Question:

Dear Ektaji, referring to “I am hollow and empty” – does this mean if I remind myself that I am nothing, I will automatically modify my speech and eventually it will become pure?

Answer:

“I am hollow and empty” is a meditation that we do in the Advanced course also called as the ‘Art of Silence’ course. That meditation helps you go deeper within and helps erase all previous samskaras of the body, mind and speech. That is what Gurudev is referring to when he speaks about ‘hollow and empty’.

Just meditation will help us to calm down the mind and purify it for those 20 -30 mins. But if you are seeking to make your life a meditative experience then you must work on culturing the speech besides culturing the mind.

How to culture the speech? There are 4 principles of speech:

1. Maintain a complete awareness of every word you say. Think before you speak, is it required? Usually we keep talking even when no one is listening. It is only to satisfy our own egos. This strengthens the impressions in your own mind and causes samskaras.
2. Avoid gossip because gossip only leads to strong impressions in the mind of the person you dislike, it only increases your karma bag.
3. Speak only what is true, pleasant and beneficial for the other person. Anything besides that will leave a raaga/dvesha again leading to increasing your own karma bag.
4. Avoid unnecessary words and empty speech. This helps us maintain silence of the mind. Remember, silence of our minds depends on how few words we utter or even think about.

If we make a strong sankalpa to follow these 4 principles, we will have attained a certain level of purity of speech. The Art of Silence course helps go deeper on this path because for 4 days you completely drop speech from your lips, from eyes and from the mind. You experience a deep inner silence which is not possible in a normal day to day life!

Remember, silence of the mind is invaluable! All the riches of the world are dust before a silent mind…. It is the highest treasure that a human can attain…. So if you must strive for anything, strive to be ‘hollow and empty’!