Language is only a medium for communicating one’s thoughts to another. It is called in only after thoughts arise; other thoughts arise after the ‘I’-thought rises; the ‘I’-thought is the root of all conversation. When one remains without thinking one understands another by means of the universal language of silence.
Silence is ever-speaking; it is a perennial flow of language; it is interrupted by speaking. These words obstruct that mute language. There is electricity flowing in a wire. With resistance to its passage, it glows as a lamp or revolves as a fan. In the wire it remains as electric energy. Similarly also, silence is the eternal flow of language, obstructed by words.
What one fails to know by conversation extending to several years can be known in a trice in Silence, or in front of Silence—e.g. Dakshinamurti and his four disciples.
That is the highest and most effective language.
There arose a doubt if ‘I’—‘I’ consciousness be the same as Nirvikalpa Samādhi or anything anterior to it.
Sri Bhagavan said that the tiny hole in the Heart remains always closed, but it is opened by Vichara with the result that ‘I’—‘I’ consciousness shines forth. It is the same as samādhi.
D.: What is the difference between fainting and sleep?
M.: Sleep is sudden and overpowers the person forcibly. A faint is slower and there is a tinge of resistance kept up. Realisation is possible in a faint and impossible in sleep.
D.: What is the state just before death?
M.: When a person gasps for breath it indicates that the person is unconscious of this body; another body has been held and the person swings to and fro. While gasping there is a more violent gasp at intervals and that indicates the oscillation between the two bodies due to the present attachment not having been completely snapped. I noticed it in the case of my mother and of Palni Swami.
D.: Does the new body involved in that state represent the next re-incarnation of the person?
M.: Yes. While gasping the person is in something like a dream, not aware of the present environment.
(It must be remembered that Sri Bhagavan had been with His mother from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. until she passed away. He was all along holding her head with one hand, the other hand placed on her bosom. What does it signify? He Himself said later that there was a struggle between Himself and His mother until her spirit reached the Heart.
Evidently the soul passes through a series of subtle experiences, and Sri Bhagavan’s touch generates a current which turns the soul back from its wanderings into the Heart.
The , however, persist and a struggle is kept up between the spiritual force set up by his touch and the innate samskāras, until the latter are entirely destroyed and the soul is led into the Heart to rest in eternal Peace, which is the same as Liberation.
Its entry into the Heart is signified by a peculiar sensation perceptible to the Mahatma—similar to the tinkling of a bell.
When Maharshi attended on Palni Swami on his death-bed, he took away His hand after the above signal. But Palni Swami’s eyes opened immediately, signifying that the spirit had escaped through them, thereby indicating a higher re-birth, but not Liberation. Having once noticed it with Palni Swami, Maharshi continued touching His mother for a few minutes longer— even after the signal of the soul passing into the Heart— and thus ensured her Liberation. This was confirmed by the look of perfect peace and composure on her features).