Quietest Person In The Room

You may have heard the saying 'the quietest person in the room is often the smartest one'.  Or 'the quietest person in the room is usually the best listener'.  Or 'the best ideas are not necessarily the loudest ones'.

What holds true for our social and even professional landscape, also holds true for our inner landscape.  The quietest aspect of our selves carries our intelligence.  The aspect of the self that is still and silent holds our bliss.

However we are primarily accustomed or programmed to paying attention to that which is pronounced, physically or verbally pronounced.  We are accustomed to paying attention to that which makes itself known through some form of movement, be it physical, mental or emotional movement.  And if that movement carries any degree of agitation or unrest, we are utterly captivated. 

The body in any given moment is known to us through so many degrees of movements: circulatory, respiratory, digestive, excretory, reproductive, etc.  The body is a Netlfix series of its own.  With back to back episodes lined up for us lending one to continuously inquire "Whats happening now?!"  While the psyche is known to us through the movements of feeling, wanting, having, etc.  Our intellect is known to us through the movements of reasoning and judging.  But then our innermost layer, that which is our core, is least known to us because we cant observe it through any movement.  Because we cant even apply a verb to it.

When the spiritual masters speak of this layer, they say there is no 'trying to be' just 'beingness'. There is no 'is it this or is it that',  just 'isness'.

To this end the lack of movement, this stillness, throws us off quite a bit.  In the same manner we are thrown off by the quiet person sitting at the conference table or at the dinner party, finding them unsettling.  In the same way we are at first thrown off by the stillness and silence we encounter in oursleves in our meditation practice.  Bewildered we direct our attention back to the loudest person in the room.  We direct our attention back to the loudest ideas of the moment: the body's craving for a latte, the psyche's desire to be entertained, etc. 

We turn back to the movements and away from the stillness that seems to want nothing at all, need nothing at all, is complete in itself.