The Language of Silence: From Darkness to Light
by Swami Dhyan GitenPublish: Jun 19, 2013Poetry Religion & SpiritualityBook Overview
Spiritual teacher Swami Dhyan Giten's book The Language of Silence: From Darkness to Light is Amazon International bestseller ranked in two categories Books and Mysticism* * * * *
Five stars, Goodreads, the world's largest book site for book readers and book recommendations with 48 million users worldwide
"Swami Dhyan Giten's book The Language of Silence is a beautifully expressed and highly intimate picture of his own spiritual history. While reading this book, I had the sense of listening to his open heart as it gave words to his personal silence. Giten offers us a quite intimate connection with his inner being and thus a glimpse of the beauty within ourselves."
- Eric Rolf, internationally renowned lecturer and course leader, author of Soul Medicine and former consultant to John Lennon.
"Giten writes in a poetic language. When I read Giten, I am reminded of Kahlil Gibran. Yes, I would like to compare Giten to Kahlil Gibran."
- Gordon Banta, Author of Magic of Meditation, USA
"I was 9 years old when I had my first spiritual awakening, my first glimpse of wholeness with Existence, my first taste of the language of silence", says spiritual teacher and best-selling author Swami Dhyan Giten in this book.
"It was early Christmas morning and I was standing in my pajamas in the living room and looking out of the large windows. Outside the white snowflakes silently singled down toward a snow clad landscape.
Suddenly I was filled with a feeling of being one with the slowly dancing snowflakes, one with the silent landscape. I did not understand then that this was my first taste of meditation, but it created a deep thirst and a longing in my heart to return to this natural and effortless experience of being one with the Whole.
I have always had the capacity to go within myself and to discover the silence within, the inner meditative quality, the inner source of love and truth, the inner language of silence”, Giten explains in this book.
“Now I also notice that this silence is going deeper and that I go beyond the ego and disappear into the silence. First this brought up fear, but now I am enjoying this meditation of disappearing into the silence and to be nobody."
This book consists of a collection of quotes from Swami Dhyan Giten on silence. It also explains how silence is the flower and love and wholeness is the fragrance.
The book also includes meditation- and awareness exercises to develop silence within ourselves in our everyday life in meditation, in relationships and in work and creativity.
Swami Dhyan Giten has been speaking and teaching about the inner silence and how to reach it through love, joy, meditation, awareness, relationships and creativity.
He experienced his first satori, his first glimpse of spiritual awakening, when he was 9 years old. This created a deep thirst and longing in his heart and being to return to this natural and effortless experience of being one with the Whole.
He has dedicated his life to teaching the art of awareness and meditation. He conducts individual consultations, satsangs and courses internationally. His quotes, articles and books have touched the hearts of thousands and are appearing with increasing frequency in magazines, blogs and websites.
"Swami Dhyan Giten’s The Language of Silence - From Darkness to Light reminds me of those moments when we drift back from sleep to wakefulness and the precious insights that quite often occur in those instances of ”awakening.”
It is my own experience that all spiritual paths have a common thread which most simply stated is: unconditional self acceptance. It is this process or journey toward self acceptance that leads to our connection with our individual aloneness and silence about which Giten so beautifully often comments.
Here Giten tells us we find our true heart, that love that becomes our healer and a healing presence that projects beyond ourselves and heals and nourishes the lives of all others with whom we have contact, be they friends, strangers or even our pets.
Giten’s "The Language of Silence" is a beautifully expressed and highly intimate picture of his own spiritual history. While reading this book which is formatted in short segments and insightful phrases and a true delight to read and sure to later re-visit, I had the sense of listening to his open heart as it gave words to his personal silence. Giten offers us a quite intimate connection with his inner being and thus a glimpse of the beauty within ourselves."
- Eric Rolf, internationally renowned lecturer and course leader, author of "Soul Medicine" and former consultant to John Lennon
AN EXCERPT FROM SPIRITUAL TEACHER AND AUTHOR SWAMI DHYAN GITEN'S BOOK "THE LANGUAGE OF SILENCE: FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT"
ONE WITH LIFE
“Love means to realize that we are one with life. Real love means to realize that we are one with the other person, one with nature, and one with the trees, the stones, the earth and the blue sky. It means to realize that all of life is God.”
ACCEPTANCE
“When we stop judging others and ourselves, our heart begins to open.”
THE DOOR TO EXISTENCE
“Our heart is the door to allowing Existence to guide us.”
LIFE IS OUR TEACHER
“Life is our teacher. Life communicates with us all the time and it is a lesson to see how life continuously has led me to the people I need to meet, to the situations I need to experience, and to the places I need to be. There has never been any real reason to worry since all small individual rivers are already on their way to the ocean, to the Whole. It is not about swimming, it is about relaxing and to float with the river in a basic trust that life already leads towards the sea of consciousness, towards the Whole.”
THE CONSCIOUSNESS LEVEL OF THE HEART
“It is on the consciousness level of the heart that we begin to understand that we are not separated from life. We begin to understand that we are not small separate islands in a great ocean, but that life is one and that we all are small parts of the Whole. We begin to understand what is really important and meaningful in life. It is on the consciousness level of the heart that we begin to understand that life is about sharing, rather than hoarding. We begin to understand that life is about giving, rather than taking.”
LOVE
Love accepts a human being as she is. Love creates the freedom for a human being to be who she is. Love creates the relaxation, which helps a person to relax into her own inner being, into her own authentic self. Love allows us to appreciate the beautiful being we already are.
Love means to realize that we are one with life. Real love means to realize that we are one with the other person, one with nature, and one with the trees, the stones, the earth and the blue sky. It means to realize that all of life is God.
DIVINE DISSATISFACTION
I remember an insight that taught me much about life. One day I felt that I had everything that I really wanted in life. I had a creative and meaningful work as a therapist and course leader, I had a relationship with a beautiful woman, who I loved and who loved me, I had friends that I trusted and I had money to do what I wanted. But in spite of all this, I still had a feeling that there was something missing in my life. I was not satisfied.
The thirst and longing in my heart was still searching for something more. It made me realize that the deepest pain in my heart was that I was still separated from the Whole and that no outer things or relationships could ease this pain.
ENLIGHTENMENT
When I did a therapist education in USA 1984, one of the course leaders – who had given personal and spiritual guidance to thousands of seekers of truth from all over the world, and who I consider to be one of the best spiritual therapists in the world – said that I was going to get enlightened, that I would ”disappear into the silence.
I did not really understand what he meant then, and it was totally absurd for me when other course participants congratulated me afterwards. The thought that I was going to be enlightened was totally absurd for me. For me enlightenment was something that happened to special and chosen persons like Osho, Buddha, Jesus,Lao-Tzu and Krishnamurti. I did not feel either special or chosen. I did not feel worthy of being enlightened.
BEING ONE WITH NATURE, ONE WITH THE TREES AND ONE WITH THE PEOPLE
I had a magical day during one Sunday when I walked out in nature. On the outside this day only consisted of taking a walk out in the beautiful sunny weather and cleaning my apartment, but on the inside everything suddenly changed. When I walked out in nature in the sunny weather, a silent explosion suddenly happened within me and my whole perception of reality changed.
In a single moment, everything had changed, although nothing on the outside had really changed. Everything on the outside was exactly as before, but my way of seeing had changed. The difference was that before I did not see and now I could see. My eyes were open. Suddenly I was one with everything, one with the stones, one with the trees and one with the people that I met on my walk.
My heart danced with joy together with a feeling of:”I am God”. Not that I am the creator of everything, but that I am part of the Whole, part of the divine. It felt like coming home, that Existence is my home. I also saw that even if the people that I meet did not understand that they are part of the Whole, they still are a part of the Whole. I felt the waves of Existence in my own heart and being and I felt like a small wave in a great ocean. It gave a taste of the eternal, a taste of the limitless and boundless source of creativity.
In just a few moments, I learnt more than during 20 years in university. Wisdom is basically the understanding that we all are part of the Whole.
We are all small rivers moving towards the ocean. I laughed at the fact that enlightenment is really your innate birthright, and that small children already live in this mystical unity with the Whole.
EGOLESSNESS
“I have always had the capacity to go within myself and to discover the silence within, the inner meditative quality, the inner source of love and truth – the inner language of silence.
Now I also notice that this silence is going deeper and that I go beyond the ego and disappear into the silence. First this brought up fear, but now I am enjoying this meditation of disappearing into the silence and to be nobody. I have started experimenting with this phenomenon to understand how to consciously go beyond the ego: yesterday when I took a coffee at a restaurant, I consciously turned my attention within and disappeared into the silence, which was like finding an inner source of bliss. In aloneness, I experiment with being consciously alone as a door to be egoless.
In conscious aloneness, the ego cannot function.
In aloneness, you are not. When I am walking, I consciously experiment with being with Existence without having the mind constantly commenting. I try to just be wordless with the people and situations that I meet on my walk.
When I can just be with Existence, it opens the door to be one with the Whole.
ENLIGHTENMENT
Enlightenment is a paradoxical phenomenon. You need to be committed to become enlightened, and to do whatever is necessary to make it happen. But at the same time you cannot force enlightenment to happen by sheer will. It is like the situation with happiness: you cannot force happiness to happen, but you can create the right circumstances for happiness to happen.
You need to be willing to die, to let go of your limited sense of “I”, to achieve enlightenment. I can feel a deepening thirst to die, to dissolve into the silence, in my heart and being.”
SILENCE AND HEALING
Silence is the source of healing. When we bring things from within ourselves out into the light of awareness, a healing process happens. In the silence, we can let go of all anger, sadness, fear, loneliness and frustration.
DEATH AND ALONENESS
Aloneness has been my constant companion in life. I lost early the people that I loved: first when my young and unmarried biological mother had to leave me because of outer circumstances. I was adopted by a very loving couple, who could not conceive a child.
I have always felt naturally loved by them, and I have never really felt that I was adopted. Instead, I have always felt that I did a little detour to be able to be adopted by my real parents.
Then my mother died when I was 15 years old after a long sickness. At her funeral I took the decision to never depend on anybody again. Her death created such a deep pain in me that it was also the death of relationships for me. Then my father died when I was 21 years old– and I was completely alone in the world.
This created a basic feeling of being alone and unloved in me; it created a feeling of independence and self-sufficiency in me. It also created a basic feeling of not trusting that I am alright as I am, and of not trusting that life takes care of me.
This created such a pain in me that I simply repressed the pain for many years in order to survive. These early meetings with death also created a thirst in me to discover a quality, an inner awareness that death could not take away. Now I can see that these early painful experiences are a blessing in disguise.
It liberated me from relationships. I relate with people, but there is always an aloneness within me. I realize that a seeker of truth needs to accept that he is totally alone. It is not possible to lean on other people like crutches. When we totally accept our aloneness, it becomes a source of love, joy, truth, silence, meditation and wholeness.
I shared these experiences with a beloved friend and her thoughtful comment was: “I have my own aloneness.”Aloneness is to be at home in ourselves, to be in contact with our inner source of love, while loneliness is to hanker for other people, to hanker for a source of love outside of ourselves. Aloneness is to come home.
BEING ONE WITH EXISTENCE
It is astonishing to realize that growing up actually means to become one with Existence. It means to find the whole Existence within myself; it means to discover that Existence is alive in my own heart and being.
The song of a bird echoes my own inner voice, the beauty of a flower reflects my own inner beauty, a dog becomes an expression of my own unconditional love and friendship, the majestic mountains create an ecstatic joy, and I discover all the shining stars of the sky within my own heart.
It is to realize that the whole Existence is alive, and that the underlying thread of consciousness is God.
COMMITMENT TO SPIRITUAL GROWTH
Our spiritual growth depends on our commitment to our spiritual growth. Without a basic commitment to our spiritual growth, we will just go around in a circle, reaching nowhere.
People can be categorized in three categories: sleeping, drowsy and awakened. One of my beautiful students, a bright man in his thirties, who was a Tibetan monk in a previous life, travels for 4 hours once a month to meet me in Stockholm for spiritual guidance, to explore what is the current topic in his life right now and to see what is the next step in his spiritual growth. I also recommend awareness exercises and meditation practices in the in-between time until the next time that we see each other the next month.
This time he commented that he had practiced the methods that I had recommended the last time to become aware of the ego, the separated sense of “I”, and to move from “I” to not-I, to move from ego to egolessness. He commented that he could not believe the progress that he had made.
WALKING IN ONENESS
I took a walk out in nature yesterday, when suddenly my whole world changed. First I walked out in nature among the flowers, the trees and the people that I met who were out walking their dogs – and I was separated from them.
But suddenly my whole perception changed - like I suddenly saw the young girl in the picture with the old woman – and I was suddenly one with the flowers, the trees, the air and the people and the dogs that I met. It was the same world, but suddenly it was totally different. Everything was the same, but I saw it in a new and fresh way.
I laughed about being one with the dogs that I met on my walk. Then I experienced a strong fear coming from my legs. I felt that my ego, the separated sense of “I”, was afraid of this experience, because the ego lives in separation from life. It was also a very easy and natural experience. I got a very clear feeling that this is the reality and experience of the seventh chakra of oneness and wholeness, which is our innate birthright.
LOVE AND ALONENESS
Meditation is the way to be with ourselves and to learn to accept our own aloneness. In aloneness, I experiment with being consciously alone as a door to be egoless.
In conscious aloneness, the ego cannot function. In aloneness, you are not. I have always been comfortable with my own aloneness as an inner source of love, joy, truth, silence and wholeness. When we depend on other people, it becomes bondage -instead of freedom.
I took this Sunday as a meditation to be consciously alone, and to accept all feelings of pain, of not being loved and the fear of being nobody that would come up during the meditation. This meditation goes up and down during the day: at certain moments, I can totally accept my aloneness. It feels fine to accept that I am alone and that I am nobody.
At other moments, I feel the pain of not being loved, when the meditation brings up how dependence on other people is a barrier to totally accepting my aloneness. I drank coffee at a restaurant. I am the only person that sits alone in the restaurant, while the other guests are couples and families eating Sunday dinner. It brings up painful feelings of not being loved and wanting to be needed by other people, when I see how much people cling to each other in the couples and the families.
Escaping your aloneness through relationships and needing other people's attention through being a teacher, a politician or by being rich or famous are ways of escaping the pain of aloneness. But then the relationships are not really love. Only when you are capable of being alone, can you really love. When we can be alone, we discover the inner source of love, which is our true nature. When we can be alone, it opens the door to become with the Whole.
GOD
Meditation expands our inner being. The inner being is like a small, individual river flowering towards the Ocean.
In meditation, I feel how my inner being expands into an inner ocean, which is part of everything, which is one with Existence. Through the inner being, we come in contact with the inner ocean, the undefined and boundless within ourselves, where we are one with life.
We realize that God is part of life. We realize that God is not a person, but the consciousness that is part of everything. We find God in a flower, in a tree, in the eyes of a child or in a playful dog. Through discovering our inner being, we discover that we are also part of the flower, the child or the dog. We realize that God is everywhere.
INTUITION, THE LANGUAGE OF SILENCE
Intuition is the language of silence, the Existential language. The word "in-tuition" means to listen within yourself. Intuition is the silent voice within, which is already in contact with the Existence.
Intuition is the voice of God. The more you come in contact with the inner silence, the inner emptiness, the more you have access to your intuition. Silence is the nourishment for intuition.
If something increases your love, joy and silence, it is the criterion that it is the right path for you. If something decreases your love, joy and silence, it is a sign that you are on the wrong path.
Do not compare yourself with others when it comes to making a decision about what you should do, follow the love, joy and silence of your heart and inner being. When you are in contact with your inner silence, you just know what you should do - you do not have to think about it, and you do not need not compare the pros and cons - you just know.
You can listen to the advice of others, but always listen to your intuition, to your inner teacher and guide in life, when you take the final decision. Intuition, the language of silence, will always lead you right.
ONENESS
We are basically all one. We are one being, one consciousness, one whole. We are all connected to each other. We are all parts of the same whole.
How we treat others is how we treat ourselves. If we treat others badly, we are really treating ourselves badly. If we hate others, we really hate ourselves. If we love others, we basically love ourselves.
