Creative Guidance-IASbaba, Inspirational & Educative Articles
The Magic of Silence:
Every experience in existence is happening just the way it is supposed to, and your mind is a part of it. The moment you use language, you possess that experience. When you look at a leaf, you don’t possess it; the leaf is merely there. The moment you say it is a leaf you possess it, because at that very moment you know more about it than any other creature in existence. For every other creature, a leaf is a mystery. It is no longer a mystery for you because you have a definition of what a leaf is: “A leaf is used for photosynthesis, it is usually green, it has different shapes, and one day it withers and dies.” The moment you put that label on a leaf, your mind tells you, “You already know what a leaf is, why be curious about another one?” In this way, your mind will stop you from looking at every leaf as if you were looking at it for the first time.
Imagine if you didn’t use language. If you didn’t know that this was a table, every time you looked at it you would see something new, because this is not just a table. When you are looking at this wooden table, you are basically looking at a snapshot of time, aren’t you? This table contains a memory of everything that was happening during its time. Every mark and every blemish is a memory, but your mind says, “Are you crazy? That’s just a table.” You listen to your mind, so you don’t look for something new. In the same way, you categorize the world with labels. The moment you categorize people or things, the moment you use language, you kill the very beauty of whatever that is.
This is where the challenge is: To really appreciate and enjoy life, you have to become like a child, and go back to that innocent part of your mind. You have to go back to the time when you didn’t have access to language; when you didn’t know that your world was full of things. The moment you drop language, you become alert. It is language that takes you deeper into boredom. Of course, without language you would not even be able to identify separate objects and experiences, but most of the time you really don’t need language to enjoy experiences. You can experience life in all its beauty without using any words – especially if you don’t use any words. Try this: The next time you look at a rose, look at it without using the word “rose”, without telling yourself that you are looking at a rose. Notice how silence immediately enhances the beauty of the rose. You get bored very easily because you live in a world of words created by your mind. When you step away from your mental noise and step into the silence of life, you will see how beautiful existence really is.
“This article is a part of the creative endeavor of Nirvana Foundation and IASBABA.”
