Being Quiet

Is being quiet a sign of self-control? Does it signify that we are the masters of our environment and that we are unfazed in adversity for we know what to do?

These are interesting questions, but not certainly the first time someone has asked them. Psychologists would give voluminous explanations and psychiatrists perhaps would schedule sessions to help us discover the answer. I think even religionists would like to be in the pantheon of experts. They may tell us that a mind that dwells in God fears nothing, for it is His will that guides us and destiny therefore is not to be scared of, but prayed for. I am neither a psyche nor a shrink or for that matter consider myself religious enough. Though being neither does not seem to inhibit me from having an opinion.

Life is a lesson that we continue to learn, whether we are conscious about doing so or pretty well unconscious. From childhood we gather impressions, by impulses and by indoctrination. Five physical senses give the impulse and we act or react; environment comprising of parents, neighborhood, school, friends and the society at large indoctrinates us with a sense of right-wrong, do-don’t, and know-ignores. Some people learn about most of everything. Some master some, and average at others. Some ignore most and best at few. Some others die without making much effort at anything. That is the permutations and combinations, but the opportunities to learn neither multiply nor diminish. They remain constant, while we individually make it in some combination. Depending on which strata we achieve we manage to handle things well pertaining to the strata that we have made it to. When we faced with a situation that we have managed not yet to deal with, we have a choice: we can set about learning to handle or we can be ‘quiet’. Quiet in this sense does not mean being comfortable with the situation. It simply means that we do not see the opportunity to unravel something more about life and therefore choose to remain quiet.

People who manage to learn about most are also quiet sometimes. They are quiet not out of the inability to sense an opportunity. But the ability to sense that something they not yet know is in front and they need to collect the wisdom of their cumulative learning and energies to go about discovering their new lessons. They are about to become Columbus of the unknown – the dimensions in their own self that they have not as yet discovered.

Being quiet of the second kind is the choice of those who seek life. For in the words of Khalil Gibran:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.

You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.

You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;

And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;

And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."

Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."

For the soul walks upon all paths.

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.

The soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals.