The power of silence

I am trying to explore the power of silence lately. We are born with the default mouth and hence try to speak all the time. We speak so much in our lives that for some of us being silent or quiet for 30 mins a day is really challenging. I was one of those kind where I could not sit in silence for even 10 mins a day but somehow the events in my life are going in a direction where I am moving more towards more silence with every passing day.

The journey started around 2 years ago where I tried to sit in silence and meditate for around 20 mins at home, it wasn’t very successful. However when I look at it now, I think I have attracted silence in my life. I started sitting in silence for an hour every week at urban ashram and it started growing on me. Then Vipasana happened and I was in silence for 10 good days and since then I am trying to be in silence at-least for 40 mins every day!

While I was at it, I always thought what is better talking or being in silence? Although I am not at an exact conclusion yet but I would like to put out my thoughts and my experience of talking v/s being in silence.

When I talk, I talk to make my point. I talk to impress, I talk to make my mark on the audience and sometimes also to show how smart I am. I can fairly conclude that I talk because of the social pressure and to externalize things. But when I am silent I am internalizing, I am doing this for myself and no one else, I am in silence to be a better human so that I would serve the fellow humans better. When I am silent, I am moving towards awareness, awareness of the fact that its okay to be quiet and silent, its okay not to put out my argument. When I am silent I realize its okay to be myself and its okay not to be liked by people around. When I am silent, I think its okay to do things that I find sense in over the things I do out of social pressure. I think silence is a winner here.

A recent experience of an hour of silence v/s an hour of my presentation in my office. So I was put into a presentation, it was sort of an impromptu thing and I was presenting my work on an application I was building. I spoke for an hour and it was so exhausting, thinking about all the things and then speaking them to make sense for everyone on board. At the end of the hour I drank almost a liter of water and my energy got drained. Luckily that day I happened to sit in silence for an hour just after my presentation. I sat with a tired and exhausted body but got up with a refreshed one. I was so calm and energized and I couldn’t believe the power of silence.

Silence is actually very powerful, and now that I think of it, I realize that on all the days I’ve sat in silence I have not got tired at the end of the day! Its magical how much energy silence brings and restores in our body. Although its a slow process and one has to be patient with it to really experience it!

Be silent be energized! :)