The secret that silence is the most necessary requirement has been known down the ages ; hence people have escaped from the world thinking that it is impossible to be silent in the world . That was an absolutely wrong conclusion , the wrong logic , because silence has nothing to do with the outside world .

It is something inner . You can grow it anywhere can go to the mountains but your mind will be the same ; it will play same games , or even more in the mountains because there you will have nothing else to do , so all the energy will available to the mind .

In the monasteries , in the deserts , in the mountains , the mind becomes more dominant than in the marketplace , than in ordinary life . Hence my insistence is that no sannyasin should leave the world . It the right place to attain silence . One has to learn the art ; escaping is not going to help . If you have cancer , escaping to the desert won’t help . You have to go through the treatment – through surgery , medicine – because the cancer will go with you wherever you go . And the same mind will follow you anywhere .

So the question is not of changing places on the outside , but of changing the inner attitude , approach , the inner gestalt . Once you change the inner gestalt , the outside noise enhances your silence , it does not disturb it . It is not a nourishment .