden”.