Silence
Being silent is the choicest suffering that you can inflict on someone. How often our loved ones resort to it, and disarm us.
When people harbour enimity against each other, the silence pricks; and when there is love between them, the silence soothes. It is said, "True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable."
When people harbour enimity against each other, the silence pricks; and when there is love between them, the silence soothes. It is said, "True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable."
Silence is called the great art of conversation. Thinkers are struck with its soulfulness and profundity. Story is told of Confucius that one morning he was accompanied by his friend's friend on a walk since the common friend, Confucius' daily companion, was unwell. On reaching the mountain-top, the only words this man uttered, in the entire journey, were, "How beautiful is the weather out here!" Confucius later complained to his friend that the man talked a lot and spoke the obvious! Confucius was trotting the mountain alone the next day.
There are occasions when silence comes to us naturally. But, we do not grace ourselves with this benign neglect and seek to run away from it. Why? Perhaps, we do not have the depth to contain it; perhaps, it reveals to us our shallowness, our inner ugliness; flinging questions at us, holding us responsible for all that we are. Silence betrays our reasoning as wishful thinking. It invades every corner of the heart that harbours a pleasant delusion, a comfortable lie that we tell ourselves to rationalize our unreasonable behaviour. Our 'alone-ness' takes the colour of loneliness. That's a pitiable state for a human being.
Silence also acts as a seeder of ideas. After the adamant noises of reason and emotion have quelled into silence, an idea that seems foreign and impossible finds an opportunity to evaluate itself against our deeper mental makeup. In that evaluation, the idea either gets deflected, or gets accommodated, or has us converted. That's why inspiration seems so sudden. Suicide seems so rash. Maybe that's how LGTB leanings also manifest. Beware of those ideas 😀
Mystics reckon silence as a powerful way of uniting with the Divine. The divine, they believe, communicates in silence. Silence best describes Him: the rest is a mere 'effort of speech'. The Zen mystics have called it 'one-hand-clapping'. I am reminded of Buddha: “Let your speech be better than silence; otherwise, be silent."
Mystics reckon silence as a powerful way of uniting with the Divine. The divine, they believe, communicates in silence. Silence best describes Him: the rest is a mere 'effort of speech'. The Zen mystics have called it 'one-hand-clapping'. I am reminded of Buddha: “Let your speech be better than silence; otherwise, be silent."
Comments
I can say this with confidence because, only twice in my life somebody has been able to express the true meaning and exercise of silence.
"Best friend is one who understands what you have to say; when you don't say a single word." This maintains that silence is powerful than words. The one who can understand this, is the one, who understands true communication between two souls.
Again, thank you very much for writing such a meaningful blog.