Is the loss of mobile phones, and loss of the internet a calamity? How many of us can survive without our phones and the internet. I see myself and I see others around me. I am unashamed to say that I rely on the internet for information and details. The phone is also essential. However, the question is how necessary is the mobile.

Before, one would make a call on the landline and if there was no answering service, one just thought, ok they are not there. Now if one does not answer one’s phone, it can be taken as an offence. There is no excuse, that it is a false ring or the service provider is down or there is no signal. All this does happen but not so frequently. The internet is amazing, one can download books, PDFs and have access to whatever one is looking for. I remember how much time I spent in the library, when I was writing my Ph.D.

Now wherever one goes people are looking into their phones, taking selfies, watching films or whatever is on their tablets. They rarely look up and even when they are outside, they are taking selfies, or snaps, without actually looking around them. They go on holidays and their idea is to send photos on Facebook, Instagram or twitter. Actually, if one asks, they may not be able to answer one’s question about the scenic splendor, but they will show you a picture. So, what happens to our descriptive ability, can we write about some of the places we have visited. Our conversation on WhatsApp is now with emojis, and words which are shortened. The first time someone sent me a WhatsApp in this condensed way, I seriously thought that she was dyslexic or was having some serious spelling issues.

I do not want to write that it is all bad, and I love it that I can go to Google and make sure that I have written correctly and going through dictionaries and the Thesaurus can be difficult. Many meditation centers take the phones away. I enjoyed the silence when I went to attend a Vipasana seminar.

Is the silence deafening?

Can we stand the silence if we are not constantly on the phone? Do we find the quiet threatening? Do we have to listen to the YouTube? Do we have to send messages and WhatsApps? Is the silence deafening?

How can we seek the soundlessness and serenity within? Are we in quest of the unstruck, unbeaten and unhurt sound? Can we hear the vibrations (Nada)? Sound is the reflective awareness of the energy of transcendental consciousness, which becomes conscious of itself and assumes the form of unstruck sound, Anahata Dhvani.

It is not manifest as the individual phonemic energies of speech but is the phonemic energy (varna) of all these as the instrumental cause of their manifestation and underlies them when they are manifest individually.

In the silence of meditation, one can hear the sound of a bell, the sound of a conch, the sound of a flute, the sound of a kettle-drum, the sound of clouds.

Swami Sivananda said that the aim of life is silence. Peace is silence, it is the language of the heart. Behind all noise and sound is silence and it is one’s innermost soul. Pratyahara is silence of the senses. Then the waves of the mind become silent as the intellect is not engaging. Silence itself is our recharger.

Aim Hrim Klim

Photo by ANGELA FRANKLIN on Unsplash