The Silence of God's Presence: Cooking and Eating

So, I've been using this metaphor of cooking your food and eating it. Using this metaphor of cooking the food and then eating it, both aspects are important. So suppose that our pathway is inquiry or our pathway is prayer, then many times what some of us end up doing is that we feel that, 'Oh, just to say Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?' You then finish saying that and then prayer is over or inquiry is over. And some of us feel that just by taking the name of God, 'Ram, Ram, Ram,' it's very beautiful, but we feel like that end of that is the end of the process. But we forget about what you said, which is the 'keep quiet' part. That is the eating the food.

Have you seen what happens to you after a few minutes of inquiry or after one mala of prayer? We are able to keep quiet, able to keep quiet. And in that quiet, we come to that prayer of quiet, which is the open and empty. When we come to His presence, we will not be talking. We will not be talking. It'll be such an awesome, or it is such an awesome experience, or beyond experience, that we are awestruck and we're not able to speak. So whichever way you look at it. And last time I was talking about this, initially it may feel like I'm cooking for most of the time, 95% of the time, and I'm getting to eat only 5% of the time. It's like an Indian meal; we spend a lot of time cooking, but the eating is very fast. But you have to make that a European meal where...

Talking, we will not be talking. It'll be such an awesome—or it is such an awesome experience, or beyond experience, that we are all struck and we're not able to speak. So whichever way you look at it. And last time I was talking about this: initially it may feel like I'm cooking for most of the time, 95% of the time, and I'm getting to eat only 5% of the time. It's like an Indian meal; we spend a lot of time cooking but the eating is very fast. But you have to make that a European meal where not so much time is spent on cooking, but then you eat at leisure, you talk to family, you do all of that during eating time. So in the same way, we have to—our Grace brings us to that, you see. Otherwise what happens initially, when we're not used to it, we are not able to sit quiet for more than a few seconds. Then as we grow in that, that few seconds becomes a few minutes, then that few minutes becomes an hour, maybe more than an hour, you see. Just sheer silence. And that silence is not a silence of absence; it is a silence of presence. If you are truly eating God, truly eating God's presence, we are truly tasting God. And because in that communion words are not needed, it's an exchange, a pure exchange of love, till there is no exchanger and exchanged left. It is a sheer unitive recognition. So more and more our prayer becomes just that: keeping quiet, just that open and empty.