An introduction to Silence

This was home. The dusty roads, the smell of incense sticks that make their way out into the streets early in the morning, women cleaning the front porch, splashing water on the ground and raising the dust, yet cooling the ground at the same time. The rays of the morning sun streaking through the trees, the sound of chanting and the ring of bells from aartis (a simple ceremony of lights), this was all familiar.

I had missed Bangalore and was returning from Seattle after a gap of almost two years. The city was augmented with new flyovers, new malls, and a new attitude.

At home, my parents had become a little older. It was only two years since I had seen them, but now I had started to notice the difference. My room in my apartment also had one small change. There was a picture of a saint on my desk. I had never seen it before. It was the size of a quarter. Had it been any bigger than that, I would have probably put it away in a drawer. But somehow this was too small to bother me. So I let it be, though I was not one to follow a bearded guru.

I used to travel to Hyderabad for work and return to Bangalore on the weekends to spend time with family. As I was leaving on one of the trips my father handed me a book. 'Celebrating Silence' by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (the saint whose picture was on my desk). The title of the book intrigued me. Celebrating Silence. How could one celebrate silence? Wasn’t silence meant for mourning?

My dad said 'maybe' you can read it in your free time. Under normal circumstances, I would flatly refuse such a thing, but this time I did not. My relationship with my father had changed. He had been meditating for nearly 15 years, but I had seen a sudden shift in him a few months ago that I had not seen in years. Something had flipped. And there was this new intimacy and closeness in our relationship. All my life I had feared my strict father, but now somehow he was able to connect with me and I was able to share and express my love for him. I later found out from my mother that he had done this course called the 'Art of Living' and that a technique called Sudarshan Kriya had brought a lot of transformation in him. If there was anything in the world that could bring such a change, it had to be pretty good.

Although the title of the book seemed interesting, I was still reluctant to read anything from any 'Guru'. So I thought I'll read the last page of the book and if that evoked any interest then I'd read it from the start. Otherwise, that would be the end of it.

That last page - it turned out to be a new beginning in my life. It blew me away completely.

There Sri Sri says:

"Some questions can only be answered in silence. Silence is the goal of all answers. If an answer does not silence the mind, it is no answer.

Thoughts are not the goal in themselves. Their goal is silence. When you ask the question "Who am I?" you get no answer, there is only silence. That is the real answer. Your soul is solidified silence and this solidified silence is wisdom, knowledge.

The easy way to silence thoughts is to arouse feelings, for only through feelings will peace, joy and love dawn. They are all your very nature.

To the question "Who am I", the only relevant answer is silence. You need to discard all answers in words, including "I am nothing" or "I am the cosmic self" or "I am the self". Just remain with the question "Who am I?".  All other answers are just thoughts and thoughts can never be complete.

Only silence is complete."

After reading this page, I was in complete silence. A deep peace and contentment dawned in me. For the first time in my life.