From Shree Vasant’s Teachings

Silence
“The silence of the guru is his sermon and all the doubts of the devotees are dispelled.”–old Sanskrit proverb

“Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”–Matthew 5:37

These two quotes mean the same thing. Silence is very important.

“if speech is silver, silence is golden.”

Whenever you utter one word you have to breathe out through the mouth. That means so much energy is consumed. If, instead of counting our lives in terms of years we count in terms of breaths, so many breaths are given to you–make the best use of them. Most of those breaths are wasted. When we breathe out we use so much energy. That energy could be turned inward.

If we look at the speech of any normal good person, we see that most of it is not necessary. What are these things we speak? Four things occupy a large part of our speech:

1. Talking about subjects of which we have very little or no knowledge at all.
2. Talking about what other people do or say. Gossiping and back-biting.
3. Talking about ourselves in order to impress other people.
4. Emotional reactions to other people.

We are trapped in so-called emotions and then we go on talking from that emotional standpoint. We have to look at ourselves as a stranger. I am not the body, I am not the mind. It is like an intoxicated person babbling about anything at all. We must see ourselves in this light if we observe ourselves as a separate entity. Why are we talking? We are trapped in emotions and we are saying all these things. Also in the man/woman relationship, it is like warfare. Everyone loses, no one wins. So if we can’t react with love, then don’t react at all.

Practice of silence is a great tool. So much power comes. People ask, “Where is the charm in life?” Okay, but first check that we are not speaking any of these four things; then we can talk. Be full of good humor. Smile all the time–no sad faces.