PREACHING FROM SILENCE

D.: Why doesn’t Sri Bhagavan go about preaching the truth to the people at large?
B.: How do you know that I don’t? Does preaching consist in mounting a platform and haranguing the people around?
Preaching is simple communication of knowledge and can be done in silence too. What do you think of a man listening to a harangue for an hour and going away without being impressed by it so as to change his life? Compare him with another who sits in a holy presence and leaves after some time with his outlook on life totally changed. Which is better: to preach loudly without effect or to sit silently sending forth intuitive force to act on others?
Again, how does speech arise? First, there is abstract knowledge (unmanifest). From this, there arises the ego which gives rise to thoughts and words successively. So then:
Abstract Knowledge
↓
Ego
↓
Thoughts
↓
Words
Words, therefore, are the great-grandsons of the original source. If words can produce an effect, consider how much more powerful preaching through silence must be.
Bhagavan answered those who doubted its utility that Realisation was the greatest help they could possibly render to others. Indeed, Bhagavan himself was the standing proof of this, as one saw from the numbers of people helped to the very depth of their being, lifted out of confusion and sorrow on to a firm path of peace and understanding, by the silent influence of his grace. And yet, at the same time, he reminded them that, from the point of view of knowledge, there are no others to help.

TEACHINGS OF RAMANA MAHARSHI IN HIS OWN WORDS