It is in silence that we hear. The sound of Silence. Silence
is golden. From artists to spiritual seekers, from gurus to Buddhists, or even
good old home-spun wisdom, the necessity of silence in one’s life to realise your inner being is essential for a spiritual awakening. Why is silence seen as being so important? Well, when we are
silent, we do not have any external distractions which will divert attention
from the task at hand which is looking within. To be introspective and to look
within, silence is necessary and important as it is through silence that we can
have our greatest epiphanies. The reason for this is that there are no external
distractions that will distract us from looking within. In this day and age
where we have so many gadgets, it can really be hard to set aside time to sit
in silence. We are almost conditioned to have noise surrounding us and
intruding upon us, and it is not uncommon for us to be completing multiple
tasks at once, and thus living in a state of mental chaos. I do recognise that
the ability to multi-task is a skill, and one which is necessary in today’s
world although it does make it harder for us to be in silence, be present and
be aware in the moment.
The more we are in silence the more we crave it, and the
more we want to be amongst it. So the more we practice being in silence in acts
such as meditation, mindfulness or even just taking a walk in the park to enjoy
the beauty of nature, the more we want to bring these practices into our lives.
It seems that we don’t realise the benefits of bringing silence into our lives
until we escape the sometimes chaotic, never-ceasing white noise of the world.
A big thing in this day and age is the Fear of Missing Out,
or to use its popular acronym, FOMO. Now to miss out on something, we need to
not be amongst the hubbub of the popular culture, be disconnected, forgo social
media (God forbid!), and at least temporarily be out of the loop. I am not
talking about an extended amount of time here at all… just a very small amount
of time from your day to connect with your true being, or in other words to
your essential self. Imagine if you went to an ashram for 2 months and you had
to take a vow of silence for its duration! I would think that many of us today
would find that to me virtually impossible! It seems that people don’t want to be ‘disconnected’
even for a short time…and in some cases it can even actually
be anxiety-inducing! Wow, it makes me wonder what the world is coming to when a
lack of connection via a gadget causes anxiety! Statistics have shown that on average adults
use their smartphones approximately 5 hours per day! This might surprise some,
and remember that this is an average, so some people will use their phones more
and some will use them less, but nevertheless it is still shocking... it has also been shown that adults check their phone roughly every 6
minutes! It seems that we are literally addicted to our phones or at least the
need to be technologically connected.
Ironically, this want of technological connection is causing
an emotional disconnection which can affect our relationships, our stress
levels, sleep quality and also our memory…but I think I’ll leave this for
another time, as it is a very serious problem which can adversely affect many
areas of our lives and is worthy of much more than a few lines.Anyway, the take home message here is to find a few minutes of silence in your day each day as it will make you a calmer more peaceful person in this not so calm world that we live in!
Namaste,
Ben J
