The Voice of the Silence

“Dedicated to the few real mystics in the Theosophical Society.”

With the writing of The Voice of the Silence in 1889, HPB introduces the sincere seeker and aspirant to the true purpose of life; the following of an inner mystical path to unite the incarnated soul to his or her own Higher Self – the true teacher or the Sat-guru.

Study of The Secret Doctrine and other spiritual texts gives us a rationale, a framework and foundation on which we can build an inner spiritual life. The mind and intellect needed to convince us to set out on this mystical quest, fulfilling our great spiritual destiny, our true purpose, to realize our unity with the Supreme. Filled with timeless imagery, “a spiritual classic of incomparable beauty and power,” we have here a writing quite different from what she had penned up to that time. From The Secret Doctrine we have the great Logos, the Divine Word, from which creation itself had sprung. The Voice of the Silence shows the way to come into personal contact with this Logos, this Divine Power, emanating from out the Supreme or Absolute realm, Divinity itself.

The first aphorism of Fragment I warns and cautions against the power and domination of our lower nature, that power which keeps us bound up in an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth or samsāra. With aphorism two of the same Fragment, she provides us with the key, the way to the attainment of our true mystical SELF – how to literally experience The Voice of the Silence, that divine emanation through which we may yoke ourselves ever inwards and upwards to union with the Supreme – through the supreme practice of meditation.

“He who would hear the voice of Nâda, ‘The Soundless Sound’ and comprehend it, he has to learn the nature of Dhâranâ.”

She further comments that Dhâranâ is the intense and perfect concentration of the mind upon some one interior object, (here the interior object is termed Nâda), accompanied by complete abstraction (Pratyâhâra) from everything pertaining to the external Universe, or the world of the senses.

Aphorism three onwards introduces the seeker to the inevitable philosophy of mastering, controlling and then stilling the mind – the only way in which we can experience our Divinity in a direct way.

The Voice of the Silence is the crown jewel of Theosophical writings, the very essence of Theo Sophia – Divine Wisdom – that WISDOM that can take us home.

Many see this writing as a Buddhist text – pregnant with its symbology – but its roots are far more ancient as it encompasses all the major teachings and tenets to be found in The Bhagavad Gita and the Sânkhya system of Yoga – one of the six Hindu schools of philosophy or shad-darśanas (darśana or “way of seeing”). It expounds the practices of Dhâranâ and Dhyâna to attain Samâdhi – also called the Samyâma – fully elaborated in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

In 1989 the current Dalai Lama wrote about the centenary edition:

“I am therefore happy to have this long association with the Theosophists . . . I believe that this book has strongly influenced many sincere seekers and aspirants to the wisdom and compassion of the Bodhisattva Path . . . I hope that it will benefit many more.”

The Voice of the Silence is a sublime treatise on meditation and contemplation, leading to a life of purity, service and the highest devotion.

Voice of the Silence – Free Download