Silence required for self introspection

A couple of hours of silence in a week are must to analyse your present to enthuse and reshape your future course of action on any aspect of life, writes Ranju Walia

She was familiar to every kind of silence. Rhea was awake for more than an hour. It was the last week of December. During winters her reluctance to leave the bed grows exponentially. Winters make her sluggish and not happening kind of person. Snuggling deep under the covers at the time of getting out from the bed seems to be her natural reflex in such extreme and inclement weather.

She struggled to take her arm out and groped for the mobile to check the time. It showed 5:46 am. Her brain started working mathematically.

Thirty minutes for making bed, exercise and shower, another 30 in the kitchen at the side of her cooking hob, 10 to genuflect before Almighty, 5 to iron the dress and 10 to get ready. Almost 85 minutes. If consider time lapse of few minutes then also she will be ready to push off at around 7:45 am, which clearly means that she can enjoy the warmth of her bed for another 15 minutes. The number of chores which she counted were the shortlisted ones. Winter season trims down her list of activities for the day.

It is 5 minutes to 8 and with her daily companion load basket she entered her car, buckled up, inserted the key into the ignition, made the necessary changes to the gear stick, twisted the key and accelerated towards her work place.

Today also like the past couple of days, her place was under the blanket of dense mist. She was not able to see the road properly. It was difficult to see anything 20 feet away. There were very few cars on the road with either their headlights on or the yellowish fog lights.

There was a strange silence and laziness in the atmosphere around. The mist actually created an eerie atmosphere.

But Rhea was normal. This was not new for her. She was familiar to every kind of silence and laziness. One can call her a silent being. Honestly speaking, it is little difficult to label her silent or loud .

Actually she is both, but for the last couple of years, silence was mostly her associate. To be more appropriate, the frequent company with silence turned Rhea into a mature personality who could easily tolerate even the undesirable behaviour of anyone around her .

There was a time when her verbal frequency was well known to the people around. Sometimes she was appreciated but many a times people found it hard to admire.

Her first rendezvous with silence was when she experienced some pain and resentment with some people around her .

Once she was silent, she realised that nobody cares. For a few days she felt the pain in silence. Later, she evolved as an entirely different personality. She discovered new aspects of life in every work and relation. She started observing people and situations. Silence made her controlled and mentally strong person. Sometimes she wanted to speak because of the influence of her old habit, but the very thought that if she speaks, people will judge her and look her down made Rhea more silent.

She actually learned to effectively deal with the invisible connection between idea and expression.

Days passed. Her silence boosted her creativity. She beautified not only her home but her work place too with zero budget. Her creativity groomed nicely in the silence of “non-thinking” mind.

The changed looks of her surroundings made her to stay focussed and she was surprised to see her capabilities which showed up in the form of million of thoughts and commendable outputs of various tasks.

Once, while self introspecting in her silence, she realised that many a times in certain emotionally charged situations, she responded in a hurtful manner which later proved dangerous to get along with those relations in future. She also realised that sometimes she was pouring her heart on her friends and relatives but nobody was considerate or hopeful. There was never ever any appreciable response from their side. This observation made her more silent and she learnt that people around are so busy and they don’t have time for your moment to moment varying emotions.

She found new dimensions of life in silence. Now she loved observing people in different situations.

The analysis were amazing and she developed the quality of empathy. Every moment she was trying to help people irrespective of their negative traits.

The biggest irony of her life was that her silence made her a lonely person. She never stepped back from helping people around but was never interested to be surrounded by them for a long time. 

She never bothered about any applause from any corner. She was now far away from the charm of recognition. She preferred to treat herself with some silent moments which were tremendously capable of recharging her all essentials.

I am not advocating to observe complete silence in your life but yes a couple of hours of silence in a week are must to analyse your present to enthuse and reshape your future course of action on any aspect of life.

For an instance ……

To gain perspective on an issue, you might need to step back silently and observe the hidden facts. This will surely help to decipher logically about the proceedings of the issue.

While negotiating, just present your view and be silent. The other person will get ample time to come to their conclusions.

Sometimes in certain situations a person is fighting with its own self. It’s better to allow that person to speak.. You must stay silent because the other person is not in a situation and position to hear what you have to say.

.Sometimes to keep peace, bottle up your emotions, remain silent and wait for the right time to express.

Above all…. Few moments in silence are must as they will let the loudness of your inner self subside and take your soul to the higher level of understanding to create harmony with all the biotic and abiotic components with whom you are sharing the bounties of mother Earth.

I do hope that you all understand the importance and need of silence in the contemporary world, where every life is struggling endlessly to keep in tune with ever evolving and fast changing situations as well as scenarios.

Keep introspecting  !!

Shhhhhhh………

letters@tehelka.com