A merchant, having suffered a loss of thousand dinars, enjoined his son not to reveal it to anyone. The boy said: ‘It is thy order and I shall not tell it but thou must tell me of the utility of this proceeding and of the propriety of concealment.’ He replied: ‘For fear the misfortune would be double; namely, the loss of the money and secondly, the joy of neighbours at our loss.’
A recent research project on silence, co-founded by the European Commission found out that 3% of heart attacks in Germany are due to road traffic noise. The percentage may vary from country to country. That is about the choking noise that man cause. On the other side, silence truly saves both body and mind; but I think that we are not that familiar with this panacea. The merchant referred above knew how much an inappropriate communication would damage oneself and how important it is to live in silence. ‘Silence’ in spirituality often refers to a state of inner stillness, while outer silence refers to all sorts of sounds – natural and artificial. Inner stillness is about coming in contact with the divine. Late Sri Sathya Sai Baba categorically said, “You can hear the footsteps of God when silence reigns in the mind.”
