The Wonders of Silence {Sanaatan Dharm Series}

The Wonders of Silence… the sheer magic, the simply sublime beauty of total silence is an experience that needs to be felt, so that its compelling hypnotic pull can be understood… a state of mind combined with an external environment that is totally silent, not a sound … fully complemented by an equal silence in your subconscious, and a state when that small voice in your mind says not a single word… oh, the lovely feeling of absolute silence… सगळी कडे फक्त शांतता... आणि आपणही शांत, आपले मन शांत, ह्यावर अंतःकरण सुद्धा शांत, काही आवाज नाही, ना आपल्या जवळपास आणि ना आपल्या मनात किंहवा अंतर्मनात...

डोक्यात काही विचार सुद्धा नाही... आपण संपूर्ण शांत, काही विचार नाही - काही इच्छा नाही, फक्त सर्वत्र पसरलेली संपूर्ण शांतता! ह्या जगात हा एक असा अनुभव आहे  जो कुठेही मिळणार नाही साधारणपणे! Not a thought in your mind, not an emotion, and certainly no feelings…. A situation when you are situated wholly in yourself, oblivious to everything around you… calm and at peace… with your mind, conscience, internal voice, the external world all going silent... that is the experience of this evening that set me thinking…

Sure, I couldn’t hold it for very long – but, for 7 odd minutes, for the first time in my memory, everything went silent. Not vacant – silent. Vacant could be from shock, or form depression; this was vastly different. For, I could still, in the midst of this mesmerizing silence and quietude, acutely note a strange, vague emotion. I cant place it precisely, not yet. But it was akin to peace, gentle and soft, a sense of being present, aware and conscious.

And from that silence, slowly rose a deep-seated feeling, a heaviness in the Chest region; a heaviness that brought with it immense calm. I couldn’t hold it; but in that moment, I understood what calm, peace, etc all mean – it is a state of existence where everything recedes into nothingness; your fears, ambitions, desire, wants, needs, ego – everything vanishes. What remains cannot be described; not by me at any rate.

The trick is achieving this amidst the noise of the external world; this is a state that is regrettably far from me as of now. My experience was in a relatively silent place, at night, under the wonders of the stars on my residence balcony. But even in this, I learnt something – when the sense organs are not so active, that is when the internal strengths come to the fore. Perhaps, that is what our scriptures mean when they say that the sense organs need to be turned inwards for true freedom. But more of this later, when my studies progress ahead much farther…

This is a true pleasure in this noisy, fast-paced world, where everything needs loud expression – be they sound, or sight, or smell, or taste or whatever. In the blissful silence, you come face to face with the real you… there only remains a feeling of a deep something,  a vague impression of something that defies easy description. And it leaves you feeling, for that moment, quiet, calm and… it also leaves you with a feeling of pure pleasure, of a kind that has no definition. I cant put it any better… again, the above may be confusing words; put that down to my internal confusion… for this is a true chronicle of my experience. Make of it what you will!