The Eloquent Sounds of Silence - Pico Iyer
Introduction
God’s one and only voice is silence,
says Melville. Pico Iyer brings out the importance of silence in his essay “The
Eloquent Sounds of Silence” by singing paeans to silence. According to Pico
Iyer, when people go on retreat, to a high place and feel the warmth and joy of
being lifted up in a cool and secure place far away from the madding crowd,
they start to recite the standard litany: that silence is sunshine, silence is
rapture, silence is golden, etc. But silence is not so easily won. Moreover, before
rushing off to the hills, it is essential to remember that fool's gold (i.e the
easily obtained iron pyrite) is much more common and that gold can be obtained only
by a great amount of hard work, since it has to be dug out with great care and
effort, from other substances. Such
is the case with silence.
Silence is the Consecration of the Universe
According to Herman Melville, all
profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence,
and hence silence is the general consecration of the universe. Just
before his death, he came forth with his final utterance -- the luminous tale
of Billy Budd - and showed that silence is only as worthy as what we can bring
back from it.
Silence
is Spiritual
We have to strive a lot to earn
silence, and then, to work for it: to make it not an absence but a presence in
our lives. Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted
place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands.
In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say
is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink below ourselves
into a place far deeper than mere thought allows. In silence, we might better
say, we can hear someone else think.
It is no coincidence that places of
worship are places of silence: if idleness is the devil's playground, silence
may be the angels'. It is no surprise that silence is an anagram of license.
And it is only right that Quakers all but worship silence, for it is the place
where everyone finds his God, however he may express it. Silence is an
ecumenical state, beyond the doctrines and divisions created by the mind. If
everyone has a spiritual story to tell of his life, everyone has a spiritual
silence to preserve.
Silence:
The Highest Tribute to Holiness
Silence is the ultimate tribute we
pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred space, just as we
slip off shoes. A "moment of silence" is the highest honor we can pay
someone; it is the point at which the mind stops and something else takes over
(words run out when feelings rush in). A "vow of silence" is for holy
men the highest devotional act. We hold our breath, we hold our words; we
suspend our chattering selves and let ourselves "fall silent," and
fall into the highest place of all.
Increasing
Noise in the World
the world is getting noisier these
days: in Japan, which may be a model of our future, cars and buses have voices,
doors and elevators speak. The answering machine talks to us, and for us,
somewhere above the din of the TV; the Walkman preserves a public silence but
ensures that we need never -- in the bathtub, on a mountaintop, even at our
desks -- be without the clangor of the world. White noise becomes the aural
equivalent of the clash of images, the nonstop blast of fragments that
increasingly agitates our minds. As Ben Okri, the young Nigerian novelist, puts
it, "When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief
instrument."
A
Place for Noise vs A Place for Silence
According to Pico Iyer, there is a
place for noise in our daily lives. There is a place for roaring, for the
shouting exultation of a baseball game, for hymns and spoken prayers, for
orchestras and cries of pleasure. Silence, like all the best things, is best
appreciated in its absence: if noise is the signature tune of the world,
silence is the music of the other world, the closest thing we know to the
harmony of the spheres. But the greatest charm of noise is when it ceases. In
silence, suddenly, it seems as if all the windows of the world are thrown open
and everything is as clear as on a morning after rain. Silence, ideally, hums.
It charges the air.
Silence:
The Ultimate Moment when we Begin to Trust Ourselves
Silence,
then, could be said to be the ultimate province of trust: it is the place where
we trust ourselves to be alone; where we trust others to understand the things
we do not say; where we trust a higher harmony to assert itself. We all know
how treacherous are words, and how often we use them to paper over
embarrassment, or emptiness, or fear of the larger spaces that silence brings.
"Words, words, words" commit us to positions we do not really hold,
the imperatives of chatter; words are what we use for lies, false promises and
gossip. We babble with strangers; with intimates we can be silent. We
"make conversation" when we are at a loss; we unmake it when we are
alone, or with those so close to us that we can afford to be alone with them.
Conclusion
Thus Pico
Iyer brings out the necessity and the importance of silence in our day-to-day
lives by equating silence with the realm of the spiritual, the transcendental
and as the ultimate tribute to holiness. It is also the moment when we begin to
trust ourselves, by refraining from meaningless chatter that we use for lies,
false promises and gossip. He concludes with his famous statement: “In love, we
are speechless; in awe, we say, words fail us”, emphasizing and reiterating on
the importance of silence in a person’s life.
