This blog has been under a long silence. It is not surprising to me because there are breaks in life and sometimes they are short and sometimes they are long, very long. But what really is Silence?
Is it that you don’t speak any word and that means silence? Or is it that you don’t express anything and that is silence? or does silence mean no noise or no sound? So is that the way this blog has been under silence? But if that is the case, why do I still get hits and some people read it and even leave comments? Just because I didn’t blog for a while, did this blog stop expressing? It was silently expressing. It had nothing new, but its past has been reverberating the walls of blogosphere for a while.
Why am I saying all this?
It is difficult to explain and express Silence in a few paragraphs, but I am attempting this here. I don’t care if this attempt fails miserably, because I have already agreed that it is difficult to explain silence.
When you stop speaking for a while, you slowly start seeing and feeling your body even more than when you speak. You start performing activities with your body by paying attention to your body. But a lot of times this attention span can fluctuate. Sometimes you concentrate very well, like when you are out on the street to take some photographs, but sometimes you just do certain things for the sake of doing like filling a document at work.
Why is this difference?
The difference is our mind. Our mind naturally tends to move towards something that we desire, something that we like, something that we love. So if you love photography, you work with all your senses, mind and heart that your body responds to it automatically. But when you do something that you don’t love, you leave it to the brain while your mind wanders. Mind is a thought machine that can keep running infinitely like a never ending Indian Soap serial. Your mind will think about anything from next meal to the next movie that you will watch.
So if your mind keeps working after you stopped speaking and after your body is done with its activities, is that really silence?
No, if your mind is working out thoughts constantly, it means it is not observing silence. Mind is a part of you that also needs to rest like any other part of you. Mind has to be silenced as well. So, we sleep and we feel great the next day. Sometimes even as we lie down and sleep we keep having dreams and nightmares and we are not really in a sleep state. We end up waking with a bad headache or perhaps wanting to curl back and sleep more.
Silence is thus the state when all of your words, actions and thoughts completely stop.
What would that feel like? For a person like me, it is very difficult not to think. I just keep thinking one thing or the other. How else do you think I come up with such stupid blog posts! A lot of books and resource on the internet can help you find the definition but Silence can only be explained by experiencing it.
If you go by the definition for Silence that I gave above, you can look for it within you and try to find it. Because, in silence there is peace. Your mind is not working, especially not working conflicts of decisions coming from head and heart, which is probably the worst battle that Humans ever fight. The fight within.
How do we stop it and how do we experience it?
The answer is you don’t try to stop it. Because if you try to stop it will come back again with more power and more variations. It is practically uncontrollable by your force. So the answer is find the gap between words, actions and thoughts.
- When you speak, take a pause between a sentence or a few words and enjoy that pause. There is silence in it. Because when you pause your speech there is a tiny moment of blankness before you restart your thoughts, form the words and speak.
- When you perform an action, pause between steps and relish that pause. There is silence in it. For when you stop your action, there is a tiny moment of blankness before you work your mind again and go to the next step.
- When you think, pause between thoughts and meditate on that. There is absolute silence in it.
That is real Silence. The Silence within you. And when you experience it more and more you can feel the silence lengthening and it will give you new thoughts that give answers to your problems and probably a solution to put your thoughts to rest, probably a solution for the problem you were thinking about.
Ever wonder why you feel so great when you listen to some great music? Your conscious mind stops having thoughts and starts loving the music. The silence in you lengthens causing you to be more at peace. This applies to all things you love. When you do what you love, you do it with very less thinking because everything that you want to do just comes to you with no effort. You exert no additional force to think, you just let it flow. You only think that you are thinking while in fact your mind is actually allowing free flow of creative thoughts through the gaps of silence.
A lot of answers can actually be found by feeling that gaps of silence. Experience that silence, that is real silence. External silence is temporary, internal silence is with you all the time even when they are playing loud devotional songs with jarring speakers in your street.
Silence is indeed Golden.
This is just a summary of message that I inferred by reading from a few resources. This is not mine, but this is everyone’s!
Commentakshari
Did you like to play Antakshari while going on a trip during school or college? We used to love it because, whenever we cannot think of a song for a letter, we just sing “Tunuk Tunuk Tun, Tunuk Tunuk Tun, Tunuk Tunuk Tun, Tanana!”.
This particular tag reminds me of that game, where you sing a song starting with a letter the previous person ended with. The rule of this tag is similar to this:
You are assigned a letter by the person, when you leave a comment and the person has to write 10 things you like, that starts with that letter.
I am assigned the letter ‘R’ and these are the 10 words I like that start with R.
RAIN
I love the smell of the ground when the first drops of rain fall. I love the rain that falls for an hour and disappears after that to reveal a mild sun through the clouds. It is a very pleasant feeling. It is like the nature wanted me to cool down for a little bit.
RISK
Sometimes you need to take risks to get what you need. While I don’t like to call myself a big risk taker, I like to take risks when it really matters, when I feel that I am supposed to take that risk.
RIVER
It is a unique property of water to blend with the shape of its surrounding. When water flows in the plains over sand, rocks and plants, a beautiful phenomenon called the River is formed. The sand and rocks might not be beautiful by itself, but when the water drapes around it to form the River, it is simply amazing.
REFINE
There is always room for improvement. So, I keep myself open and refine as and when I can.
REFRESH
A nice calming cool shave and a face wash or warm shower or a evening cup of tea is always refreshing. But refreshing is more than physical. So I like to empty my mind of whatever I have been thinking once a while, that way I can allow fresh thoughts to emanate. That doesn’t mean I forget, it is just that I clear my cache and browser history and start afresh once a while. It is refreshing and I like that.
RESOLVE
A problem has to be resolved and I like it when I have to resolve. I do not like it when I don’t resolve or if it doesn’t get resolved.
RANDOM
Because everything around us seem to happen in a Random fashion. I like Random and I dislike it at the same time and that makes that word very special.
RAILROAD
I like to look at the rails during the train journey. I like the way it splits and joins. It is like, it is alive and does all this as the train moves.
RESPONSIBLE
If I take a task, I like to take the responsibility of doing it on myself. That is the only way I can do it whole heartedly and give my best.
REJECT
It is not a very positive word. But it can be of tremendous importance when used in the right sense. The challenge of creating something is not in knowing what you need, but in rejecting all that you do not need. Once you master the art of identifying and rejecting what you do not need, you will be able to create what you need. I am not a master at this, but I try to do this.
Now, It is your turn. If you would like to play “Commentakshari” you can pick the starting letter of the word from your comment number. For example, if you are the 3rd commentator, you can pick the first letter of the 3rd word in your comment. If you do not have a blog, you can write your words in the comments section. If you do not like to play “Commentakshari”, you can comment on my post but you are free to reject it and move on.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!