Sound of Silence

We do not have to be musicians to differentiate between sound and noise. If we pay attention to any piece of music that sounds appealing to our ears, we can notice the moments of pause or silence that make the music alluring. This holds true even for words that come out of our mouth. While some “smart” people struggle to exercise silence despite the need, leading to constant eruption of words either in the form of unsolicited advice or opinion, which often turns into verbal diarrhea, at least our “smart” phones come with a “silent” mode option. Now, what is this “silence” all about? Is it nothing or everything? I find “silence” strongly reduces the background noise, enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio. Thus, helping us to catch the signals or clues that are otherwise suppressed under the noise.

Now comes the bigger question. How to get into that “silent” mode? Are we truly quiet when we are quiet? The answer is mostly NO. Albeit ideally our thoughts should precede our speech, we often reverse the order. Therefore, either we are busy talking or we are busy thinking what we shouldn’t have talked about. Here comes the art of “meditation” to take us to that “silent” zone. However, if you are one of those who once attempted to get a yoga mat and tried sitting down on it with your legs crisscrossed, keeping your spinal cord at 90 degrees from the floor and expected to get into that zone of enigma as soon as you closed your eyes after couple of deep breaths, you probably know it does not work like that. Then how does it work? To my understanding, meditation is not just sitting down with your eyes closed, it’s a lifestyle that we follow throughout the day. As we cannot expect our digestive system to go to rest as soon as we stop eating, shutting our eyes and mouth cannot put our mind to pause at once. Holding to the same example, the amount of work that needs to be done by our digestive system before coming to rest is dependent on the kind of food we bring to it. In the same fashion, the amount of time a mind may take to come to rest or become silent, is also dependent on the kind of stuff we bring into its awareness. Usually, we tend to check the quality of food before eating by looking into the ingredients and often discard an entire packet if that falls outside the “Best before” period, which does not necessarily mean that the food is expired, still we prefer to make the best choice. However, interestingly, and surprisingly we barely check either the expiry or the quality of a content before bringing it into our awareness.  Consequently, our mind starts throwing up!

Every action that is done mindfully, being fully present is an act of meditation. Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, author of the popular book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” interviewed athletes, musicians, and artists to understand their feelings when they reached their optimal performance level. He aptly explained that optimal experience is a state when people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. Thus, the optimal experience that is expected to be gained through meditation can also be gained through our activities when we get completely engrossed in it. And when we are completely engaged into an activity our mind automatically goes to that “silent” mode.

As someone said “if you do not understand my silence, you will never understand my words”- for words can be misleading while silence can convey message with clarity once we learn to read it. So, let’s not be afraid to go to that silent zone, occasionally in complete isolation, leaving behind our gadgets, away from the noise of words, to delve into the sound of silence.

-          Soma Banerjee