My Quest for Silence

It was a clear, chill and starry night and I was on a hilltop enjoying the lingering and refreshing fragrance of tea. Not a sound could be heard, not even the rustling of the leaves. It was absolutely still and silent. The silence was unbecoming and it was something I was not used to, only to be broken by the distant sound of a bark and to be silent again. I was mesmerized and lost in this quietude. It touched something deep inside me. I had lost all sense of time, and when and how it elapsed, I really do not know. The silence was broken by the sounds of nature, by the sounds of the birds chirping. The night was fading away to welcome the early morning dawn. I was not sure as to whether I was dreaming or awake, but felt it was time to get some sleep, one I was sure I would enjoy, for I had an experience of a life time.

These are unforgettable moments etched deep in my memory. It was during my visit to a tea estate located in the Nilgiris or the "Blue hills" of India. I was so taken up by the experience that I knew that this was something I had to go through again. A long chat with the planters followed, to hear more from them on their experiences with serenity, calmness and silence of nature. It had become a part of their life now. Something they could not do without. Their noise sensitivity was very different than compared to people like me. A visit to the nearest town lasting more than a few hours often left them disoriented. They found it difficult to handle the hustle bustle and especially the noise of the traffic, the loud honking of the cars and the constant noise of people itself. It would want to make them run. Run back to where they truly belong.

I too, on my return to the city felt and went through the disorientation and state of confusion with the increase in the noise. It was in a way maddening and for the first time I really despised this ever increasing noise. We so often put aside and do not realise the effects of this noise on our much required rest and sleep and how this increases our stress.

This experience on the hilltop left a deep impact within me. It had commenced a quest to seek out and re experience this joyous silence and serenity But it seemed so difficult no matter how late into the night I tried. There was always some sound, some noise, something which pulled my attention away. The silence never seemed to last more than a few seconds. It took me a great deal of effort and determination to be able to shut myself off from this external noise.

It's only on experiencing this external stillness and the absence of noise, that I was able to commence my search for the silence within. However the thoughts, the words, the questions, the doubts, the ideas, the images, it all seemed never ending. The quietness or silence within me seems so much more difficult to find. The harmony that I so much sought to experience again, would only be possible with the silence experienced within myself and from the world outside.

It had commenced a search for something beyond what we normally understand as silence and into the Sanskrit word" Mauna" :- signifying a peaceful stillness, bliss full calmness and tranquility.