How does one ever understand what the sages were trying to convey in their description of the Absolute as Silence or Stillness? Well, there is a way. The way to go about is to renounce or discard every concept that the mind tries to bring up in description of the Truth. Whenever we communicate, including here, we have to use words or sounds to do so. But what exactly are words? They are just ways for the mind to create a concept or imagination or image. For instance, if someone says 'computer', the person hearing it immediately conceptualizes a 'box with a screen showing images and a keyboard attached to it'. But the word itself is nothing but a sound or an image on paper. Without this ability to conceptualize, it is impossible for communication to occur between people. All communication is at the level of the mind. All words and sounds are in duality.
In asking the student to merge into Silence, the Sages gave an easy solution to finding the Truth. They have asked the seeker or the student to give up or negate all concepts or imaginations. In fact, the sages were speaking from their own experience of Nirvikalpa samadhi. In the state of nirvikalpa there is absolutely no concept and yet it is still a state of the mind and therefore limited in time. In this state of the mind, there is utter stillness or silence. Silence means absence of concepts or absence of any mental modifications or vritti (vritti-activity of forming concepts in the mind). 'Nir' means 'no or without' and 'kalpa' means 'aeon or a long period of time'. We know that time is a concept of the mind and there can be no creation without time. Vikalpa is impression of thought or concept. Therefore, Nirvikalpa is the absence of thought, absence of time and concepts; a state where there is no thought, no movement in consciousness or awareness of any concepts or images. But as soon as we describe this state, we begin to conceptualize and imagine this state and immediately move away from what is being pointed to. All concepts are a result of movements in consciousness. So, when the student returned to the Sage to ask if this state of nirvikalpa samadhi is the Truth, the Sage replied "neti"- meaning 'not this'. The Sage was asking the student to renounce or discard even this experience and what is left over is Blank- indescribable but intuitively understood as That which is prior to or beyond all concepts including the conceptual experience of nirvikalpa.
But, the student was not able to grasp this abstract answer given by the Sage. The Sage then had to tell the student that it is through Knowledge of Discrimination (viveka) that the mind can finally get the intuitive understanding of the Truth. This is called intuitive understanding (or Understanding as this author likes to call it- with a capital U) by careful use of the Knowledge of Discrimination. For the majority of seekers of Truth who are likely mired in the endless concepts created by the mind, the discrimination between the false and the Truth is the way to empty the mind of all the useless concepts one by one. In this endeavor, complete faith in the words of the Guru or the Sage is vital. The words of the Guru are the way to the Truth. For many a student, the way to Silence is through the sound or words of the Guru. When one hangs on to the words of the Guru with complete unconditional faith, there is utter Stillness and Silence for one merges with the Guru. In hanging on to the words of the Guru, one loses his/her identity and merges into the Silence, the very Silence from which all the sounds of the Sadguru emerge.
