Many meditative traditions use terms like “The Silence” or “The Quiet” to describe that special brain state that can lead to transcendent experiences. Because these terms can have inconsistent meanings and applications, we prefer the term “The Harmony Point,” and use it exclusively in our map of consciousness.
Today, we’ll explore this in more detail, and illustrate why this is important.
THE SILENCE VS. THE QUIET
By common definition, silence is the complete absence of sound. While this may be desirable for meditative purposes, it’s somewhat hard to achieve in practice. You don’t always have a cave, cathedral, or floatation tank around when you need one. And even when you find yourself in the quietest place, you’ll suddenly notice sounds you simply can’t avoid: the sound of your breathing, the beating of your heart, the subtlest of background noises.
The Silence as it is typically described, however, matches another state that’s more accurately known as The Quiet. That is the state of consciousness where, when listening as hard as you can, you aren’t hearing anything new. It can be achieved through this simple hearing meditation:
A HEARING MEDITATION
- Enter a meditative posture.
- Complete a short breathing meditation.
- With eyes closed, listen for something occurring in your surroundings.
- Acknowledge the sound, then listen for something else occurring in your surroundings.
- Repeat this process, until all sounds in your environment have been heard and acknowledged.
- Keep focused on listening, even when you aren’t hearing anything new.
You have just entered The Quiet. It is that place where all hearing attention-seekers have been quieted, and you are at peace, listening but hearing nothing.
THE HARMONY POINT
What The Quiet is to sound, The Harmony Point is to everything in your awareness. Instead of just listening for sounds, you scan every sense in your body, every thought in your head, and every emotion in your heart. It is that place where all attention-seekers—across all realms—have been stilled. You are at peace, scanning everything but perceiving nothing.
While it may seem overwhelming to attain, we have already covered everything needed to get there. The breathing and hearing meditations have taught you how to use Single Point Awareness (SPA) and Scanning to find and silence attention seekers. All that remains is to apply these concepts in a systematic way, and you’ll be on your way to attaining The Harmony Point.