Exploring The Connecting Link Between Silence And Joy

Do you drink water only when you are thirsty and parched? When you’ve reached the final stage of sensing an itch and roughness in your throat you can’t stop coughing, so much so that water is your only hope. Or, do you drink water throughout the day, from time to time, to keep yourself hydrated?

If you are traveling in a place where water is scarce, and you have just one bottle of water, you would drink it sparingly. However, if you live in a place with easy access to drinking water, it would be easier to keep yourself hydrated despite a busy schedule.

Typically, you wouldn’t wait to drink water only when you are dying of thirst. However, during the more complex and trickier times of life, we procrastinate from doing the things we must do only because we feel we are not ready to take action.

“All things are ready if our mind be so.”

~William Shakespeare

Just a month ago, I visited an ashram. After my visit, I reflected upon it and realized two aspects – silence and sound. When I entered the ashram, it was absolutely silent. People were either praying inwardly or meditating, and there was strict silence and seriousness all around. It was almost an awkward experience where sound was prohibited. Was the presence of sound considered bad for one’s spirituality? I started to wonder whether this is what most people thought or believed.

This environment was completely different from the temple that I had visited later. There, people chanted and sang religious hymns. There was singing and loud praises at times, but I found a sense of peace lacking. I would have expected a peaceful environment that could resonate from the chanting but it didn’t. All I heard was noise from the people who visited the temple. It was like everyone was stuck in the cacophony of the pilgrimage and not what one’s spirituality had to offer.

What I realized after leaving was – the process. In one place, it was silent and in the other, there was loud noise. It was either this (silence) or that (noise), nothing in between!

While the silence holds you still, I realized how it doesn’t create any music within. And while the noise or loudness remains in the temple, there isn’t any silence. What do I mean by this? Let’s explore these two extremes and what happens when they both merge.

Silence of the Dead, Noisy Siren, and Singing Silence

When it comes to the silence of the dead or noisy siren, we are looking at two extremes. One is either too serious within one’s core (silence of the dead) or one is too loud (noisy siren) by just doing things outwardly but never really feeling the joy of that experience which means that these two key elements are not co-existing harmoniously.

When you are too serious, you cannot experience the joy, love, and laughter of life. Being spiritually healthy does not mean eliminating the quotient of happiness. Neither does it mean eliminating the sweetness of silence. The two must co-exist which can only be done when you attain a high Spiritual Quotient or SiQ.

A high Spiritual Quotient (SiQ) brings Seriousness and Joy together to co-exist despite their opposing forces.

~Krescon Coaches

Many times, people wait until they believe they are ready. The trick is to make sure that you do not prolong the actions you have to take based on the decisions made. Remember that one will never be ready but has to do their task despite one’s apprehensions. Eventually, we explore the strength of our potential that we so readily underestimate.

We can never identify the right time if we keep waiting for the chaos to die down or for the peace to increase in one’s life. It is wise to work within both these extremes by bringing them together – the peace and the chaos that lies internally and externally.

“Men are disturbed not by things but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.”

~Epictetus

This is how SINGING SILENCE emerges when one transcends from the silence of the dead and noisy siren. What these mean:

• Silence of the Dead: When the peace of your mind, heart, and hands cannot co-exist with life’s troubles.
• Noisy Siren: When you have no peace which is where you let the chaos take over and you get stuck in the cacophony of the process.
• Singing Silence: When your SiQ is high enough that the peace of your mind, heart, and hands can co-exist with the troubles of life.

One cannot relax and then know what peace means. Just like you cannot drink water unless you fill it into a glass or bottle and then drink it. You need a medium to help you translate your asset. This way, your SiQ is your medium that when strengthened can help you develop the harmonious co-existence of silence and joy.

Waiting for the right time is like waiting endlessly without having knowledge of the right time. Take water as another example; can you drink seawater? No, you cannot because of its saltiness. However, you cannot wait either until the salty sea water becomes drinkable. You must make efforts to convert salty water into unsalted water, removing all other minerals that must not be consumed in high proportions by human standards, and only then find it safe to drink that water.

Similarly, do not wait for peaceful times to enter your life to improve your SiQ, rather leverage those struggling circumstances to enhance it. Improve your FIT score and come to the Ground of Neutrality, become more aware of who you are, and your purpose so that you can navigate your leadership journey better than you already do.

Let us not fear the realities of life, but rather leverage upon it to transcend from the extremes of seriousness and noise to love, laughter, and light in spirit.

Let me leave you with this fine point of life summarized by Soren Kierkegaard:

“Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.”