Have you ever noticed that when we are alone with ourselves, our inner voice never stops talking?
Sometimes it whispers to us, sometimes it shouts at us, trying to set us straight...
Thoughts come and go, add to each other, branch out, multiply.
And most of the time, we try to find a way for ourselves, to live in the midst of that flow of thoughts.
The internal conversation that starts before we wake up in the morning, the worried voice asking "what will happen today? What's going to happen today?"
The anxious voice asking, the regrets that come on stage just before we go to sleep at night, the planning for tomorrow, the delayed sleep...
The mind is always telling us something
And most of the time we believe it.
But what if there was a way to just watch that voice like a movie, to remain unresponsive, or even to just notice it and pass by?
A space where we don't have to silence the thought,
where we don't have to fight it,
just watch it come and go...
A silence...
A silence between the thought, not the mind.
Not the clarity of the word, but the clarity before the word is born.
This piece came about as I was trying to explore that silent space.
It was not a question of "How do I silence thoughts?", but of "How can I watch thoughts as they happen?"...
Because perhaps what we call "me" is not the thoughts swirling around in our heads, but the awareness that watches them and tries to make sense of them.
Humanity has been circling around the same question for centuries:
"Who is speaking inside me, who is watching?"
"Which one is the real me?"
In order to trace this question, let us now take a look at the idea of the silent witness, who stands one step behind the voice of the mind, in the light of philosophy and science.
The Philosophical and Scientific Background of the Subject
Historical and Philosophical Perspective
Upanishads: "Sakshi" - The Silent Witness Within
The Upanishads, one of India's oldest texts of thought, starts from a very different place when describing the inner world of human beings.
They say that what we call "I" is not our thoughts, emotions or character traits,
because they are constantly changing.
Thoughts come and go.
Emotions rise and fall.
Today we are angry, tomorrow we are calm.
Today we are decisive, tomorrow we are indecisive.
If all this is changing, then what remains unchanged?
The upanishads answer this question as follows:
Sakshi. That is, awareness that is witnessed. (1*)
Thought comes, the witness notices.
Emotion rises, the witness watches.
Stories, fears, dreams pass, the witness is there silently, just observing what is happening.
This witness does not react, does not interfere, does not judge. Just sees.
Let us imagine a sky.
Feelings and thoughts are clouds moving in that sky. The shape, color, speed of the clouds change. But the sky does not change.
The witness is that sky.
Most of our problems begin when we identify with clouds.
"I am angry."
"I am inadequate."
"I am hurt."
When we say...
We think the clouds are ourselves.
The propanishads help us to remember:
"You are not angry. You are awareness watching anger."
"You are not thoughtful. You are the silent field that hears the thought."
This perspective is the philosophical basis for the experience we call "Silent Witness."
It's not about silencing thoughts.
It's about remembering where we can watch them come and go.
Silence is not inside the mind;it's behind the mind, between thoughts..
Simone Weil: Silence Is Not Silencing The Mind; It Is Making Room For The Mind
Simone Weil makes a very important distinction. The more we push it away, the more it comes back.
To be able to stop when the thought comes, without pushing it away, without identifying with it, but at the same time without giving in to it.
This is not passive waiting, but on the contrary, a state of awake and soft awareness.
Neither suppressing it, nor holding it, nor falling into the story.
Just being there.
True attention, according to Weil, is not controlling the inner world, but making space for it.
Silence here is not a void, but an opening.
Not a waiting, but seeing.
The mind speaks. Emotion rises. There is a vibration in the body.
And the witness realizes all this quietly.
Silence is not where thoughts end; it is where thoughts can come and go. (2*)
This is precisely what Weil says:
"Attention is the ability of the soul to remain completely open, without giving itself up to anything."
Silence, then, is not a void; it is a doorway to existence.
And perhaps this is precisely where what we call the "Silent Witness" begins to manifest itself:
Not because we have silenced the voices but because we no longer have to hear them.
Eckhart Tolle: "The field that notices the thought is before the thought."
Eckhart Tolle makes a very fundamental point when he talks about self and mindfulness:
We often identify ourselves with the thoughts that arise in our minds.
"This is how I feel."
"This is how I think."
"This is who I am."
But Tolle says:
The thought arises spontaneously. And if you can recognize that thought, then you are not the thought.
Because the one who recognizes something cannot be the thing itself.
He who recognizes anger is not the anger itself.
He who hears anxiety is not the anxiety itself.
It is not the inner voice that hears the inner voice speaking.
The thought appears in the mind.
But there is another place that perceives it.
Quiet.
Unjudgmental.
Not in a hurry.
This is what Tolle calls "Presence". (3*)
The moment we can stop for a moment and realize:
"Right now my mind is speaking."
The mind ceases to be an automatic flow, it becomes visible to us.
This difference may seem very small, but this is exactly where inner freedom begins.
Because in that moment thought no longer has to be truth. It just becomes a passing event.
Tolle's point in a nutshell is this:
"If you are not in the thought, you are looking at the thought. And the part that can look... That is the real me."
This is not the search for silence, but the realization that silence is already there.
The silent witness is not a state of consciousness created by force.
It is already there. The thought comes and goes. The witness remains.
Scientific Approach
Default Mode Network (DMN)
The mind's mode of spontaneous scenario generation
In neuroscience there is a brain network called "Default Mode Network" (DMN). It starts working when the brain is not focusing on anything, when it is resting, when it is sitting idle... In other words, when the mind is not doing anything.
There is something interesting about this network...
When this network is working, the mind does not stop, on the contrary, it starts talking more.
"I wonder how people see me?"
"Did I do it right today?"
"What if tomorrow is like this?"
"I wish I had said this differently..."
In other words, the DMN is the automatic storyteller of the mind.
It re-enacts the past, rehearses the future, sets up scenes with the inner voice.
The brain continues to produce scripts even when there is no real danger in the environment.
This is why in the shower our minds wander to past fights, when we go to bed at night plans for the next day fill the head, even when we walk an invisible monologue goes on inside us.
This is the work of the DMN: Self-generating stories. (4*)
But here comes the critical point:
When DMN is active, we get lost in the story. The inner voice speaks and we believe it.
The purpose of the practice of "Silent Witness" is not to turn off the DMN. It is to notice it.
Because the moment we realize that it is automatic, the inner voice ceases to be the absolute truth, thought becomes just thought, and we take a step back from the story.
This distance is where inner freedom begins.
The body is there. The thought is there. The feeling is there. And the watcher is there.
But they are no longer you.
You are the one who notices them.
Metacognition
The capacity to recognize that we are thinking
Scientifically, metacognition is the ability of the mind to recognize its own activities. (5*)
That is, being able to recognize a thought as a thought.
For example, the moment we say, "I have a feeling of anxiety right now," we are no longer anxious, we are aware of the anxiety.
There is a very thin but very big boundary. When we are in the feeling we say "I am worried." and it seems as if the worry is originating from us and integrated with us, but when we realize "The worry has come." and we just become the observer of the situation, we are no longer integrated with the situation.
This is metacognition, this little transformation.
When this capacity is active, two things become clear:
First, thought is just content.Think of it like a movie. Like scenes coming, going, changing.
The second thing that becomes clear is this: awareness. This gives context to the content.We can think of it like a screen or a television. A large space that carries the incoming scenes, that allows us to see.
Think of leaves flowing along a river.
The leaf is thought, the river is awareness.
We usually follow the leaves, we drift. When metacognition is active:
We are now seeing the leaves on the surface of the water.
The thought comes, is noticed and passes.
Awareness remains.
And this is a very critical threshold:
When awareness arises following the thought, the thought loses its power.
Because the thought is no longer something that defines us, that governs us, it is just a wave rising above us.
This is not to remain silent, but to return to oneself.
This is why the practice of "Silent Witness" is not to silence thoughts, but to remember their context.
Interoception
The mind notices, but the body confirms.
Every feeling, every thought, even every inner conversation has a reflection in the body. (6*)
In neuroscience this is called interoception.
The capacity to recognize signals from internal organs. Heart rhythm, breathing, muscle tension, chest opening, stomach knot...
In other words, mental processes are not only "in the head" as one might think.
The body is also constantly talking.
When you feel anxious, the chest tightens.
When we feel anxious, we feel a knot in the stomach.
When we feel angry, our jaw tightens.
When we feel compassion, we feel the chest expand.
When we feel trust, our abdominal muscles soften.
And we can notice that these sensations preceded the thought.
Thought is often the story written afterwards to the signal given by the body.
This is exactly where the silent witness comes in:
When we begin to hear the body as we watch the thought, awareness moves out of the mind and becomes a space that encompasses the whole experience.
When an emotion arises, we can now ask:
"Where is this touching in my body?"
This question takes you out of the thought and brings you back to the center of awareness. The reaction decreases. Distance opens up. Vision clears up. Right here, the silent witness becomes visible.
Because as the thought flows, as the body carries its echo, we are watching.
The watcher is the unchanging.
The watched is the passing.
And right here, the silent witness becomes visible.
The self does not contract; it expands.
When this distinction is recognized, the self is no longer lost in the story.
Social and Cultural Influences
Modern culture puts thought at the center when defining the self. As if man is the sum of what he thinks.
"What do you think?"
"What have you decided?"
"What do you want?"
"What do you plan?"
Even language tells us:
You are what you think.
When this happens, that speaking voice inside the mind gradually begins to gain authority, to dominate us.
The inner voice ceases to be just a stream of thoughts; it becomes our inner referee.
"You're making a mistake again."
"You should have done better."
"That's the way you've always behaved."
"You won't be valuable if you don't do this."
The older this voice is, the more true it becomes.
And after a while we begin to think that that voice
is our true self.
This is where the importance of the Silent Witness comes in
The Silent Witness does not fight that voice.
He does not try to silence it.
He does not suppress it.
Just watches it.
This state of watching softening
the absolute authority of the inner voice.
Because the inner voice is no longer the only truth.
It becomes just a voice passing through.
Thought says what it thinks, emotion expresses emotion, the body sends signals...
And we watch.
In that moment of watching we realize:
I am not the inner voice.
I am the one who hears the inner voice.
That is, the self does not contract but expands.
Real Problem and Solution Suggestions
Problem: Identification with Thought
We all have an inner voice. Because this inner voice is unique to us, because it is not heard by anyone else but us, we think it is our own, we believe everything it says, we accept it as true.
The more we do this, the more it speaks and this cycle feeds itself.
The voice of the mind grows larger and our inner space shrinks.
While this is happening, the pain comes not from the thought but from completely clinging to it.
Solution Suggestions
Just noticing without trying to stop the thought.
The mind will speak.
Thoughts will come, sometimes faster, sometimes more intense.
It is not a question of silencing them.
If we try to silence them, they become stronger.
Instead, we can try to just notice them coming and passing.
When a thought appears, we can say quietly inside ourselves:
"It has come... it is going."
That's it.
This helps us to stop the thought without pushing it away from within, but without identifying with it.
If the thought stays, it stays. If it goes, it goes.
We only see.
This is where the silent witness begins to reveal itself.
Micro-stop application
During the day, when we notice that our mind is speeding up, we can create a micro space for ourselves.
Just 2 breaths.
It may not even take 8 seconds.
If we take a breath in and notice...
If we take a breath out and try to soften...
This pause does not stop the thought. It does not "empty" the mind. It doesn't even change anything.
It just makes room for the witness.
That is, we would be saying:
"I am here now."
Such a small gesture can open the door to a great transformation.
Three-word inner sentence:
"I realize this."
No argument.
No explanation.
No persuasion.
This sentence allows us to move out of the thought and into the place that sees it.
When anger comes, when resentment rises, when the inner voice begins to speak...
"I realize this."
No judgment, no suppression.
No appropriation, no escape.
Just witnessing.
And the moment the witnessing begins, the thought can no longer be our master.
We become the seer of the thought.
We become the center in the midst of the flow.
This is where the silent witness opens.
I can't not tell you a moment from myself again.
I remember that for a long time my inner voice was telling me things like "no one really loves you, at the slightest misbehavior they will walk away from you and eventually you will be abandoned" and I didn't realize it, I thought it was the truth and tried to silence it, and the more I tried, the louder it got. There were even periods when I attributed possible arguments to it and even if I was wrong, I tried to justify myself by hiding behind that voice. One day I realized this, and I tried just watching that voice. It came in harshly, and after watching it for a while, it softened and finally disappeared.
And in that moment I realized that silence is not forced. It just appears spontaneously when you make space for it. My chest expanded. My breath deepened. Something inside softened.
Maybe your inner voice speaks different sentences...
But the mechanism is the same...
Whatever the thought says, we believe it.
This experience taught me that:
Silence doesn't come by force.
It just appears spontaneously when you make space.
I thought that if I analyzed this and shared it with you, my readers, it might be a balm for those with similar inner voice wounds.
Conclusion and Message to the Reader
Silence is not the absence of thoughts, but the lightness of not clinging to our thoughts. We don't have to be enemies with our inner voice or ignore it, if we manage to watch it as an outside eye, maybe we can create a more peaceful world for ourselves...
Then let this question come to you, dear readers:
The thought that appears in your mind right now...
Is it really you?
Or is it just a passing visitor?
Sometimes transformation begins not with big decisions, but with how we address ourselves.
In the next article, we will trace the compassionate will and explore the question "is it possible to change without hurting ourselves?"
Until then, stay in love, peace and awareness...
Source:
- Katha & Brihadaranyaka Upanishads.
- Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace Routledge, 1947.
- Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now. New World Library, 1997.
- Raichle, M. et al. "A default mode of brain function." PNAS, 2001.
- Fleming, S. & Dolan, R. "The neural basis of metacognitive ability." Neuron, 2012.
- Craig, A.D. "Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body." Nature Reviews, 2002.
