Poetry In Silence

"I feel alienated in my own body, I feel lonely in the crowd", that's the complain of many meditation students. By having empty eyes, dry skin, lips that never say thank you, this type of person keep drinking poison for their soul. Without deep inner cultivation, those lost souls can experience spiritual down fall.

To be honest, many people in this age feel lonely in the crowd. In a series  of deep interviews with many meditation students, a number of friends whose daily life are cheerful and full of humor also experienced the same loneliness. Cheerfulness and laugher are only cloths to cover their painful loneliness inside. Deep within they missed something. The thing which remains a mystery for a long time.

Any friends who dig deep within understand, almost all knowledge about ourselves are given by the others. Name, religion, ethnicity, race, language, philosophy until knowledge about soul which is called psychology also come from the others. As a result, almost all people view themselves based on the knowledge of the others. This is the beginning of all deep alienation and loneliness.

It is like eating food which is prepared by someone else, there is always certain parts of the taste that missing. Sadly, it is not only psychology which provide the knowledge that come from the others, even religion also presents the similar knowledge. Consequently, there are many lonely souls everywhere. A researcher from the West concluded miserably, while in developing countries people cannot eat because of being poor, in the developed countries people cannot eat because of loneliness.

Deeply learning from this experience, many teachers with shining souls then spend a lot of time alone in silence. Not because of hating the crowd, once again not. But to learn and to look deeply into the inner layers of the self. In other words, to rediscover knowledge about ourselves which are not given by the others, but knowledge about ourselves which we rediscover alone in the depths of silence.

In one of the beautiful stories of Upanishads, there is a story of a very clever young boy named Svetaketu. Simply because of his devotion to his father, he later learned from a Master. In a short time Svetaketu graduated with excellent mark. And before returning to his father, he participated in many public debates in the country. Many times he won the debates. Consequently, he is well-known to many people across the country. This devoted son later came to his father with the hope that his father would be very proud of his achievements.

Conversely, his father cried as soon as he met Svetaketu. With a sense of wonder, this young man with many degrees asked politely to his father. The weeping old man muttered: "That's not what I asked you to learn. Now return to the same Guru, ask him to teach you the teaching that cannot be taught". Once again, because of his devotion to the father, Svetaketu met his master.

Hearing story like that, Svetaketu's Guru ask this handsome young man to bring sheep to a faraway forest, a forest that is not inhabited at all. The teacher gently whispered: "Whenever the sheep become one thousand, by then you can go back home". With a chaotic mind and a protest heart this young boy whose ego has been raised by fame was forced to go into the forest with a number of sheep.

In the early days he cried, in the initial months he kept shouting, in the beginning years he was deeply confused. After spending many years in silence, then he began to understand the teaching that cannot be taught. Osho called it "that one". Something that cannot be expressed by using human language. For that reason, Lao Tzu left a message like this: "One who understands does not speak.  One who speaks does not understand". As soon as Svetaketu understand "that one", suddenly he found the number of his sheeps are one thousand. Once he returned back to his master, this time his Guru prostrate respectfully to him by kissing Svetaketu's feet.

Back to the initial story about the loneliness of modern people in the crowd, without spending much time in silence, without looking diligently into layers of the inside self, without deeply understand each unique inner landscape, no matter how rich one is, they will remain lonely. And for any souls who dig deep enough within like Lao Tzu and Svetaketu, life is a poetry in silence. From this silent poetry then the babies of love were born to illuminate the world.

Author: Gede Prama.

Picture Courtesy: Twitter@Saffron606.

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