“Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”
― Pablo Neruda
The moment you step out of your true nature, you lose your essence. When you discover that you are in conflict with yourself, everything will be unsettled. You know the feeling, Hindi ka totoo sa sarili mo or niloloko mo lang sarili mo. You know the feeling too, right? You can fool everyone but when you are alone the truth manages to confront or even haunt you. You cannot fool yourself, you may betray yourself but you cannot fool yourself. A multitude may believe you but you know the truth. And that is because the moment you step out of your true nature, you lose your essence.
And what is our true nature? Silence. We are quiet by nature. Do not get confused. Being chatty or bubbly has nothing to do with silence. Being talkative, opinionated, and loud does not make you opinionated, loud or even talkative. Those are moments; they are not your true nature. Our
true nature is silence. Can you be silent in a crowd? You know the answer to that. You can sit in a whole room and be still.
A chaos may be blowing around you and strangely enough, you can keep your cool and be quiet. Why, because it is our nature. People who are rattling and ranting are unhinged brought down by their fears and doubts. The bravest people are those who can keep calm and still in the midst of a storm. Look at Jesus. He slept through a tempest.
So where do we find this silence? There is good news and there is bad news. First the good news. You do not need to find silence. It is already within us. It has many names including, safe space, sacred space, inner garden, hidden sanctum plus a host of others. Still it is there.
Everyone has that silence. You only need to find the time to go into it. For others it is not a space but a time. We can always go there, it is always present; it is always serene. It is what Pablo Neruda says “Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly.” One cannot fathom or discover that unless one is in the quiet. Silence has so many
answers because silence is not noiseless. Far from it.
The bad news is most people do not like to go there. They prefer the madness and the violence.
Look at the world, look at social media. Discord and mayhem parading as bravado and strength when in fact it is just a lack of silence. No one wants the silence because the silence does not lie. Thus we pop our pills, we post comments like mad, we drink to a stupor, we drown in clothes and money, and we flee from the very thing that can set us free.
Silence is only for the brave. The quiet can only be embraced by the strong. That is why we struggle and flee.
But peace and quiet can be ours, for a start it only takes deep breathing and a deliberate turn away from the madness of the world. Not easy but worth it. Try it and you might be surprised as to what the silence reveals. Perhaps your true self.