Silence, the celestial symphony

I find nothing more beautiful than the silence of the mind. No mental chattering, no tormenting thoughts, just pure awareness of the deafening silence. Whoever coined the phrase: ‘deafening silence’, was telling the truth.

Have you ever listened closely to the sound of silence? It is deafening indeed. Maybe that is why we prefer to surround ourselves with external noises and find it hard to stay silent for very long.

The opposite of silence is not sound. It is noise. Silence does have a sound and it is a profound sound. It is not accidental that the word sound has three meanings. One is the noun, noise. The other is the verb: “this sounds good or bad.”

And as an adjective it means deep or profound, as in, “a sound idea”. The three meanings are related.

Consider that the sound of silence actually sounds sound. Indeed, silence may be the mother of creativity, the mother of all profound ideas, music and images.

They emanate from it. The frequency of sound vibration is highest in silence.

If I allow myself to closely listen to the sound of silence, I hear the stream of sounds of a subliminal concert.

As if my mind was a kind of dot-sized sun transmitter, sending out billions of shiny radio waves everywhere into the ‘multiverse’ and simultaneously receiving these waves from billions upon billions of such mini-sun transmitters from the multiverse.

It is only in such sound silence that I can get a hint of the experience of being intimately connected or entangled with everything and every nothing in the cosmos.

When the surface of the mind is mirror smooth, with no surface winds making any ripples, in that still silence magic can occur.

From the depth of the mind, normally inaccessible to consciousness, bubbles of insight can trickle to surface consciousness as if the dormant volcano of deep consciousness spewed a gem or two to the surface, only to be eagerly rationalised by the surface mind, thereby blocking further access to depth consciousness.

Yet, before deep consciousness has once again become unconscious, those gems had already escaped to the surface.

The conscious captured some crumbs of wisdom from the unconscious; perhaps a wave or two of the wisdom of the collective co-unconscious. The sound of silence became audible.

Silence is the mother of sound. This is revealed by the Hungarian language.

The ancient Hungarian wordsmiths who coined the words ‘silence’ and ‘to sound’ realised that sound comes from silence.

The noun ‘silence’ is ‘csend’ in Hungarian. But the verb ‘sounds’ or ‘rings’ is ‘csendül’, so that the root, ‘csend’, that is ‘silence’, is both in the noun ‘silence’ and in the verb ‘to sound’ in Hungarian. And from the noun and verb of ‘ring’ in English we learn that silence becomes audible through circular ‘rings’ that ‘ring’.
Maybe, there is no such thing as total silence at all.

Is it perhaps only, that we are deaf to certain frequencies of sound vibrations, but that sound itself is always there, ringing in the cosmos.

Maybe we can pick up normally inaudible sound vibrations by listening carefully to profound ‘silence’. Perhaps only then, that we begin to hear we are all part of a single celestial symphony that is playing permanently, which we are deaf to most of the time. And in that moment of hearing, we are truly present.

There is a magnificent Yogic meditation practice; called ‘Inner Silence’ or ‘Antar Mauna’ in Sanskrit.

First, one silences the noise of the fidgeting body, then the breath is stilled, then the chattering of the mind is overcome, then even wisdom is laid to rest, until nothing remains but the bliss of silence itself: the blessed peace of the pure consciousness of love.

I have been singing the classic Yogic chant, ‘I am the river’ for forty years. Now I sing my own version, which I have amended over time.

Original Yogic Chant

I am the river, you are the sea,
Let your love flow right through me

I am the river, you are the ocean
Come and fill me, with devotion

I am the bird, you are the sky
Let your grace flow, as I fly

I am the earth, you are the sun
I am many, you are one

I am the darkness, you are the light,
Shed your wisdom, into my night

My Version

I am the river, you are the sea,
Let your love flow in me in thee

I am the river, you are the ocean
I’m within you through devotion

I am the bird, you are the sky
It’s in your grace, that I fly

I am the earth, you are the sun
I am many, in you, I am one

I am the darkness, you are the light
In your wisdom, all becomes bright

You are the silence, I am the wind
Let me hear you, as in me you sing

Blessed Being, Eternal Love
Blessed Spirit, Eternal Love

Swami Sivananda Saraswati says: “Find God within yourself in silence”.

Now I say: “Find yourself within God in silence”.

Can you hear the sound of silence? Do you like to sit quietly sometimes or do you prefer a little white noise in the background?

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