Social Gatheka Number 37

Apart from the meditative silence, even in our everyday life, silence is the most essential thing. There is an energy which becomes accumulated, functioning in the innermost of our being, and it is in the speech that one gives outlet to that energy. And that energy may best be called magnetism; it is inspiration and it is wisdom. It is therefore that you will always find in the less talkative person a greater wisdom than the one who is talkative. Apart from wisdom, from a physical point of view, a talkative person is all the time giving out an energy which, if he conserved, he can make a great vital power in himself.

With some persons it becomes a passion to speak without purpose, without reason, they speak because they like to speak. If one knew what the Bible says about the word, that first was the word and the word was God. If one only knew what the tradition of humanity has been, it is the word. Those who have the esteem of the word, those who value the word, their word becomes precious. One word is of million and even millions are less than the price of their word. The great teachers of humanity have come and passed away, and what they have left behind them, which the world prizes more than anything, is their word.

If we keep anything as most sacred just now, whatever be our faith or religion, it is the word that has been given to us, it is the word which we keep as the most precious thing in the world. The moment that a person begins to value his word, from that moment he begins to think what he says. The one who has no value of his word, he is of little value to himself. The great person is he who stands for his word. However great a man, if he has no honor of his word he cannot be really great. It is such a pity that in this time of materialism we are losing the idea of the most valuable thing we have, and we have got it from the Heavens.

For the word is heavenly, and what is in the word is the soul, the spirit. And when that word is uselessly used life is abused by it. Do we not see that there is one person perhaps who comes to us and speaks a thousand words, and not one word strikes us; there is another person who comes to us and speaks one word, but it penetrates, it makes impression. That word is of value. For there is a living word and there is a dead word. A living word has a life, it acts chemically, the dead word has no life, it is only a corpse. The living word will go and float in the space, it will go in the hearts of man and work, and the dead word will drop on to the earth and will be buried in the dust.

And very often a person speaks because of his weakness. He is weak, he cannot control his idea, his thought, and it is helplessly that he drops a word that he would otherwise have kept and not spoken. A gossiping person, a person who criticizes another, you will always find is a person of a weak character. It is not that he likes to speak, it is because he cannot help speaking. It is just like a person who eats but cannot digest. When a person cannot keep his own secret, when a person cannot keep the secret of his friend, he is a person who has no power of digesting, his conscience will always feel guilty, and his heart restless. There is another person who goes on like a machine, a machine which is hearing from the ears and speaking from the mouth, and it is going on all day, hearing what he speaks and it goes on like a machine.

Is it not the experience of many of us, that very often we think, 'oh, I wish I had not said that to that person!' Is it not the experience of many of us when we think that, 'I should not have spoken so rudely with the other person? 'Oh, what a terrible thing I have done, I have opened my heart to that person, I do not know what will become of it.' Sadi, a great Persian poet, says in his poetry, 'my intelligent friend, what use is your repentance after once you have dropped the word out of your lips?' To control the word is more difficult than controlling the most energetic horse. The one who controls his word, controls his mind.

There is another way of looking at this subject. When a person is talking to those not yet evolved to his own way of looking at things, he may say things of a greater wisdom which will prove to be as pebbles in the place of pearls. It is a loss of words of a higher ideal, of some greater truth to a person who is not capable of understanding or appreciating. You have given something in the hand of another who will ridicule at it, who will mock at it, and to whom it is of no use. You would find it more thoughtful, more wise that you did not speak to him the word at that time, but prepared him to hear that word, even if it be for ten years.

And then there are times when you meet with an evolved person for whom your words are of little importance. It is just like a child speaking to a grown person, which means very little to him. But the thing is this, that in doing so you will spoil his time as well as your own. Besides many will know how many disagreements between relations, between friends are brought about by useless talking. The talking had no importance whatever, but it has culminated perhaps in a great inharmony or separateness.

There is an amusing story, that a woman went to the house of a healer, a magnetizer, and she asked him if he would tell her something, for she was in a great distress. This distress was that she had every day a disagreement with her husband. The healer said, 'It is very easy, I will give you some sweets and you will put it in your mouth and keep your lips closed. Every day when your husband comes home just put in it the mouth.' The remedy proved successful, and the woman came after the sweet was finished to thank him and ask for some more magnetized sweets. He said, 'My dear lady, you do not need any more bonbons now. Just think that you have them and close your lips and everything will be all right.' This example is for us all to learn, whether wise or foolish it is the only dignified thing possible. For the wise it is the most beautiful thing, for the foolish it is the only dignified thing possible.

And now coming to a still deeper side of silence. What is silence? Silence is something which we consciously or unconsciously are seeking every moment of our life. We are seeking for silence and running away from it, both at the same time. Where is the word of God heard? In silence. The seers, the saints, the sages, the prophets and masters, they have heard that voice which comes from within by making themselves silent. I do not mean by this that because one will have a silence that he will be spoken to. I mean that he will hear the word which is constantly coming to him once he is silent.

Once the mind has been made still, a person gets in communication with every person one meets. He does not need too many words, when the glance meets he understands. Two persons may talk and discuss their whole life and they will not understand one another; and two persons with still minds look at one another in one moment there is a communication. Where comes the difference between persons? It is by their activity. And when comes agreement? It comes by the stillness of mind. It is the noise which hinders a voice that we hear from a distance, and it is the troubled waters of a pool which hinder us seeing our own image reflected in the water.

When the water is still it takes a clear reflection; and when our atmosphere is still then we hear that voice which is constantly coming to the heart of every person. We are looking for guidance, we all of us search for truth, we search for the mystery. The mystery is in ourself, the guidance in in our own soul. Besides this, very often a person meets someone meets someone whose contact makes one restless, nervous, the reason is that person is not restful, not tranquil. This shows that restlessness makes others restless, calm makes other calm. And it is not easy to stand calm and keeps one's tranquility in the presence of a restless, agitated person. The teaching of Christ is, resist not evil, and that means, give not that troubled condition, or respond not to the troubled condition of a restless person. It is just like partaking of the fire which will burn oneself.

And now, how can one develop that power in oneself to stand in everyday life against all disturbing influences? For our life is exposed to this atmosphere every moment of the day. The answer is that one has to quiet oneself by the way of concentration. And now you may ask what I mean by concentration. Our mind is like a boat, a boat which is in the water, subject to be moved by the waves and subject to be influenced by the wind, both. And the waves for this boat are our own emotions and passions, our own thoughts and imaginations. And the wind is the outer influences which we have to meet with. And in order to stop the boat you ought to have the anchor to put in the water, that that anchor makes the boat still. And that anchor is the object which we concentrate upon. If this anchor be heavy and weighty then it will stop the boat, but if this anchor is light the boat will move and not be still, for it is in the water, it is in the air.

But now coming to the question, that by this we only control the boat, but utilizing the boat is another question again. The boat is not made to stand still, it is made for a purpose. To make it stand still is only to control the boat first. Although all of us do not know this, but at the same time at the end of the examination this boat is made to go from one port to another port. Now, the sailing of the boat needs different conditions. And those conditions are that the boat must not be more heavily laden than the weight that it is made to carry. And so our heart must not be heavily laden with the things that we attach ourselves to, because then the boat will not go. The boat must not be tied and chained to this one port, for then it is held back and will not go to that other port for which it is made. The boat may be tied to one port for a thousand years, but the boat is not doing its work then. In the first place it must have that responsiveness to the wind that will take it to that port.

And that is the feeling that a soul gets from the spiritual side of life. That feeling of the wind helps one to go on forward to that port to which we are all bound. The mind who is once concentrated fully must become a compass as they have in the boat, which always points to the same side. A man who has a thousand different sides of interest, that man is not ready to travel in this boat. It is the man who has one thing in his mind, all other things secondary, that man travels from this port to that port. It is this journey which is called mysticism, it is this journey which is called Sufism.

The effort of the Sufi Message is to give the opportunity to those serious seekers after truth that they may come in touch with the deeper side of life. No doubt truth is never taught, truth is discovered. It is not the wonderworking, it is not the life of phenomena that is the sign of the seeker. For it is in the search of truth that God is found, for it is in the finding of God that truth is realized. But where is God to be found? God is to be found in the heart of man.