"What are the keys for the radical transformation of the soul? The first key, the first thing, is that people are not acquainted with their inner soul. How can we change that which we are not acquainted with? How can we become acquainted with our inner soul? You will be amazed to know that it is a very simple key through which you can become acquainted with the inner soul, by which you can know, recognize and see yourself. That key is silence.

"We are constantly so occupied within ourselves; we are so constantly entangled and involved in doing so many things. Because of that entanglement and because of that activity, we don’t have time to know what is inside us.

"When someone’s house is on fire and someone goes and tells him, he runs from the market toward his house. If I meet him on the way and greet him, do you think he will be able to stop and say hello? Tomorrow if I say to him, "I met you on the road yesterday and said hello, but you didn’t see me and didn’t stop to talk," he would say, "At that time my mind was so restless and occupied that I was just unable to see anything."

"When the mind is occupied within, it loses the ability to see and it is unable to rise beyond it. It is so absorbed in its own entanglement that it cannot see anything beyond that entanglement. We all are so tied up and so busy that there is not a break of even a split second at the mind level, there is no silence and no rest at the level of mind. Then how can we see ourselves?

"To see oneself, one needs to have a relaxed mind, and mind only relaxes when it becomes silent, when it becomes quiet. But we never become quiet. Either we go on talking to someone the whole day or we go on talking within ourselves. At night, we talk in dreams. This talking continues on and on. Our hands and feet become tired and they rest at night, but it is only the body that sleeps; the mind goes on working. The body takes a rest, but the mind cannot relax and slowly, slowly it becomes so busy and entangled that it does not have any ability, any energy to see what lies beyond that entanglement.

"Hence the first key toward self – transformation is silence – to turn one’s eyes toward silence, to take a few steps toward silence. And how will you take a few steps toward silence? If you can understand it, then it is very easy. There is nothing easier than this. In twenty – four hours of running around, you can find a few moments, a few seconds for it. You can find a small corner where you can let go of your mind in silence and peace in every way, where you can give it an opportunity and a chance to become silent.

"And I say to you that mind wants to become silent, the whole desire of the mind is to go into silence."
– Osho