Gautam Sachdeva

Hunting the Silence

This blog is based on a talk given by Gautam Sachdeva on 20 September 2026 at his residence in Mumbai.

A Way Out, in One Sentence

Someone asked me recently to give them, in one sentence, a way out whenever there is turmoil in their life: a challenging situation, an argument, whatever it may be. They wanted a practical way to find a way out while it is actually going on. No theory.

So I replied, “The way is called ‘hunting the silence’.”

Let Your Ear Hunt Out the Silence

If something is disturbing you, let your ear hunt out silence. Find that silence. If someone is arguing with you and you’re getting disturbed, shift the focus from the argument to the silence, which is the bedrock on which the argument is appearing.

You can do it now. While someone is speaking, hunt out the silence with your ear. Shift the focus from the speaking to the gaps. And not only in the gaps; even while the words are flowing, you can find the silence as the backdrop. You could call this a sadhana.

Watching the Thought Dissolve

When you shift the attention to the silence, things disturb you less. Even the thought of someone who has upset you — when it arises, watch it dissolve into the silence. Then you’re free of involvement in that thought for the duration of time.

The Death of the Thinking Mind

This silence is the death of the thinking mind. It is a refusal to engage in incessant thinking: permutations and combinations, cause-and-effect relationships, what I should do next, what I should say next.

Being Loving, Not Wanting to Be Loved

An American mystic said it very well:

“It takes too much effort to be loved, but it doesn’t take any effort to be loving.”

If one’s nature is to be loving — which is the child’s nature, which we all are right here, right now — no effort is required for that. The child cannot judge. That faculty has not yet developed.

The adult, in the process of judging, becomes me-centric, attention-seeking, and wants to be loved. And if it finds that someone is no longer loving it, it withholds its love from that person. So it’s a transactional give-and-take. It’s a barter system, a process of negotiating dualistic love, in which we are all trapped. The child is not trapped in that.

The Sun Does Not Choose

It is as absurd as the sun deciding to shine its rays on some people and not on others. The nature of Being, of Consciousness, is to shine. It is the veil of the ego, the darkness of the ego with its sense of separation and entitlement, which thinks it is in charge of shining the light. And so we get upset with some people in our life, approve of others, disapprove of another subset, and so on and so forth.

So basically, if you find you are disapproving of people, you are suffering. Let’s not fool ourselves.

The Ego’s Addiction to Suffering

Even if you are disapproving of someone who has wronged you, you are suffering, because that person hasn’t asked for your approval. That person is the way they are, the way God created them.

The ego does not realise it is addicted to suffering. It is an addict. It enjoys being the ‘poor me’, the ‘poor me and my story’. It loves it. Pure Being is not concerned with story.

The Burden of Memory

If you met someone in blankness, whatever they said, would it upset you? It is because you have become a hardened, encrusted ego with a sense of separation that you get upset.

If your memory were wiped out and you were placed in front of the person who upsets you, would you react? There would be no reference. So it is this burden of memory, of what people have done to me, that creates the suffering. It is the burden of memory glued to the sense of doership that we impose on people.

The One Behind the Many

When we rediscover this nature of seeing the One behind the many — that one God, one Consciousness, one Source — to me, that is bhakti.

It is a pointless bhakti if you’re immersed in bhajan, kirtan and puja, but have not figured out the puzzle of inter-human relationships; that is a one-sided bhakti: you and God, as per what you take God to be. But this is the real bhakti, the Advaita bhakti.

Have the courage to have that glimpse of Advaita bhakti in daily living. Then your bhajan and kirtan go on throughout the day. How can I have bhakti when I have inharmonious relationships? Bhakti is the love of God, and God is in everyone.

Are You at Peace?

Once again, the ego can fool itself into thinking it has reached the heights of bhakti and say, “Oh no, no, jnana is not for me. This is not for me, that is not for me.”

All right, ask yourself: Are you at peace? Ask yourself if, by and by, your relationships are becoming harmonious. Surely there will be exceptions to the rule; this is not a quest for perfection. But is the content of your Consciousness freed from hatred, malice, ill will, resentment, regret, pride, arrogance, guilt and shame?

The human being is the only species that has this gift of self-reflection and contemplation. Is it being used?

A Relentless Quest for Peace

So it must be a relentless quest for peace. For those on the spiritual path, whatever path they follow, whatever guru they go to, whatever kriya they do, it cannot be disconnected from the peace experienced in daily living. That is my view, because that is the only measure of your self-inquiry, introspection and contemplation.

For any queries or comments, contact Gautam Sachdeva at info@gautamsachdeva.com

    Read :