Question: Do you believe there is a great strength in stillness?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. Stillness is where we get the strength. The abode of stillness is in our higher mind or quiet mind. So if you can stay in that room, the quiet mind, then you can grow in stillness. It is stillness that creates. Creativity actually starts from stillness.

Even if one moves he may be still. I think stillness is like the eye of a storm, which is still, but around it, everything moves. I think also that artistic stillness, even if it has a lot of movement in it, has to be quiet at the centre.

Sri Chinmoy: Actually in Sanskrit, they say, “That moves and That moves not.” Actually stillness is moving all the time, yet it is not moving. “That moves and That moves not.”

Let us say that I am at the piano and I am moving my fingers, playing, but if I am a witness of what I am doing, the fingers are moving, but I am not.

Sri Chinmoy: True. You will see both action and inaction together. You will see that you are creating action with your fingers; at the same time you see the stillness that we are speaking of. It is just like the sea; on the surface you see the waves, but when you enter into the depths, you see all calmness. The deeper plane is that which moves not; the outer plane is that which moves. At the same time, you cannot separate the surface from the depth. In that way, your action and inaction go together. Action is on the outer plane; inaction is on the inner. That is why we say, “That moves and That moves not, at the same time.”