FOR four frozen months in the Antarctic winter of 1934, Admiral Bryd was engaged in a search for scientific data. One day, standing absolutely still on that icy no-man’s land, he became intensely aware of the vast, deep silence. Later that evening, he wrote in his diary: “In that instant of utter silence, the realization dawned upon me that I was part of God, part of the universe and that I was not alone”.
Admiral Bryd discovered in that stillness what is waiting to be discovered by us in the deep recesses of our own being, in the quiet of the early morning at home, in the brief moments of prayer, or even while taking a quiet walk in the park. Like Bryd, we too can experience short spells of profound silence. Sri Aurobindo draws from his own experience in the poem Savitri: “A stillness absolute, incommunicable / Meets the sheer self discovery of the soul”. In absolute silence is present an absolute power.
Generally, quietude, calmness, peace, silence and stillness are taken to be identical states of mind. But in reality, this is not so. All these are states of a deepening order of consciousness, silence being the deepest. In a state of deep silence, there are no thoughts, feelings or mental movements that can disturb or alter the peace of the inner-being. The human mind gets absorbed in the core of silence where it touches the original source of energy, love, purity and bliss of the Being, and discovers the soul. The mind is transmuted into the Mind of Light. This transmutation is the bridge that leads us to our true Self within. There, God becomes a living presence, and silence a conversation of the soul with God, wordless and wonderful.
S S Hans
