Silence - The mysterious addiction!

Silence is highly under-rated in today’s context – once you start enjoying and yearning for silence, people think you are either bored / angry / lonely / simply old / ill or there’s at-least something wrong with you. It is weird explaining to people how silence which is associated with punishment and mostly has negative connotations, has started playing a very big role in my life suddenly – to the point of me getting angry and irritated if there is too much noise around.

I have lived a very noisy life – from partying 24*7 to speaking incessantly and I liked it. Or rather loved it. I guess all of us do and it seems a pretty normal way of life. Growing up in an overpopulated city in India which is known for its chaotic and loud ways (Guess which – Delhi NCR!) makes you tolerant to all the noise – horns blaring, people clamoring (or rather fighting in Haryana’s case), bikes roaring, TV ads screaming, boss’s shouting, religious sermons on loudspeakers, doors banging, alarms beeping, machines pounding, phones ringing, utensils clinking – sheer crazy cacophony!

It’s unbelievable that our body and mind are so adaptable and filter it all out so we can still function at our best but what happens when you get a taste of silence. Initially, you might feel extremely uncomfortable with it – you might even think it’s impossible to be totally silent for just an hour. Remember the last time when you were totally silent for 1 day – never is the most common answer, 1 hour – most people don’t remember! And it’s not your fault – it’s like a virgin doesn’t understand the pleasures of the body because he hasn’t experienced it yet. Solitude is very similar – though the pleasure is more sustainable definitely and all you need is you – there’s not even the excuse of no opportunity yet!

This is the age of push notifications, push emails, 24 hour news (which is more like entertainment these days), omnipresent advertisements (how else to make you buy/consume things you don’t need?), millions of channels, social networks – (post everything you do – from statuses to images to videos to don’t know what next!), normal calls, whatsapp calls – simply wow.

It seems as if I was living in a state of trance or hypnotism or have I now submerged myself in such a state, it’s difficult to tell. Of late, I have been getting headaches even if people talk loudly, let alone the infinite other sources of noise. What I know for sure is that I have started loving silence like never before – it’s peaceful, makes me calm & happy, provides me with ample opportunities to figure out myself and makes me feel alive. I have simply become conscious of the joys of everyday life and it’s an interesting way to understand and experience things. During moments of silence, I am in awe – of a flower blooming, a bee flying, a sun rising or setting, a tree swaying, of the myriad mysteries of nature which has enriched my experience of life. I can’t pin-point what it is about working in or rather, working with silence but it feels like till now I was in an auto-pilot mode and have just been handed over the controls to my own existence. Silence is not just a void or an absence of noise but a complete rich space within itself, a stillness which fills the emptiness within me. I am falling in love with silence, and like almost always with a new love, I am becoming increasingly obsessed - wanting to get more of it, to go deeper, to understand better.

It all might sound like jibberish – I would have myself rejected it as nonsense a couple of years back but that’s the beauty of an inner transformation – it’s experiential – like only an asthmatic knows how does it feel to not be able to breathe, only a passionate biker knows what it’s like to feel the wind in your hair, only a runner knows the thrill of completing a marathon, only a foodie knows the value of a fulfilling meal, only an artist knows what emotions that particular painting stimulates!

Having confronted real silence & experienced what bliss could feel like, would you ever want to go back to your old ways – a thump here, a boom there! Maybe once a month I still feel like partying but my natural inclination is towards a noise-free life. Maybe it’s the deep seated instinct that exists inside me which is satisfied – civilization is a recent phenomenon after-all and our affinity to a loud lifestyle doesn’t even amount to seconds on a cosmic calendar. Or maybe it’s just a phase like many others or I am actually getting old and age is playing tricks on me. Rest assured I don’t care what it is and just want to make the most of it.

As Arundhati Subramaniam puts it perfectly in Adiyogi (Sadhguru) – “I understand the role of silences in conversation. I feel the need for more blank spaces in my life than ever before.”