“Take earplugs,” is usually one of the first things I advise when someone asks me for tips for traveling to India. India is loud. Very loud. I even read in the newspaper that age-related hearing loss sets in earlier in India than in Europe or America.
Persistent dog barking may keep you awake at night. The shrill honking, the thundering trucks and buses, the three-wheeled shared taxis with two-stroke engines make the cities tremble during day. And it’s not just the cities, and not just because of the traffic. Even where you would expect silence—in temples, at pilgrimage sites, in ashrams—it’s often noisy. Apart from the fact that Indians feel no obligation to speak softer in ‘holy’ places, religious songs boom from loudspeakers, and during the Arti ritual, bells are rung, conch shells are blown, drums and anything else that makes noise are used.
And even in the Himalayas, 4,000 meters high at the source of the Ganga, it is loud. The imposing roar of the newly born river surrounds the pilgrim, and the sadhu, without ceasing.
India and silence seem to be opposites, much like noise and silence.
On the other hand, India is called the spiritual teacher of the world, and no other country has yet challenged this title. There is a special atmosphere in the country that many visitors sense. It seems as if one becomes quieter inside, despite the unfamiliar noise. As if one automatically adopts a certain distance from what is happening to oneself – for example, when, travelling in an auto rikshaw in the chaotic yet swiftly flowing traffic, one is close to a collision at any moment, yet experiences the whole thing as impersonally as if one were casually watching a fast-paced computer game. Could it be that true silence can be found even in noise, and is not the opposite of noise? That it might even be more easily discovered amidst unbearable noise than when everything is outwardly quiet?
Anandamayi Ma, a saintly woman from Bengal (1896 – 1982), advised Melita Maschmann, a German journalist who lived with her for many years, to sit directly under the large bell in the temple every morning and evening during Arti and meditate amidst the cacophony of conch shells, bells, rattles, drums, and loud chanting. Melita told me that at first, she felt some resistance, but after a while it no longer bothered her, and she actually became still inside. Her resistance vanished. Anandamayi Ma was her guru, and it was a matter of course for her to follow her advice and accept the situation.
In all likelihood, accepting a challenging situation is the key to stillness—to a comforting stillness within one’s own mind, independent of external circumstances. And I feel that the special atmosphere in India is connected to the fact that thoughts are generally quieter in the minds of Indians than in the minds of Westerners, even though external circumstances in India are often more challenging. Indians resist relatively little, are rarely indignant, and are quick to accept difficult situations and difficult people.
Their philosophy is live and let live. They believe that everything is exactly as it has to be because a compassionate Ishwara is behind the drama in our lives and in the world. This belief lifts a burden from their shoulders and removes the reason to worry too much. It also helps to be a witness and maintain a certain distance from the drama and their own role in it, and not to be helplessly swept away by it. “What is, is” (Jo ho, so ho) I often heard Anandamayi Ma say when I frequently visited her at the beginning of my stay in India. It made perfect sense to me.
But this acceptance of a situation is by no means a given, even when one knows that, essentially, one has no other choice but to accept a situation, precisely because it is already a fact that one is confronted with. The inner resistance and the screaming against it seem to be innate in human beings. And it is even considered by some to be the only sensible course of action.
I recall an episode from quite early in my stay in India which made me reflect:
It was in the tourist bungalow in Haridwar. Several foreigners were staying there, all on a spiritual quest and with Anandamayi Ma as their guru. In the morning, the hotel boy came to clean the floor. When he was finished in my room, he knocked on the next door. A Westerner was meditating there at that time, and every morning there was the same pandemonium. The tall, strong Westerner angrily opened the door and shouted at the skinny boy, who looked about 14.
“Damn it! How dare you disturb me during meditation! I want peace and quiet at this hour, and I’ve told you countless times not to knock…” At first, I felt sorry for the boy, but as time went on, I got the impression that the shouting didn’t affect him much. He probably didn’t understand how a knock on the door could upset an adult man so much. Perhaps he was even secretly looking forward to the spectacle, since he was only doing his duty. And, of course, he calmly let the storm pass without defending himself and moved on to the next door.
I noticed at the time that the foreigner’s peace was indeed severely disturbed, not because of the knocking, but because of his own reaction. Perhaps he didn’t realize that his thoughts were making far more noise than the boy, and that a shrug and acceptance of the situation (because the boy apparently couldn’t be taught not to knock) and a shout out: “no cleaning today” would have given him the peace he craved.
It’s always easier to spot foolish behavior in others, but once you’ve internally shouted at a hopeless situation often enough, you learn to see it in yourself, too. It was a slow learning process for me. Perhaps it was easier for me to go through this process in India, precisely because the irritations are often considerable. On the other hand, I’m certain that everyone is provided with the optimal environment in which they can access their quiet, subtle essence, if they so choose.
Even the frequent power outages in the 1990s helped me gradually bring my inner stillness to the surface. At that time, I wrote my articles on a word-processor, which required me to save my writing to a floppy disk. When I was fully focused on writing, despite my best intentions, I invariably forgot to save. And then the power would suddenly go, and everything I had so diligently written was gone. Simply gone. “No!!! This can’t be true!” was my (understandable?) reaction, accompanied by helpless anger. It happened often, but over time my reaction weakened until only a neutral “Everything’s gone again” flashed through my mind. I took a deep breath and started over.
It’s not worth getting upset about something that has already happened. Indians seem to understand this better. Many Westerners, on the other hand, even consider it abnormal not to be indignant and regard equanimity under all circumstances (the ideal of a yogi) as boring.
The reason is probably that we are primarily focused outwards. We always want something to be happening. We want action to take place, and we don’t feel anything within ourselves, because we never really look attentively inside. And we still don’t realize that lasting happiness can’t be found that way. It lies hidden within ourselves. The boundless, invisible, blissful “inner Self” is the more important dimension in life.
By Maria Wirth
the above article (translated) is part of a chapter which i wrote for the German anthology “Wege der Stille”.
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