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A Quiet Mind or a Silent Mind · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  A relatively small number of people attend to the quality or
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  texture of the mind. People tend to identify with the
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  sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts and reactions that take
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  over the mind stuff. We become angry and identify
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  with that movement so closely that we do not normally observe
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  the anger, but we are the anger. We don't observe the sensation
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  of heat or cold, hunger or thirst, but rather we identify
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  with them. For those who are able to step
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  back and observe the mind stuff, regardless of the modifications
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  that it undergoes as these impulses play upon it, they can
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  observe that the mind may be agitated, it may be excited, it
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  may be dull or cloudy, it may be calm, attentive, or focused.
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  These states of the mind stuff are independent of the actual
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  movement of thoughts, feelings, or sensations into and out of
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  the mind. They represent an opportunity
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  for the spiritual practitioner to separate himself from the
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  external reactions and begin to work on developing mental
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  receptivity, clarity, and focus as the basis for spiritual
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  development. An early stage of this practice
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  involves achieving a status of calm or quietude that aids the
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  seeker in maintaining some distance from the modifications
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  that occur. He can observe and he feels
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  separate from whatever occurs on the surface.
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  It is easy to fall into the modifications.
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  Someone says or does something we don't like and immediately we
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  react. We may argue, we may fight, we
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  may get depressed or discouraged.
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  Circumstances don't turn out the way we expect and we may lament
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  our fate. A loved one dies and we fall
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  into a deep state of grief which can last for a long period of
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  time, depressing the life energy and interest in things.
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  We may enter a competition and let our fixation on winning
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  create an aggressive pattern in the mind.
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  Jealousy, envy, fear, greed, anger, lust, hatred, ambition,
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  joy, pleasure, pain and many other modifications of the mind
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  stuff carry us away. For the individual who has
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  achieved a basic state of calm, a quiet mind, he can mitigate
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  the impact of many of these modifications and take a
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  balanced and peaceful attitude to everything that comes to him.
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  A further status is one of silence, where the mind
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  essentially becomes still and devoid of modifications.
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  Srioro Bindo described his own experience with the development
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  of silence of the mind when he was able to observe the thoughts
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  coming in from outside, from the universal nature, and he was
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  able to simply reject them as they tried to enter.
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  For practitioners of the Integral Yoga, it is a well
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  known and described phenomenon that there is a descent of a
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  palpable force from above, sometimes felt as a drilling
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  down into the skull, sometimes as a vast peace that descends,
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  and when that status is established in the mind, a total
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  silence reigns. Fioro Bindu observes quote.
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  The first step is a quiet mind. Silence is a further step, but
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  quietude must be there. And by a quiet mind I mean a
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  mental consciousness within which sees thoughts arrive to it
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  and move about, but does not itself feel that it is thinking
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  or identifying itself with the thoughts, or call them its own
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  thoughts. Mental movements may pass
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  through it as wayfarers appear and pass from elsewhere through
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  a silent country. The quiet mind observes them, or
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  does not care to observe them, but in either case does not
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  become active or lose its quietude.
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  Silence is more than quietude. It can be gained by banishing
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  thought altogether from the inner mind, keeping it voiceless
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  or quite outside, but more easily it is established by a
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  descent from above. 1 feels it coming down, entering and
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  occupying or surrounding the personal consciousness, which
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  then tends to merge itself in the vast impersonal silence.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo, Bases
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  of Yoga, Chapter 1, Calm, Peace and Equality, pages six to
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  seven.