What Is False Silence - What Real Silence?

Real silence laughs and is undisturbed

What is the difference
between a real silence and a false silence? 



A false silence is always forced; through effort it is achieved. It is not spontaneous, it has not happened to you. You have made it happen. You are sitting silently and there is much inner turmoil. You suppress it and then you cannot laugh. You will become sad because laughter will be dangerous -- if you laugh you will lose silence, because in laughter you cannot suppress. Laughter is against suppression. If you want to suppress you should not laugh; if you laugh everything will come out.

Laughter shows the truth

The real will come out in laughter, and the unreal will be lost.

 So whenever you see a saint sad, know well the silence is false. He cannot laugh, he cannot enjoy, because he is afraid. If he laughs everything will be broken, the suppression will come out, and then he will not be able to suppress. The belly is relaxed, and then the stomach is not a suppressed reservoir. If you see a saint sad, sadness is there, but the saint is not there. He has stilled himself somehow and is every moment afraid. Anything can disturb him.

Nothing can disturb real silence



Nothing can disturb if real silence has happened. Then everything helps it to grow. If you are really silent you can sit in a market, and even the market cannot disturb it. Rather, you feed on the noise of the market and that noise becomes more silence in you. Really, to feel silence a market is needed -- because if you have real silence, then the market becomes the background and the silence becomes perfect in contrast. You can feel the inner silence bubbling against the market.



There is no need to go to the Himalayas. And if you go, what will you see? Against the silence of the Himalayas your mind will be chattering. Then you will feel more chattering, because the background is in silence. The background is the silence, and you will feel more chattering.
If the real happens to you and you are unafraid, it cannot be taken away. Nothing can disturb it. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing -- nothing can disturb it.

And if something does, it is forced, it is cultivated; somehow you have managed it. But a managed silence is not silence, it is just like a managed love.



The key: being festive and silent

This is the key -- the inner part of it is silence, and the outer part of the key is celebration, laughter. Be festive and silent. Create more and more possibility around you -- don't force the inner to be silent, just create more and more possibility around you so that the inner silence can flower in it. That's all we can do. We can put the seed in the soil, but we cannot force the plant to come out. We can create the situation, we can protect, we can give fertilizer to the soil, we can water, we can see whether the sunrays reach or not, or how much sunrays are needed, whether more or less. We can avoid dangers, and wait in a prayerful mood. We cannot do anything else. Only the situation can be created.



Meditation is fertilizing the soil

That's what I mean when I tell you to meditate. Meditation is just a situation; silence is not going to be the consequence of it. No, meditation is just creating the soil, the surrounding, preparing the ground. The seed is there, it is always there; you need not put in the seed, the seed has always been with you. That seed is Brahma; that seed is atma. -- that seed is you. Just create the situation and the seed will become alive. It will sprout and a plant will be born, and you will start growing.



Meditation creates the situation for silence to happen

Meditation doesn't lead you to silence; meditation only creates the situation in which the silence happens. And this should be the criterion -- that whenever silence happens laughter will come into your life. A vital celebration will happen all around. You will not become sad, you will not become depressed, you will not escape from the world. You will be here in this world, but taking the whole thing as a game, enjoying the whole thing as a beautiful game, a big drama, no longer serious about it.
 Seriousness is a disease.

Osho, excerpted from 
A Bird on the Wing
Chapter #10

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In this Osho quote the difference between real and false silence is described. Laughter is the test, real silence will stay in laughter. A forced silence will be disturbed easily, real silence is undisturbed. Celebration provides the soil for real silence to happen, same as meditation.