Within the context of Self-Inquiry as taught by Ramana Maharshi, silence is not merely the absence of speech or thought, but the very nature of the Self that the inquiry seeks to reveal. It is described as the original, ever-present state from which thoughts arise and into which they subside, a stillness that is full of pure awareness rather than a blank void. When attention is turned inward toward the source of the “I”-thought, mental activity naturally begins to lose its force, and there is a gradual subsiding into this silent ground. This silence is thus both the background of all experience and the living presence in which all mental phenomena appear and disappear.

Silence functions as both the method and the culmination of the practice. As a method, Self-Inquiry uses the question “Who am I?” to turn attention away from the stream of thoughts and back toward the awareness in which those thoughts occur. In this quiet, non-verbal attentiveness, thoughts can be observed without being followed, and the illusory solidity of the ego is exposed. As inquiry matures, the mind becomes capable of resting more steadily in this wordless stillness, and intervals of effortless inner quiet naturally lengthen. The deepening of such silent awareness is regarded as a sign that the inquiry is bearing fruit.

Silence is also regarded as the highest form of teaching. Ramana Maharshi held that true understanding is communicated most directly in silence, from Self to Self, beyond the mediation of concepts. Accounts of his presence describe a kind of wordless transmission into inner stillness, where the mind is gently drawn back to its source. In this sense, silence is not a technique imposed from outside but the spontaneous radiance of the Self, which draws the inquiring mind into its own nature. The same silent presence that operated outwardly in the teacher’s company is what Self-Inquiry seeks to recognize inwardly.

Ultimately, the culmination of Self-Inquiry is the recognition that this silence is the Self itself: the natural, unbroken state of being-awareness that remains when the “I”-thought has been traced back to its origin. This silence is alert and luminous, not dull or inert, and stands prior to all conceptualization. When the mind subsides into it, there is no need for further verbal answers, for the very searcher is resolved in the clarity of that stillness. Silence thus serves simultaneously as the ground, the path, and the goal of the direct way of self-awareness.