What is a silent mind? || Acharya Prashant, on Raman Maharshi (2017)

“Silence is of four kinds: silence of speech, silence of the eye, silence of the ear, and silence of the mind.

Only the last is pure silence, and is the most important.”

~ Sri Raman Maharishi

Questioner: Acharya Ji, what does Ramana Maharshi mean by these lines? What is silence of the ear?

Acharya Prashant: Silence of speech, silence of eye, silence of ear, and silence of mind. She is asking, “What is silence of the ear?”

Silence of the ear just means that the ear is not too eager to hear, that the ear does not start hearing its own echoes.

All the silences that the Maharshi is talking of, come under one classical term, that is – uprati. ‘Rati ’ means an attraction, a greed, a reaching out, an association with the external. ‘Uprati ’ means returning to oneself, being contended in oneself, not being desperately or enthusiastically concerned with the outside.