Silence. a word that evokes scary images of aloneness. Silence we are afraid terrified of it. In our media-drenched culture, silence is intimidating.
A typical day in the life of an American begins with the TV flicked on to the morning news. our drive to work is then soothed by music or our favorite talk show. At work we are off and running, with meetings, deadlines, and phone calls. We unwind on the way home with more music and radio, and end our day with more TV, music, video, and family talk.
Noise is pervasive, in the past, we encountered silence, by puttered around the house: washing, cleaning, repairing. Today the house vibrates with noise: we wash dishes by machine, we vacuum by machine, we mow by machine, we even rake leaves by machine.
We have lost our contact with ordinary, everyday silence. It has become a stranger. We yearn for more spirituality in our life, yet we deny it by avoiding one of the most important elements--silence. we know that in order to pray, we need to quiet ourselves, yet that is the very thing we fear most.
Who--or--what--is silence that we fear it so much? Silence is more than turning off appliances. It is stilling the inner chaos of the body. Stop running from noise to noise. Turn off the dishwasher, turn off the TV. Listen to yourself pass through time--hear the knife chopping vegetables, and the spatula scraping the skillet, Sweep the kitchen floor and listen to the bristles touch the floor.
At first, silence may seem like nothing but the tick-tick-tick of a clock on the shelf. However when you take the time to listen to your body, and meet silence with a prayer, time will be forgotten, the tick-tick-tick will get lost and at last solitude can speak.
These are my own thoughts. I sometimes take writings from others to support my own ideas.
Nancy Adams Certified Thai Yoga Therapist
And Ayurveda Consultant
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