I wait anxiously for a response, but find none.
Time passes slowly and begins to weigh heavily upon me. Sitting on the floor I lean my back against the trunk and listen for a sound — even if just the movement of air. But there is only this, the silence. Looking for direction, comfort, companionship I strain to break into that silence, searching for something within it. Like a space traveler, I wish to be transported forward into some great meaning, for there is nothing here. I quiet even my breathing and arch forward as if to invite myself in, but there is still only the thump thump thump of my heart as it keeps rhythm like a metronome, marking the passage of life.
Weary, I rest upon the floor and begin to drift off. In the distance I hear, faintly, the sing-song verses of childhood. From where are they coming? Are they "out there" or am I humming them from within? And why these chants from the past and not some magical flute beckoning me to a new, mysterious, enchanted land?
If I had different ears, could I hear something extraordinary: the commotion of life around me; the little creatures that live on my skin; atoms bumping and colliding; the energy of life; the rush of the universe? Have my ears become like filters, letting in the noises and sounds I recognize; keeping out those which have no definable tone or measurable decibel? I wonder if there are those who have learned ways of listening to sounds not heard?
What lives and moves and makes noise in the silence of infants? Is the music of life playing in the background like a pied piper, luring them forward, giving them cues? The silence of infancy is quickly shattered by the demands of caregivers: smile, turn over, open wide and say aaaah.
In adolescence, life begins to hustle from inside and out. Some hear only the call of the wild and let their bodies lead them to pleasures of the flesh, for that is the strongest and easiest-to-determine direction. Knowing only the feeling of being carried away, they allow those feelings to lead them, seeking still more pleasure. They travel even further into that blind alley until it opens into the great pit and they fall forever from grace and hope. Their lives now dependent on the needs of the flesh, their silence is engulfed in the constant and deafening screaming of those needs.
Most others travel the acceptable roads of education, marriage, family, career...and find not silence but the advice of all who have gone before: warning, cautioning, urging, telling, preaching, moaning, prompting, on and on through the halls of time. It is a litany whose chant is stilled only with age, because with most of life spent, foolish dreams are a waste of time. All that remains is surrender.
Bodies age, quit, decay, become what they were before it all began. But the Silence — the silence shattered at birth, the silence that worried our youth, the silence we searched out in hectic times of acquisition and accomplishment, the silence that waits like a faithful friend as we grow old and ready to listen — the Silence remains.
Can the silence from which we sprang be rediscovered before it's too late? To do so, energy, normally flowing outward in search of other energies, must be forced inward. Thoughts must be herded like stampeding cattle back into the self to halt and quiet. And when all thoughts are gone, so too will go the desire to run after them. We then stand within the void and wait patiently, calmly, empty of all we brought.
In that surrender we acknowledge life itself: before us, behind us, within us. Ebbing and flowing in the channels we forge for it...in the silence, the holy silence. It is before this silence that we lie prostrate on the ground of nothingness and ask of it mercy. Mercy. Not help to hang on, not favors to make it work — but mercy. Mercy in our foolishness. Mercy, for we are pitiful in our conduct and our positions of greed and power. Mercy, because we have been so lost and confused.
The silence must be this and only this: complete absence of me and my feeble hopes and attempts to hang on to the "things" in life. It is only when my poverty runs so deep it takes with it all I have and am that I can approach the threshold of the Silent and beg entry, admission. For the silence is nothing and yet all.
Yes, I am alone at last. The noises, the songs, the words, the thoughts have been stilled. The Silence has come now and surrounds me. This is the great moment, the moment of surrender.
Frantic, I jump to my feet and cry out in terror. Help! Is there anyone out there who can help me?
And the sound of my voice shatters the silence.