Moun Vrat: understanding the ancient Indian practice of conscious silence for mental discipline and inner awakening

Abstract

In the present age, where a person is hardly ever away from sound, screen or speech, the old Indian discipline of moun, that is, conscious silence, asks to be looked at again. Moun vrat is generally taken to mean a vow of not speaking for some fixed period, yet this paper submits that its real depth lies in the mind, and not merely in the mouth. The present study, written from an Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) standpoint, explains moun vrat as a method by which a sadhaka, or practitioner, learns to stop the wastage of pranic energy that happens through unnecessary talking, and turns his attention from the outer world towards the inner one. The paper draws upon the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, and the well-known spiritual memoir Autobiography of a Yogi, to bring out three working methods of moun sadhana, namely single-point focus, witnessing of thought, and the realisation that restless thinking serves no purpose. A short comparison is also made with related ideas found in Buddhist and modern psychological literature, to show that this old Indian insight is not out of step with present-day understanding of the mind. The paper closes by holding that moun vrat is not an escape from the world but a quiet doorway towards a calmer and more aware living.

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