Short excerpt from a longer essay on the nature of silence, to be published in a collection of non-fiction essays.

INSIDE THE HORN OF SILENCE

At the time of our birth, when we come into the world of texture, sight and sound, we do so with a piercing wail that shatters the eternal silence of the cosmic void with its harsh, human emotion. This solitary human cry, multiplied endlessly across the millennia through countless births, actually reflects the cosmic sound that was uttered at the unfolding of the creation. Within the cold night and boundless span of eternity, God initiated the first act of creation, not with a gesture; but through the power of sound. Out of the infinite silence beyond the celestial horizon, from the profound depths creating the mystery of the Unknown, from the very origin, source and center of Cosmic Quintessence, the Supreme Being had spoken the primordial LOGOS that prompted the creation, thus initiating all that was to be, will be and is in the great unfolding of the cosmic universe. According to the Quran, Allah proclaimed the possibility of creation and its ensuing existence with the word BE! (kun).

In commemoration of this utterance, we proclaim our individual identity at birth and greet the world with a cry that initiates the creation of the individual self. Prior to its birth, the cry of the individual soul lies locked inside the hollow horn of silence, unsounded and at rest, yet full of rich potential awaiting birth and discovery. We are born out of a profound, celestial silence that finds its source within the open spaces of eternity. However, as we grow older and age, we lose track of those distant waves of silence whose unspoken resonance fed our infancy and early childhood with sweet remembrance of the Paradise from which we have fallen. When we die, the Quran recounts that “On that Day, all will follow the summoning voice from which there will be no escape; and all sounds will be hushed before the Most Gracious, and thou wilt hear nothing but a faint sigh in the air” (20:108). What begins with a sound emerging out of silence will end with a single cry that will fade back into the silence of the Eternal Deep until some new cycle reawakens the creation of a newly born universe.

Why is it that we never consider the implications of silence and focus merely on the beauty of words and the ennobling sounds of the animal world to stir our imagination and sacred sentiments? Why do we marvel at the cry of the peacock and cringe at the bray of the donkey which, according to the Quran, is the harshest sound on earth? It seems that we are in some way victims in a “conspiracy of silence” that blocks our way to a true understanding of the nature of Reality. I wrote an article recently about the efficacy of words in an effort to give voice to their beauty of sound and their efficacy in communication; now I find myself grappling with the power of silence and its mute implications in order to better understand yet another mystery of life that refuses to give up its secrets. I suggested that in order to appreciate the significance of words, we need only imagine a life without their enduring presence, together with the loss of the flood of communication that words generate. “Without words, the silence of the universe would be stunning and profound, just as it was be-fore the birth of creation and the advent of sound.” In fact, one could reverse the image and write of the power of words and the beauty of silence. Which is more beautiful, or powerful for that matter, the toning of a distant bell or the silence that envelopes the hypnotic sound of the bell within its mystic embrace?

We ignore the true significance of silence because of its overt muteness and seeming nothingness, representing an absence rather than a presence and an emptiness rather than a fullness, as if a deaf mute had nothing to offer but the shell of silence as witness to his thinking mind and beating heart. When I think of silence, I think of the wind in the trees, a feather free falling, or snow floating like star dust from the sky. I think of moving shadows and the trailing light of shooting stars, planets rounding in their orbit, crocodiles sleeping in mud, buffaloes standing in paddy fields and swans on water, all artifact s of a mute message that awakens some inner sanctum of mystery and holiness that pours out its contents into the mind and heart like the transparent ooze from a cracked egg. Silence can be extravagant and bold, invading the faculties of our inner world—the flash of our intelligence, the logic of our reason, the emotions of our hearts—like a warrior armed with the weapons of stillness, solitude, loneliness, and darkness, arriving like an uninvited guest and in stealth, robbing us of the noise and disquiet that roams through our being like clashing cymbals and brass, leaving us awash amid the unaccustomed experience of serenity and calm. Silence can contain mysterious depths with nowhere to go and no one to announce itself to, moving amid the inner waters of our being with all of the serenity of a lily pad floating on a pond.

The silence of a book lies in the mysterious letters and words that lie on the page like expectant maidens or buds waiting to flower. The silence of the song lies in the breath not released, the voice not heard. The silence of nature recalls the image of the horizon as the end of the world or towering mountain peaks that trace messages in passing clouds with invisible ink. The silence of a mirror lies in the image of light that emits no sound. Like darkness, silence awakens feelings of uncertainty and desire that hover at the brim of realization like a dewdrop falling from a leaf. Like love, it lifts us to a new dimension of luminous purpose that we cannot ignore without giving up some secret we cannot afford to lose. It is as if silence dreams and mutters in its sleep, but for what and why it dreams there is no clear reason. Where is the consciousness behind this eerie absence? Who is the author of such stillness that transforms by its very nature into such eloquent meaning?

Sound and silence are the great magisterial adversaries of the universal order. Either silence fills the air with its universal quietude, or the vacuum is filled with the profusion of sound and noise that are the hallmarks of the terrestrial world. We think nothing of the cacophony of sound and its accompanying clamor, until we learn to appreciate the eloquence of a sobering silence, without movement or sound, and full to the brim with its awe-inspiring mystery. A rare and precious silence reigns over all of nature’s bounty. In the presence of wild nature, one dares not raise a finger for fear that some vague movement of sound in the wind might destroy the elegant stillness. Sound can be considered merely the punctuation marks of an infinite silence. Think of the trailing sound of a train distancing itself across a night landscape or the gentle murmur of the wind invading the forest pines as punctuation marks of sound with which to read the silence, to give it shape and texture. A flickering fire against the blackness of a desert night is nothing but a comma; it does nothing to unsettle the stillness of the night any more than a single sound could unsettle the silence of the universe.

All of the elements of virgin nature still retain in principle the primordial qualities of beauty, serenity and holiness that humans seek and can find within the sacred symbols of the natural order, if they share in the symbolist sympathy for the messages that are implicit within the world of nature. The silence of forests, the majesty of distant mountains, and the brilliance of the setting sun all testify to the holiness and the healing factors of nature and point to the spiritual presence that can calm disquieted minds and balance the disharmony of unhappy souls. The yearning to return to nature that we witness during these times reflects the deep-seeded yearning for the beauty, tranquility and peace that are fundamental desires of our human nature, but that are far distant memories for modern individuals who must cope in their daily lives with the debilitating ugliness of the world and the stressful complexity of life in our huge, impersonal and virtually inhuman metropolises. While we may well be remembered for the noise that we created, the Prophet Zachariah, according to the Quran, is remembered above all for his silence, when he was commanded not to speak to the people for three days, as a sign.

In order to come to terms with its mysterious ethos, we endeavor to characterize the word “silence” with an extensive list of adjectives. The ‘long’ silence begs for interruption to halt the torpidity of its perpetual duration, while the ‘deadly’ silence scares us with its absolute and final quality. The ‘fearful’ silence hovers in the background with its attendant panic, while ‘eerie’ silence fills us with premonition and dread of the unknown that lurks around every corner and follows us through darkness. The silence between enemies lies in unspoken accusation and hatred, while the silence that exists between friends can be a form of intimacy and comfort. Silence can be awful to the extent that only words can solve the problem or depressing to the extent that only words can offer solace. We hold our breath in silence as a result of intense speculation or anticipation. Silence can be stillness and quietude, or it can be a source of disturbance to our mentalities, depending on how we approach its reflective resonance on our inner being.

Ultimately, silence can be redeeming when we stop searching for some missing piece of the puzzle and find it within its ancient reservoir. The silence of the self stands on the threshold of the silence of God, which terrifies us until we realize that the Supreme Being has no need for words and can comfort us in a thousand silent ways. Silence can be intolerable, such as in the loneliness and solitude of our prayer to Heaven, when we think we are not listened to or heard. Indeed, the silence of Heaven would have been unbearable if Allah had not spoken through the Archangel Gabriel and the Prophet Mohammed, upon him blessings and peace, with words of revelation to mankind. “And it is not given to mortal man that God should speak unto him otherwise than through sudden inspiration, or [by a voice, as it were,] from behind a veil, or by sending an apostle to reveal, by His leave, whatever He wills [to reveal]: for, verily, He is exalted, wise” (42:51). The divine Speech is for those who have faith and whose hearts find a serene peacefulness in the remembrance of God, for “indeed, in the remembrance of God do hearts find serenity and peace” (13: 28).

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th century American transcendentalist poet and essayist, wrote that all sounds are ultimately the servants of silence. “Silence, seclusion, austerity may pierce deep into the grandeur and secret of our being, and so diving, bring up out of secular darkness, the sublimities of the moral constitution." As Emerson rows through the quiet of the night, he looks upward: the serenity of the valleys nestled between mountain peaks echoed the silence of the stars. In that context, it is easy to imagine what it means to speak of breaking the silence, as if it were a plate of glass, delicate and refined, waiting to be shattered into a thousand pieces. He also writes of the power of a thousand silences when set up against the force of a single sentence, alluding to the power of ideas that comes from the “heavenly mind”, ideas that “taught my lips a single speech, and a thousand silences.”

The passion evidenced in the love of nature recreates the world in its paradisal splendor in which all things are alive and significant; even the silence of a rock can be a prelude to a message. Nature comes alive and grows conscious every time a bird pours forth its spirit and sings with notes that are heart-felt as well as sweet. The clouds have faces as we look upon them. The trees of the forest, the waving grass, and the budding flowers seem intelligent and send out invitations for humanity to trust in the secret they have to convey. All of nature stirs the natural sympathies and emotions of humanity that would otherwise lie dormant within the meadows of purely physical matter without the richness of spirit found in the green solitude of nature. St. Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264 AD ?) has expressed the reverence for silence in this way. "We worship with reverent silence the unutterable Truths and, with the unfathomable and holy veneration of our mind, approach that Mystery of Godhead which exceeds all Mind and Being." The Quran tell us that when humanity has been silenced on the Day of Judgment, their hands will speak for them about what they have accomplished on earth: “That day We shall set a seal on their mouths, but their hands will speak to Us” (36: 65).

Silence, solitude, darkness, these are the rarest commodities that we know. Astronomers tell us that real darkness has all but vanished from the globe, just as true silence, without a bird’s twitter or the owl’s hoot, is nowadays hard to come by. The privacy that solitude ensures may be difficult to obtain, given the frantic pace of life today and the demands of family and friends, either in person or electronically, leaving us with pre-cious little peace, much less the silence that peace implies. Without silence, solitude, and darkness, how can we come to any sense of our true size and how do we know our actual relationship with the rest of the world. The pursuit of silence implies stepping outside the struggle of life. We listen, but are not able to fully decipher what we hear. Words have their moment and sounds have their point, but silence wraps me in its velvet embrace and comforts me with its abiding quietude. As the final reminder of the eternal and the infinite, the ghost of silence haunts us with its premonitions of other dimensions and other worlds. When we fill ourselves with noise, silence takes its leave like a ghost that no longer frightens us. With the departure of the ghost of silence as an abiding presence in our lives, we fill ourselves instead with noise as the logical alternative to the stillness and tranquility of silence.