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Methods for Achieving a Silent Mind During Meditation · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Bringing the mind to a state of quiescence is essential for the
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  practice of meditation. Once an individual is able to
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  achieve this state during meditation, it is a next step to
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  carry that silent mind into the external life.
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  People frequently ask how it is possible to have a silent mind
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  at any time or under any circumstances.
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  They are used to looking at the mind as a factory of thoughts,
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  and believe that the thoughts are created and disseminated
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  from there. What they soon find out as they
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  deepen the meditation practice is that the mind is not a
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  creator of thoughts, but a receiving, transmitting device
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  that captures thought forms from outside, processes them
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  internally and retransmits them, possibly with some modification
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  or adjustment, but frequently exactly as they were received.
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  This insight makes the attainment of the silent mind
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  feasible and something the seeker can accomplish through
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  systematic use of one of the proven techniques.
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  It should be noted that Swami Vivekananda also provides
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  another clue that can be extremely helpful for the
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  seeker. He points out that there is a
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  direct link between the breath and the mental being.
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  By seizing control of the breath, the seeker can readily
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  prepare the mind for achieving a quiet state.
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  That is then useful for practising the more definitive
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  techniques described by Sri or Ovindo, whose own experience of
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  the silent mind has been described by him elsewhere.
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  When the mind falls silent, it is able to receive the
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  inspirations, intuitions, insights from higher levels of
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  consciousness that replace the ordinary traffic that occurs
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  based on the energies associated with mind, vital and body that
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  are the normal processes that occupy the mental space, Sri
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  Robindo observes. Quote.
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  If the difficulty in meditation is that thoughts of all kinds
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  come in, that is not due to hostile forces, but to the
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  ordinary nature of the human mind.
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  All Sodaks have this difficulty, and with many it lasts for a
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  very long time. There are several ways of
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  getting rid of it. One of them is to look at the
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  thoughts and observe what is the nature of the human mind as they
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  show it, but not to give any sanction and to let them run
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  down till they come to a standstill.
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  This is a way recommended by Vivekananda in his Raja Yoga.
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  Another is to look at the thoughts as not one's own, to
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  stand back as the witness Purusha and refuse the sanction.
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  The thoughts are regarded as things coming from outside, from
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  prakruti, and they must be felt as if they were passers by,
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  crossing the mind space with whom one has no connection and
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  in whom 1 takes no interest. In this way it usually happens
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  that after a time the mind divides into two, a part of
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  which is the mental witness, watching and perfectly
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  undisturbed and quiet, and a part which is the object of
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  observation, the procrity part, in which the thoughts cross or
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  wander. Afterwards one can proceed to
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  silence or quiet. The procrity part also.
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  There is 1/3 an active method by which one looks to see where the
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  thoughts come from and finds they come not from oneself but
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  from outside the head as it were.
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  If one can detect them coming, then before they enter they have
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  to be thrown away altogether. This is perhaps the most
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  difficult way, and not all can do it, but if it can be done, it
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  is the shortest and most powerful road to silence.
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  End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga,
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  Chapter 3 in difficulty, pages 40 to 41.