By Vijay Phanshikar :
Peace in
Inner stillness ...
... Silence !
- Self 

A yogic condition, this ! The inner clutter is always terrible, and of course very noisy. It fills the head and troubles the heart. Silence is the answer, they say. Achieve silence, and the clutter would melt, they insist. Achieving silence ! What a task ! Collecting stray, random thoughts and throwing them out is the start of the process of silence. And that is most difficult. Like a restless, hyper-active child, the thoughts roam and dance and bounce around -- without any discipline, without any direction. Just milling around in sheer illogic.

 

 

Try to decipher why a thought surfaces at a moment, and you will come out a cropper. There is no logic to that milling around and churning of thoughts in the mind. Any thought, any memory, any past experience just wells up and starts tormenting your inner sanctum. Then peace goes down in pieces, and confusion reigns supreme. Silence -- Maun -- means bundling out all those stray thoughts and making the mind clear of all the clutter. Just not saying a word is hardly the silence the yogis speak about. Their definition is different, their standards, very high -- and well beyond the aegis of common people. Yet, the process of silence begins only with not saying a word -- and staying put in that state stoically. That evolves into a habit, and then one stops desiring to utter even a ‘hmmm’. Stay in that locked condition and you will draw closer to silence, masters of yoga say.

 

One does not know if that will be so. But when one does not say even a syllable for some time, one does start loving that condition, all right. If that period stretches on, then one does not fell like saying anything afterwards. That is the taste of power of silence, one may say. The very feeling is beautiful. For, it signals control (over one’s waywardness of mind, if one can say so). If silence -- attained only superficially -- is so beautiful, then what must actual and complete silence be like ! For, the complete silence means a complete inner stillness -- nothing moves, even a stray thought ! Wow ! This is nothing but a manifestation of what may be understood as peace.

 

Yogis spend lifetimes to achieve such a complete silence, a complete inner stillness. In that state, nothing moves. Everything is still -- not frozen. That stillness, that absence of movement even of a stray thought, is possibly the state of Samaadhi, though one cannot be so sure. Let alone the details by yogic definitions, the inner stillness is really peaceful (as anybody can say). Some may call it ‘silence’, all right. To attain that needs real effort, though. Possibly, that is the reason why many don’t try that ever; possibly, many others are also tempted to try the difficult. No matter that, romancing silence must be a very lovable activity.