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By V.Jayaram
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You can practice silence in many ways. Silencing your speech
(vac) is perhaps the easiest and the most well known. Silencing
your thoughts is perhaps the most difficult. In between the two
there are many other forms of silence which you can practice.
Life is noise. Activity is noise. The very process of living is
noisy and exhausting, both physically and mentally. We turn to
noise for distraction or to escape from boredom and the pains
and pressures of life. We become silent when we are tired or
feel oppressed and defeated by fate and circumstances. We cannot
live forever in a silent world. That is for sure. Enforced
silence which you do not appreciate is a kind of punishment. We
know how authorities use it under some circumstances to punish
people or break them mentally and force them into submission.
One may also use silence to express disapproval or
dissatisfaction. When people become angry or hurtful they stop
speaking to those who they presume are responsible for it. These
are negative ways of using silence to assert oneself or to
express one's negativity. I am not going to say whether these
methods are good or bad. It depends upon circumstances. You have
every right to turn away from people who you think do not
respect you, do not treat you well, resent you or envy you for
no fault of yours. However, there are better ways to use
silence to empower yourself. We will discuss them in this
article. We cannot also bear noise beyond a point. To know when
to remain silent and when to express ourselves or when to
practice silence and when to break it, it is the hallmark of
practical wisdom and we will also learn how to do it here and
now.
When you practice silence, you cease to be a source of noise.
You will join a select group of people in the world who value
deeper aspects of life and prefer to view life from the silence
of their minds and hearts as souls in awe and wonder. When you
fill yourself with silence, you move closer to the space around
you and in you. We ignore space all the time because we live in
an objective world. Space is such. It lets you in and gives you
space. There was never a time when there was no space and there
will never be a time when the space will disappear. You are a
temporary traveler in the vast spaces of the universe. In the
vastness of the universe, you have as much freedom as you can to
make the loudest noise possible; but in the end you know you
will end up in that silence only. Right now, you are enveloped
in space. You are pervaded by space; but you hardly notice it
because it is always silent. Remaining silent, it facilitates
the movement of sound and upholds all manifestation. Hence,
truly space is compared to Brahman, the Supreme Self. If you
focus upon that space instead of the objects, you will
experience greater peace within you and around you.
Focusing on
the space is the way of the spiritualist and focusing on the
objects is the way of the materialist. With wisdom you can
practice both. In your wakeful state your senses play with
objects. In your dream state your mind plays with virtual
objects; and in deep sleep you enter into that space where all
activity ceases to exist and you become one with the silence of
the space itself. That silence invigorates you and revitalizes
you more than all the food (sense-objects) you consume.
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