I have written a few notes on meditation, so tackling silence should be no problem. Or so I thought—until my fingers, poised on the keyboard, began fighting the majestic pull of silence welling up in my mind.
“Why are you doing this?” it chided me even as I managed the first sentence. “Haven’t there been enough books and articles already on the power of silence, its significance in our increasingly noisy lives, and other such?”
The questions gave me pause and I fell silent for a moment. But the answer as to why I must put down my own ode to silence had often hovered in a quietening corner of my mind—in several of those daily meditative sessions that have become an inseparable part of me.
I remember reading and reflecting on the author Vikram Seth’s reply to the question posed to him, besides other intellectuals and celebrities, by an Indian magazine: “What does luxury mean to you?”
You know how Mr. Seth responded?
He said, “A quiet mind.”
Vikram Seth is a highly recommended, prolific author but these are the only three words of his I have read: a quiet mind. And I don’t think I’ll ever need to read another one uttered or written by him to appreciate the depth of meaning this ‘Suitable Boy’ can infuse into his writing (though I’m not saying I won’t :)
Those three words—a quiet mind—have haunted me ever since. And as my experimentation with meditation reached its own gradations of quietude, I knew that this ‘connect’ was real.
There is a constant flicker of movement and noise in human life—and, thanks to humans, in animal life too. If you are stuck, like me and hundreds of millions others, in a messy, nerve-jangling city, there is no long-term solution other than to reverse-migrate to far-off, less-maddening places. That, however, may seem impractical, unviable or, to those currently in their city-addiction phase, downright silly.
Modern tools can of course give you some reprieve: for instance, recall the ad of that specialist glass wall or window showing a woman sitting by its side and peacefully watching the traffic pass by on the other side of the pane, promising to keep the noise out of your home. Or think of those noise-canceling cutesy earplugs. Or some other contraption perhaps.
But what of the noise in your mind?
I think meditation is a time-tested tool that can bring your chattering mind to silence’s soothing shores—and with a bit of nudging, help it drink the nectarine waters of calm. As I have written in my book, Strings of the Soul: “Meditation takes you away from the torrent of oppressive thoughts into the inexplicable joy of stillness.”
The stillness, the silence, the here-and-now nothingness that permeates everything that is or can be.
The quiet that gives you reassurance each time you run into its arms from the ever-chasing loudness. The silence that envelops you in its embrace of joyous wisdom.
Just as there are different types of meditation or meditative techniques, there exist several forms of silence—and their varying levels or intensities. Most of us may instinctively know the different types we practice or encounter in our daily lives, but American novelist, poet and psychotherapist Paul Goodman very eloquently described the nine kinds of silence in his book, Speaking and Language:
“Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy; the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…”; the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear; the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; baffled silence; the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos.”
(The above passage has been reproduced from a post by the curator extraordinaire of all things great, Maria Popova, from BrainPickings.org.)
I’m not sure if there is any sanctity to the number 9 but the idea is that there is a lot of breadth—and, in my experience, depth—to silence.
Meditation, in my humble opinion and experience, allows you to experience, evaluate and elevate all kinds of silence.
There is a constant interplay of speech and silence in the universe. Buddhist monks around the world, as well as mystics and yogis in ancient India, are known to have appreciated it and effectively used this seeming ‘duality’ to enhance their meditation practice.
Where does sound figure in meditation that is usually done with closed eyes in a noiseless environment?
Let us first look at sound from an ancient perspective. There are varying interpretations but, according to Vedic philosophy, there are four stages or levels of sound or speech. Ranging from gross to subtle, speech can be Vaikhari, Madhyama, Pashyanti and Para.
Vaikhari is represented by the spoken language or uttered words. Madhyama is the stage when the thought has formed in the mind and the object of the thought has been associated with it—but it is not yet uttered. Pashyanti represents thought-visualization in the mind’s intrinsic capacity; it is the level at which thinking “begins to happen” universally—regardless of whether the person is a speaker of Chinese, English, Sanskrit, Yoruba or any other language. And Para, which literally means “beyond”, is the highest, subtlest form of sound that is transcendental, bottomless, limitless, boundless…No, there is no contradiction there: highest in terms of its stature and subtlety; bottomless in terms of the depths from where it arises—pure consciousness or pure energy, take your pick.
It is at the Para level that even the best of scribes and the most accomplished of mystics fall short of words—for it is beyond words and can only be understood or experienced in the utmost meditative state. Acknowledging my own failure to describe it (more so perhaps because I’m still a novice meditator), let me dare say: It is silence incarnate.
In this backdrop of subtleties of sound, speech lies somewhere between the two ends of silence. Words, I believe, are conceived in silence and ultimately dissolve into silence: what remains in the interim is meaning—intended or perceived—in a given context and spacetime.
For the most part, we human beings hover between the most gross and the most subtle. Which is fine and has seen humanity through the ages. But this age—the iPhone-Android-Netflix-TrumpKim-Facebook-SUV-Airbnb-Alibaba age—is making mincemeat of our brains.
Take Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge, for instance, and his quest for silence amid the urban din. An NYTimes.com piece recounts how he went around New York City looking for quiet nooks and crannies—and, thankfully, he did find some. But that does not surprise me: as a (not-really-idle) flaneur, I have often discovered peaceful little oases ensconced within the chaotic sprawl of Delhi.
The silent sucker-punch for me in the story was the revelation that Erling, who became the first person to ski unassisted to the South Pole in 1993, disconnected the batteries from his emergency radio on the day he reached there—and he was there, alone, for FIFTY days.
How he narrated that quiet time to Steven Kurutz of NYT left on me an impression akin to Vikram Seth’s words. Here I’m reproducing the passage verbatim:
“When you start, you have all the noise in your head,” Mr. Kagge said, adding that by his journey’s end, “You feel your brain is wider than the sky. You’re a guy being part of this bigness, this greatness. To be alone and experience the silence feels very safe, very meaningful.”
In words like these, you see not only the letters of a learned man but you can actually feel the wisdom-soaked spell of silence.
It is my belief that if you try to listen to the sounds of silence, without straining yourself but just attuning to its inner rhythm, it talks back to you like a long lost friend.
Not everyone can bear silence for long, not always. In contrast with Erling, a correspondent of The Economist signed up for a seven-day silent retreat in a monastery in Mingaladon, Yangon, but lasted “a bit less than 70 hours.” Nevertheless, it was quite an experience for that correspondent, who came away wiser and produced a highly readable and insightful commentary on “the power and meaning of silence.”
Today’s connected age has, ironically, lost some of its connections to the essence of human existence and communication: silence.
Maybe it is time to speak up on behalf of silence. And the best way to do that is to be quiet more often.
So just sit down. Take a deep breath. Meditate if you will.
Quiet. Please.
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