Eckart Tolle describes the stillness as a gateway into the presence: the stillness that lies behind all the noise and between the noises. All sounds come from the stillness and die into stillness. The outer stillness leads directly to the knowledge of the inner stillness: the stillness of the mind - the otherwise uninterrupted flow of thinking stops when we are aware of the outer and inner stillness. And we simply recognize the fact that we are noticing it. It is very simple.
To be aware of stillness when we meet it in life, connects us with the formless, timeless dimension in us, beyond thoughts, beyond the ego.
This may be the stillness that prevails in nature, the stillness in your room early in the morning or the stillness between sounds. Stillness has no form, so we can not perceive it by thinking. Thinking is form. To be aware ot the stillness means to be still. Stillness is awareness without thinking. You're never deeper and essential more yourself as if you are still. (Eckhart Tolle, A new Earth, p. 165 re-translated from German, to be replaced by the original text)
All sounds, we hear, in our minds become the things of which they come from. The mind responds fully automatic and classifies every sound, makes it a thought. An engine noise becomes a car, an airplane or a refrigerator.
Uninteresting noises as e.g. the refrigerator are no longer perceived, the brain sorts them as insignificant and no longer hears it, but the sounds are neverteless classified. For the mind there is no noise without a cause.
After having understood the explanations of Eckhart Tolle on silence I very quickly saw that the same descriptions are true to the energetic noise in the head. In fact, I hear this noise every time I listen to the stillness. The noise is not the stillness of that Eckhart Tolle talks of, because this stillness
is still behind the noise. The energy noise is as an acoustic band of life energy between the vast stillness of space and the sounds that come from the objects of the world. The energetic noise is the sound of stillness. It is clearly an audible signal, sometimes faint in the background, sometimes so loud that I can also hear it while listening to loud music in a car. But for the mind this noise has no own existence, it is not an object. There is no thing, with that this noise is connected, therefore, this noise is formless - up to the fact that it is audible. Since the mind does not understand this, it decides to ignore the energy noise. It just can not hear it - usually. And some who heard it spontaneously and do not know what it is, then believe that they are suffeing from "tinnitus". If they think that there it is an object from which these noises come from - the "disease", then they hear the noise constantly. It sounds absurd: Tinnitus is a disease, because the noise as called a „disease“.
And then these people really suffer. The suffering is real. The disease is an invention of the mind. (Of course, there is also - and this is more rare - the tinnitus, that comes from a nerve damage . These are very different - and dull sounds - not the high noise and ringing of energy in the head.)
The life energycan be heard as high noise as soon as there are no coustic signals, for example, in a soundproof room. In such an environment 95 out of 100 people hear this noise in the head spontaneously, which was showed in a clinical study. Just as many people can hear the noise of life energy if they guided, to listen to the high noise in the head in a peaceful setting.
To hear the energetic noise is very simple: you close your eyes and listen into your head, in the area between the ears. Then you'll notice a fine noise, first quite softly, but if you are listening, it becomes clearer and louder.
Once you have heared the noise of life energy it can also be heared behind all other sounds. We hear it as the gateway to the stillness, that exists behind and in everything. This noise is life, it has been no other "meaning". It is the same as the inner body, not perceived by the inner body perception, but by the sense of hearing.
Listening to the noise energy may be significantly easier than listening to the stillness, because if the noise once is understood, it can really be heard in any situation. It is just there and can no longer "off". (This is the fact the
"tinnitus" patients are very worried about. It would be beneficial for these
people to ask themseves why they hear this noise, while others simply can ignore it. The likely answer: to the people who hear the noise, the formeless dimension is so close that they no longer completely fall in the mind-dominated state of the object consciousness. Since they do not understand this condition, they suffer. In other words, the formless space consciousness wants to make itself heard.)
Only when we fall back completely into the inner thoughts stream the noise disappears from consciousness. Therefore, the energetic noise an ide-al meditation object: we listen to the noise and if we have fide-allen in thought, we note the fact that we no longer have heard it and just start new to listen. It is an ideal quality control during meditation, very stable and easier to apply as the concentration on the breath. This technique is applicable to Samatha (Shine) the concentration meditation, while the Vipassana Meditation (Lhagtong) can be practiced with the internal noise when it remains stable in the background of any other experience. Then the meditation no longer is dominated by the restrictive attitude in trying to isolate all disturbing objects.
Everything, every phenomenon in mind, then becomes a meditation object or otherwise: there are only two states: the unconscious normal everyday consciousness, in which the mind is identified with form and the state of meditation, in which the consciousness acknowledges itself.
This means that the teachings, that Eckhart Tolle gave us on the gates into the presence, are applied Vipassana meditation, in which the meditation as
"method" no longer occurs, because it has become superfluous.
Listening to the inner noise and the experience of the inner body are the same experience as I have said, only perceived with other senses. Therefore, when this connection becomes aware they trigger each other. I hear the noise and this leads me into the experience of the inner body. I yawn or shiver e.g.
from cold and this solves both the inner body as well as the perception of inner noise. They are functionally identical appearances of space consciousness.
In the esoteric teachings of different traditions listening to the energy noise served as a central practice, for example, Sant Mat,Theosophy and Eckankar. The Shurangama Sutra (Mahayana Buddhism) describes that the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Chenresig) has achieved enlightenment by
the practice of "listening to the not audible".
Any energetic experience, can be used as a return into the state of presence.
While the inner body is directly linked with the feeling - the feeling to be alive andto be a part of the all-embracing life, the inner noise is closely connected with the function of thinking.
The ego identifies itself with the brain. The normal idea of the people of themselves looks like this: "I" am in in the brain and all the rest of the body is „my body“. People have a subject-object relationship to themselves, see themselves as an object, and talk with themselves internally (or sometimes loudly). The inner noise is held at the same place: in the brain, in the area between the ears. By allowing ourselves to rely on the energy noise, we can clearly distinguish that experience from thinking, these are clearly very dif-ferent functions, both in the brain. If we listen to the noise the mind becomes still, the thinking is ceasing, and the change between thinking and listening is very clear way. It is the "off switch" for the thinking apparatus. But this turns on again and again, as long as we are not anchored in space consciousness. The beginning of thinking within object consciousness is completely unconscious. But to notice this, is a function of the space consciousness. It is very telling, to note how often we fall into unconscious thoughts. As we notice, however, we take energy from thinking. Thinking consumes a lot of energy, for the body it is no less demanding than physical work, the digestive system or the bloodstream. Physiologists say that the brain is one of the major energy consumers of the human body.
To use the interior noise as a gateway into the presence means to be aware of this process: to learn, simply to notice that I am not the function of thinking.
I am, what is living beyond the thoughts and even beyond the energy noise what is in the background and simply is aware of what is happening: the observer or the space in which things appear: sensory perceptions, thoughts and feelings. The noise is like a guide beam, an energetic link between the space consciousness and my physical form. I can think, but the entire complex space consciousness - energetic connection - physical form remains conscious. And that leads to thoughts that are now a reflection of space consciousness, that no longer induce unconscious thoughts chains. They are short, concise, fresh and new. I have often seen that this was so fascinating
and creative, that my ego again claimed attention and almost screamed at me: "This is important, you have to think about this! You must write that down! Do’nt again foget this! "I have often captivated, but with time I developed an attitude as compared to a niggling person, I kindly, but uncompromisingly tell that it’s not its time just now.
When you listen to the noise inside, then just change the inner point of view. Be aware of the one who is listening, be the perceiving awareness. It is a small shift of your attention: you listen to the noise and while perceiving also other things your attention is now on the perceiving consciousness that you are, ie you let your awareness not be drawn outwards by other perceptions.
You no longer react to other perceptions. You are aware of awareness, not only of the inner noise, but of everything that appears in the inner space.
Chapter 9