Yesterday I talked about people who are insecure and who need to satisfy their ego by living in an illusion in which they are strong and very sure of themselves. They don’t stop the whole day long and feel the urge to talk about everything even if they actually don’t know anything about it. They give advice for free and without asking. You will find so many people who do this. It is so unnecessary. And they do it because they are full of fear and complexes. They think that everybody else has to be smaller than them so that they can feel good. In this way they want to satisfy their ego. They will cut off your head just to be taller than you. They want to make everyone smaller. They will oppose you no matter what you say because they think they are great and want to feel greater than you. And so they are talking and talking to show that everyone is smaller than them.

Silence is very necessary. It is a jewel of life. We spend most of our energy by talking. Most of our energy is consumed by talking. I am not just telling things which I read in books. I have made this experience. I have been in silence and I have felt this. If we recorded everything that we talk during the day and if we listened to it afterwards you would hear that 70% of it was only rubbish. We could have spent the day without saying that and save the energy that we spent. I encourage everyone to spend some time in silence.

I have spent three years in the cave in silence. I do not ask you to spend a long time in silence but just try it one day a week. You can choose any day. Once a year you have holidays from work, you take a leave because you want to give some rest to your body and each week you have a weekend to relax. Maybe your tongue would also like to get some rest. Do this experiment and see how you feel after one day without talking. You will have saved a lot of energy and you will feel what I mean. You can use this energy for meditation, for your spiritual growth.

I believe silence is very important. I need it. I need to be in silence. It is also nice to be in discipline, to have one day a week in silence. But even if you do not do that, if you cannot or do not want to spend 24 hours without talking, I want you to understand the concept and then you can also save energy during your normal day. You should not need to force yourself, else you will lose energy in the effort of being silent. You can just try to talk less in your normal day. Leave away all the unnecessary talk and you will also save energy. When we practice the silence more, we can develop other ways of communication which can be even more effective than talking.

Today was a day off for the students. They went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and of course they enjoyed it very much. It is a wonderful place, also a place of love, a symbol of love.