Learn to be Quiet and Calm From the point of view of individual development and for those who are still at the beginning of the path, to know how to remain silent before what one does not understand is one of the things which would help most in the progress -to know how to remain silent, not only externally, without uttering a word, but also to know how to be silent within, so that the mind does not assert its ignorance with its usual presumptuousness, does not try to understand with an instrument that is incapable of understanding, that it may know its own weakness and open simply, quietly, waiting until the time has come for it to receive the light, because only the light, the true light, can give it understanding. It is not all that it has learnt nor all that it has observed nor all its so-called experience of life, it is something else which is completely beyond it. And until this something else -which is the expression of the Grace - manifests within it, if, very quietly, very modestly the mind remains silent and does not try to understand and, above all, to judge, things would go much faster .     The noise made by all the words, all the ideas in your head is so deafening that it prevents you from hearing the truth when it wants to manifest.     To learn to be quiet and silent... When you have a problem to solve, instead of turning over in your head all the possibilities, all the consequences, all the possible things one should or should not do, if you remain quiet with an aspiration for goodwill, if possible a need for goodwill, the solution comes very quickly. And as you are silent you are able to hear it.    When you are caught in a difficulty , try this method: instead of becoming agitated, turning over all the ideas and actively seeking solutions, of worrying, fretting, running here and there inside your head -I don't mean externally, for externally you probably have enough common sense not to do that but inside, in your head -remain quiet. And according to your nature, with ardour or peace, with intensity or widening or with all these, together, implore the Light and wait for it to come.                                    * Someone has asked me what I meant by these words: "One must be calm. "     It is obvious that when I tell someone, "Be calm", I mean many different things according to the person. But the first indispensable calm is mental quietude, for generally that is the one that's most lacking. When I tell someone, "Be calm", I mean: Try not to have restless, excited, agitated thoughts; try to quieten your mind and to stop turning around in all your imaginations and observations and mental constructions.     One could justifiably add a question: You tell us "Be calm" , but what should we do to be calm ? ...The answer is always more or less the same: you must first of all feel the need for it and want it, and then aspire, and then try! For trying, there are innumerable methods which have been prescribed and attempted by many. These methods are generally long, arduous, difficult; and many people get discouraged before reaching the goal, for, the more they try , the more do their thoughts start whirling around and becoming restless in their heads.     For each one the method is different, but first one must feel the need, for whatever reason it may be -whether because one is tired or because one is overstrained or because one truly wants to rise beyond the state one lives in -one must first understand, feel the need of this quietude, this peace in the mind. And then, afterwards, one may try out successively all the methods, known ones and new, to attain the result.     Now, one quickly realises that there is another quietude which is necessary , and even very urgently needed - this is vital quietude, that is to say, the absence of desire. Only, the vital when not sufficiently developed, as soon as it is told to keep quiet, either goes to sleep or goes on strike; it says, "Ah! no. Nothing doing! I won't go any farther. If you don't give me the sustenance I need, excitement, enthusiasm, desire, even passion, I prefer not to move and I won't do anything any longer ." there the problem becomes a little more delicate and perhaps even more difficult still; for surely, to fall from excitement into inertia is very far from being a progress! One must never mistake inertia or a somnolent passivity for calm.     Quietude is a very positive state; there is a positive peace which is not the opposite of conflict -an active peace, contagious, powerful, which controls and calms, which puts everything in order, organises. It is of this I am speaking; when I tell someone, "Be calm", I don't mean to say "Go and sleep, be inert and passive, and don't do anything", far from it!... True quietude is a very great force, a very great strength. In fact one can say, looking at the problem from the other side, that all those who are really strong, powerful, are always very calm. It is only the weak who are agitated * CWM Vol. 9