Coming from a Hindu family, I’ve always been in and out of food fasting rituals. And I have to admit that I first gained a sense of the power of silence doing something unrelated to my culture. While watching Julia Robert’s movie, Love, Prey, Eat!
In 2020, I was influenced by my sister-in-law to actually try it out for myself. And from that, comes this post for you.
These are reflections after having completed two 50-hour intense silence retreats and practicing forms of silence independently at home.
What is a Maun Vrat?
Maun is a Hindi word which means silence. And Vrat means fasting. This is the literal meaning – to keep a vow of silence.
This entails completely unplugging and retracting from the world, to go inwards. Kind of like hanging a “closed for spiritual maintenance” sign outside your door, like the one below!
It is similar to meditation, but is not limited to closing your eyes for the whole period. Based on how you choose to execute this vow, you can add many self-reflecting aspects to your practice. I’ll be talking more about that in upcoming sections.
The idea of observing silence is ancient, and continues to be practiced by different groups around the world. But what is the purpose?
Let’s first talk about the benefit of any kind of fasting or vows.
When we practice conscious self-restraint, we begin to understand how dependent we are on the external. So, for example, when you do a food fast, here are a couple of observations you might make.
- You eat way more than you need to.
- Sometimes, you mindlessly pick up snacks or go to the fridge to clear a can.
- A lot of your time is spent in thinking about food, eating food, preparing food, etc.
- When you don’t eat, it becomes easier for you to get emotionally triggered and be short-tempered.
- If you fast long enough, once you do eat, you eat more mindfully and you end up eating less.
In the past couple of centuries, in a religious sense, fasting has become about pleasing God and getting your wishes to come true. As Conversations with God shows us, that isn’t needed. God isn’t conditional in his love. The fasting is more for you, than for the eternal, infinite Universe.
And in the new age, food fasting is often promoted as a good detox for the body. That is only a partial benefit of it. However, there’s a much deeper psychological change that unfolds when you stick to the practice.
And the same holds true for a maun vrat. You only experience the power of silence, once you put it into practice for hours at a stretch.
For instance, one of the benefits is experiencing a dopamine reset – being able to create more “pause” between your addictive and reactive tendencies. I love this video below that explains the physiological importance of a dopamine fast, when we’re in such an overstimulated world that has made it very difficult for us to experience stillness.
I find that observing silence is a great way to take care of the overdose of dopamine in our system, amongst other things.
Another benefit of conscious quiet time is really giving yourself permission to just BE.
A silence retreat, when done well, is able to invite your feminine energy out to play. It gives us a chance to stop hustling and give rest to the overworked aspects of our masculine energy. This helps create what I call, inner union.
While it’s important to be a go-getter and make the most of your time here on Earth, the practice of conscious silence is a beautiful reminder to help us see the importance of letting go and observing the Universe unfold. It’s an invitation to be in a space of stillness, one that brews gratitude, humility and brings the ego-mind in check by helping us see that there’s so much more to life than just our agenda.
And just like that there are many, many other rewards you can reap by doing frequent silence retreats, which I’m going to invite you to discover through your own practice. I also share my observations as I walk you through the steps for a maun vrat, in the section below.
My focus now is to share more details about what happens when you do a silence retreat as a beginner, including the challenges, so that you’re set up for success. Here are the different stages and ideas for each level of silence.
The Four Stages of a Maun Vrat & the Benefits of Observing Silence
First, let’s walk through the different stages of observing silence, and the benefits you reap as you pass through each stage.
Stage 1: Getting Started
Getting started with the maun vrat is as easy as dropping everything you’re doing and just sitting still, in silence. You may or may not choose to start with meditation.
When getting started, it can help you to focus on the breath, or on just observing your environment. You’ll be surprised how little attention we pay to the places we are frequently in. This is a great time to reorient yourself in your own energy and space.
In the first couple minutes of silence, you might find yourself scrambling to sit quietly and just ‘be’. It might even drive you crazy to realize how many thoughts are coming and going. You might find yourself reaching out to grab an object around you, or scratch a phantom itch on your body.
If you’ve been a meditator for a while, it could in contrast be easier. Either way, overtime, your body will get acclimatized and want to move less.
As you notice your energy slowing down and settling in, the first benefit unveils itself. You are beginning to calm down at a physical level. And your inner ‘fidget spinner’ is beginning to slow down.
As my spiritual teacher taught us, this is only the initial (but crucial) layer that has been covering your soul. When you can still your body and relax the breath without getting identified with them, you are able to be with your thoughts in a more focused way.
This technique of uncovering layers is called panchkosha viveka in Sanskrit, which translates to overcoming the illusions and coverings to witness the soul. You can read more about the different layers in this substantial article.
And if you persevere from a few minutes of sitting still, into around the half-hour mark, you’re likely to enter stage 2.
Stage 2: Lethargy
Eventually, as you keep observing silence, you may find the slumber phase arising. Your physical body is slowing down, and your heartbeat is as well. So, the mind may get a cue to shut down the conscious and take a nap.
One of two things can happen.
You will either fall asleep and wake up afresh, probably putting you back into stage 1.
Or, you will redirect this cue, and use it to enter a state of self-guided meditation (called self-hypnosis) and introspection. As that happens, you will enter stage 3.
Before we go to the next stage however, I want to touch upon this need for sleep. For most of us, the only time we allow ourselves to slow down is when we sleep. So, that’s the idea our mind will get when you relax your body so much. Then, it’s just about training the mind to understand this type of relaxation as a means to go deeper into self-awareness, and not as an indication to sleep.
Having normalized that, let’s talk about going deeper in the next stage.
Stage 3: Going Deep
This is the best part of observing silence, when you start making breakthroughs! I have a couple of tips lined up in the next section to help get you here faster. And once you do, here’s what to expect.
This is the perfect time to reflect on one’s karmic programming, to reflect on the different patterns that have led you here in life. It also becomes interesting to observe your body and the environment, purely from the angle of an observer.
You may find yourself rolling your neck and involuntary yawning as the body resists stage 2’s lethargy. Sometimes that yawn is actually just one of many weird ways the body is releasing old energy.
Sometimes instead of feeling sleepy, your mind may become active again and start racing with a different kind of energy – like bringing new insights to you to help you clean your actions. All of this is completely normal.
Just practice bringing stillness to the body again and slowing down your breath. Chances are that a memory or thought has triggered your nervous system and this “waking up” is your survival brain trying to help you fight off any threats. Here, self-regulation practices are super helpful to bring your mind into a feeling of safety again.
As you go deeper into self-introspection, it can be helpful to keep a notebook nearby and take quick notes (but not necessarily writing paragraphs) about your AHA moments.
In some silence periods, I’ve added certain dots about my behaviour that have left me humbled and brought back my focus on self-development versus finding fault in others.
By going deeper, it means you don’t want to stop at processing the subconscious or unconscious level thoughts. You want to guide yourself to ask even deeper questions about life, your purpose, your soul’s trajectory and so forth.
And then, as you sustain this momentum, to eventually reflect on the ego (the last layer covering your soul). Reflect and witness the dualistic nature, and gently move yourself beyond it.
Here, you will experience true SILENCE. This, my friend, is your soul.
Of course, this practice is the deepest introspection and it takes eons for us seekers to attain this enlightened awareness. But with one steady step at a time, and with repetition, you can detach from the outer layers, to fully embody your spirit.
Stage 4: Coming full circle.
You may waiver between the first three stages throughout the period of silence, which is pretty normal. Eventually, when you’ve reached a limit (maybe time, or just energetically), bring your practice to a full circle.
Without sounding too ritualistic, it is still important to maintain a decorum as you slowly come out of your silent period.
Instead of jumping to check your phone or calling a friend to talk about how awesome the silence was, try to extend the silence into day-to-day activities.
Some tips include –
- going for quiet walks, without music or a friend,
- eating a mindful meal and not watching the TV,
- cleaning up your space and giving thanks to the surroundings for facilitating your quietude.
Allow yourself to carry that calmness into your day for as long as you can. Of course, your environment might not always be conducive to this, but see if you can do small things that prevent you from jumping right back into the routine.
Ultimately our goal should be to maintain an inner silence and peace, regardless of how chaotic or fast-moving the world around us is.
5 Tips to Deepen Your Experience of the Power of Silence
You can login or sign up to access 5 in-depth, exclusive insights to help you create a powerful silence retreat practice at home. I cover bonus topics, such as:
- Your silence observing checklist of prompts & ideas
- Different ways to create a silence retreat at home that is as deep or light as your spiritual journey needs it to be
- Are silence retreats for everyone?
- Practice ways to reduce distractions and increase the focus required to practice silence
- Why is it so difficult to practice silence in the first place (if it’s our “first nature”)?
- And more.
By signing up, please note that you also get access to all the other exclusive content across the blog, invitation to our next, live monthly group call(s), a complimentary session with me, and some more awesome benefits.
Why is it so difficult to observe silence in the first place?
Unfortunately, we are 50 times more stimulated than we were just a few years ago. And with this stimulation and hustle culture, there is little emphasis on stillness. However, as more and more spiritual seekers like you and I understand the need for quietude, we are making our way into normalizing time for doing “nothing”.
Just like working out, this is a slow and steady journey for us to walk on. When I attended the retreat, I realized that I was probably only taking away a fraction of what my teacher had been showing to us through the experience. But even that fraction was valuable enough.
The same is for you – take your time in slowing down. Maybe just 5% more every time. And overtime, like those muscles pumping at the gym, your muscles for self-discovery will develop more and more capacity.
Should every spiritual seeker observe silence?
An important question that I get asked quite often, to which I want to answer with a lot of caution.
Many of the people that are on this spiritual journey have come from backgrounds of traumatic childhoods (and sometimes adulthood). In such cases, it can be overwhelming and dysregulating for our nervous systems to “be in the present moment”. Something I’ve extensively addressed in this article.
The point is that not every practice will feel safe or beneficial to everyone, and a silence retreat is definitely one of those practices that asks you to drop all the aesthetics of spirituality and just be with yourself.
So my two cents on this are that you should start in small doses. You can even consider joining a silence retreat in your locality first, before you try this out on your own. If you find that you’re elevated from the practice, bring it home. However, no, I don’t think every seeker should or can take up observing silence as a regular spiritual practice.
Listen to your intuition and flow with it. You know yourself best!
Concluding Thoughts
A silent vow, or maun vrat, when done right can be just as powerful as meditation. In fact deeper. It is a blend of mindfulness and meditation, giving you the luxury to be self-aware without necessarily sitting still the whole period or keeping your eyes closed.
As you practice hours of quietude, note down the power of silence in your life. And do let me know how it goes, in the comments below!
Vasundhra is the Founder & Writer of My Spiritual Shenanigans. After seeing 11:11 on the clock one fateful night, her life turned around. Ever since, she has been blending modern psychology and ancient spirituality, to help herself and people around the world elevate the quality of their lives.
Ready to take your healing deeper? Join her for monthly community workshops and/or for personalized 1:1 coaching.
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Skee says
Hey Vasu!
It was a beautiful article. I’ve observed that I naturally come into a state of stillness when I do the normal fasting. When I don’t eat food for a day. That makes my body focus its energy on just being and working on subtler areas of myself. I experience lesser energy to move throughout the day so I naturally remain still and do less physical work. That time I experience a refreshing of my mental state. Because of the fasting vow my food cravings go down and I use that time to focus on rebooting myself. I also feel the need to connect with people less and focus on consuming more spiritual materials. That time I dedicate for reading and my grasping power increases significantly.
I’ve tried doing maun vrats before but it’s like when I am done with people and want to give up communication to save my energy. Kind of like going in my own shell.
This was a good article and made me reflect on silence and I felt the need to incorporate more of that into my life.
Also a bonus confirmation to bring more silence into my life, I got the card “consciousness” which talks about being still and connecting with your higher intelligence and receiving downloads. I believe there’s a lot to come and I need to make myself still to receive this info. Thanks for sharing and writing this. 🤍
Nikita says
This article has cleared all the doubts I had about Maun Vrat. Thanks You for such a well explained article and thank you for sharing your experience. It truly is Helpful.
But as of now, I’m just intimated by this whole “Maun Vrat” thing so I think, I’m just gonna try it at my comfort zone for the very first time. I’m going to do it for a day and I’m not thinking of being so strict with my day. As I’m an introvert, I practice maun vrat unintentionally for an hour or so at times without even knowing it so I just wanna go for it and see how it goes but keeping some pointers in mind, the ones you mentioned above.
myspiritualshenanigans says
You’re very welcome Nikita 🙂 I understand that it can be intimidating at first and as an introvert i find being quiet easy too. So for us, it’s more important to practice having a quiet mind and not just quiet voice 🙂 all the best, do let me know how your first day of practice goes!
Abu Shadab says
Hello Vasundhra (Rockstar)!
What a meaningful article, calm above chaos. A dear friend of mine did something different to celebrate her birthday, along with her family she went on silence meditation for 3 days. I was surprised to say the least. But, then I realized how important it is. I made up my mind to practise silence, and guess what, I procrastinated to the point that I forgot about it.
But, your article today was a wake up call, I will certainly start with silence meditation.
You are, as always going an incredible job, and I feel blessed to have met you.
myspiritualshenanigans says
Thank you Abu! I’d love to know what you think when you do try observing silence! 💜