Mind has the appearance of four basic aspects. There is the mental aspect, whereby thoughts and images are constructed. There is the physical aspect through which sensations, feelings, and energy are physically experienced. There is the emotional aspect in which thoughts are linked to certain feelings and experiences and then constellated as emotions. And finally, there is the circumstantial aspect where life circumstances appearing in the mind are then fed back into physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, worldview, point of view, personal truth, etc. This is the common experience. There is nothing unusual about it. Yet this common experience is also normally accompanied by a common experience of enormous suffering.

Eventually, in a particular lifetime, in the midst of that enormous suffering, arise the unusual thoughts, I want to be free, or I want the suffering to end, or I want to be saved, or I want to find God or God to find me.

These are thoughts unlike anything previously thought. They signal a radical departure from the usual experience of incarnation, from the usual experience of thought, emotion, physical sensation, feeling, or circumstance. They are a great clarion call to something unknown.

There are infinite, diverse teachings in the world that direct us to follow many different paths. Most of these teachings, in some way or another, give directions to follow thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, or circumstances. They instruct us to think better thoughts, or to get better circumstances, or to feel better, or to have more fun. And, of course, all these have been tried. Yet in the experience of following anything dictated by the mind, which means any perception, any emotion, any impulse, any feeling, or any circumstance, the limitations of those activities finally must be recognized.

It is at this point in a lifestream that the most radical of all teachings appears, a teaching that is, in fact, no teaching at all. When one experiences in an instant a glimpse of the limitlessness of pure silence (that which no thought, no emotion, no mind state, no circumstance, has ever, could ever, hold or capture) it is tempting to take that glimpse and feed it into the mind as another object of mind. It is tempting to try and capture truth and make it do what you want it to do.

  Understand that this is the natural functioning of mind. The mind’s mission is to take objects, however subtle or gross, and to then make those objects the property of mind. The challenge in this mysterious incarnation is to be completely aware of that functioning.

As I have said before, there are many teachings that direct you to follow objects of mind. Certainly, we in the West all have had experience with that. The radicalness of this non-teaching is to be aware of that tendency, and to let it burn as identification shifts from the movement of mind to the silence of Self.

When this challenge is heard by the mind, it cannot be understood. This is its beauty. The freedom of pure, limitless silence can only be realized and experienced in the present moment. It has nothing to do with past experience. It has nothing to do with any past realization. It has nothing to do with anything. It is free of all thoughts, emotions, bodies, and circumstances; and it is the truth of who you are.

  It has often been said in spiritual teachings that it is extremely rare for someone to realize the truth of who one is. It has been rare, but it needn’t be, because it is the truth of who one is. The final truth is that you are that silence.

Until the body is gone and the mind is completely finished, until your last breath is expelled, there must be a willingness to be totally aware of the mind’s impulse to move toward or to move against all mental, emotional, physical and circumstantial objects. In this willingness, you can see the freedom that is the truth of one’s being revealed in the purity of the non-teaching, be still.

Attend to what is already still.

The more you experience this stillness, the deeper and more subtle are the challenges of seeing the mind’s tendency to move, to take, to keep away, or to deny the movement.

You can use your time extremely rarely, preciously, to see what object is being followed. Silence can’t be followed. Silence doesn’t go anywhere. Silence can only be met in silence.

I invite you to give up all concepts of your life, your destiny, your purpose, your past, your present, your future, and to see what is untouched by this possessive pronoun of suffering. And when I say “suffering,” I am not excluding pleasure. The most intense pleasure is included in suffering, as well as the most intense pain.

The invitation of Ramana, who speaks from the core of your own being, calls to you with the simple phrase, be still.