Silence in the Heart of Chaos.

There is a joke mentioned in one of Swamiji’s books: it is a cartoon drawing of two monks talking on the peak of a cold mountain, and one monk telling the other:

‘Serenity, calmness, peace, nirvana, enlightenment….I just can’t take the pressure anymore!’

Sometimes, we tend to believe that the world revolves around us. We carry the load of ‘accountability’, and ‘social responsibility,’ and all those heavy feelings on our shoulders. Sometimes, even though we verbally acknowledge the power of the higher realms up there, deep down in our minds, we still believe that we are the karta, that nothing would have occurred if we hadn’t, well, made it happen.

My mother is around 60. Like any mother-daughter relationship, ours also is 60% fights and 40% love. I love my mother immensely, but I have always felt that she is a bit too generous. Worrying that people take undue advantage of her generosity. She is kind to a fault. Also, she sometimes tends to get over-friendly, and as time is progressing, she is loving to talk more and more. After a certain age, everyone should withdraw their senses inwards, and give silence some much-deserved company – such was my belief.  But ‘silence’ has never been a friend of my mother, she is always asking people how they are. 

So, when a chance to go to Sri Badrika Ashram arrived, I thought it would help my mother understand the concept of peace and silence finally! In fact, to help turn her more inward, and more spiritual, I even put her name as my company in the personal meeting form with Om Swami. When our personal meeting request got accepted by His grace, my mother was kind of excited to come along, even though she had never read His books before, and had barely seen only a couple of His discourse videos.

In the meeting, I noticed my mother crying with her hands folded in front of Swamiji. She had melted easily, like Nature, whereas I had bravely held my emotions firm.

‘That’s because her life is going to change: a new quiet will now dawn upon her”, thought yours truly. I was happy to ‘introduce’ my mother to Swamiji.

Little did I know, that it was Swamiji and Sri Hari who were planning to re-introduce my mother to me, and teach me a little lesson along the way!

To my bafflement, the next day, I found my mother to be chirpier and more talkative than usual. It was as if my intention to bring some silence in her soul had reversed itself, and she was more childlike than before. She had somehow become more at home at Sri Badrika Ashram than she was at our own home. She started making friends at an alarming rate, the youngest friend being a 4-year-old kid. She happily volunteered in the cafeteria, serving food during lunch. She spoke to total strangers like she had known them for years, and those people enjoyed her company too. She played Garba on the lawn as Sushree Diyaji and Divyaji did the kirtan, and also did a few garba moves once when we were waiting for the prasadam in the queue after aarti. My confusion knew no end.  

One evening, as I entered the temple for Lalita Sahasrarnama I saw my mother dancing to the rhythm of hare rama hare krishna, led by Sushree Diyaji. Mummy was also playing an instrument I had never seen in her hand before. Let alone that, I had never seen her dance to a kirtan before.  But boy, was she immersed in bhakti at that point! Peace and silence were written all over her face, even when her legs moved to the rhythm joyously, and she sang along at the top of her voice.

Then it struck me. It’s not like my mother doesn’t know silence. She finds her own kind of silence in the beautiful, poetic chaos around her.

So, yes, it wasn’t that my mother was over-friendly, I was the one who was overly serious. 

On my quest to become spiritually deeper, I had burdened myself with so much seriousness that I had lost vision of what the joy of worship really was! Sure, Sadhanas are difficult to undertake, but I didn’t need to act as if I carried the world around my shoulders, did I? In the Ashram, I used to wake up every day at 3.45-4:00 AM for my pooja. Although I enjoyed it, I still felt the burden of the entire Universe upon my shoulders. Maintained ‘silence’ for 2 days. Kept to myself most of the time. Only smiled at others rarely while my mother chirped away the entire time.

When I had complained to Swamiji about having no ichhashakti to carry on with my writing career anymore (didn’t tell him that I was getting up at 3.45 AM), what He had said was: ‘You are going through a bit of depression, that shows on your face, which is mostly because of your sleep pattern amongst other things. You are being too hard on yourself.’

Then when I saw my mother was doing the exact same thing that I did at 4.00 am: worshipping Sri Hari, but with a more joyful heart, I realized the meaning of Swamiji’s words. It wasn’t my mother who needed to embrace silence, it was I who needed to unburden myself, and learn to accept and love chaos!

The spiritual act of silence doesn’t have to be so heavy, that we shut up our own voice, or turn deaf to the voice of our Guru, who communicates constantly. Flowing river enriches fertile soils, and feeds millions whereas stagnant water breeds mosquitoes.

It is said that a mother is the first Guru. Swamiji showed me that she truly is!

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