Silence by Debashis Chaterjee

Debashsi Chaterjee was the guest speaker yesterday. He spoke to the teachers on envisioning the ideal classroom to prepare students for the global, interconnected reality that they will face in the future. Below is his poem, On Silence.

Then the mother of a deaf girl with muted sorrow in her eyes said: Tell us about silence.

Ananda waited for the murmur of the eucalyptus leaves to wisper its last secrets through the hills. He seemed absorbed in a wordless conversation with himself as he said:

Silence is the womb of all that is spoken and heard.
Silence is the flow of the river of intelligence.
Like riverbanks, words are mere interruptions of this flow.
Silence is the unspoken truth of the universe.
Words are at best masks that embellish the face of truth with their many devices.
The forlorn lover sitting on the edge of the river pines for her lost love in dumb despair.
Only numbing silence connects heart with heart . . .

In silence words return to their essence, just as noisy rivers merge with the ocean.
Through words, One becomes many; in silence many return to the One.
In silence creation happens: the master in us has created a house called the universe.
Through words we knock at the door of this house.
In silence the chest of treasure is flung open.
Speak, but do not stand in the way of the music of silence:
your words are useless without the music.

The original voice of life is silence----
All other noises of the world are mere echoes.