Silence - the key to happiness

For some time now, my partner and I have been regular attendants at what is called an Inner Journey group, which meets every Wednesday in the village in which we live. This is loosely based on the concept of Journey work by Brandon Bays. The group has a set pattern whereby we meditate for a while (trying different methods such as mantras etc) and then discuss whatever is "in the air". It is an interesting little group and a wonderful resource that has been a great comfort and support to both of us.

Yesterday the group leader brought to our attention an article on the front page of yesterdays Independent, extolling the virtues of silence. I wrote about this myself on this blog not that long ago, about how distressing I find the constant noise bombardment that we have to face, especially when shopping. It seems that the right to silence is no longer respected, and everywhere is boom, boom, boom. As someone who worked in such an environment for just over a year, I know first hand just how this can affect people. It drove me quite literally to distraction.

Everything has its price, but it seems to me that in these times of economic uncertainty, silence is the one commodity that has no price. The soul of the nation, as this wonderful article (written by Peter Stanford, whose documentary entitled The Spirit of Silence will be broadcast on Heart and Soul on the BBC World Service on March 7th) states, has been sidelined in favour of spend, spend, spend. The belief that a burgeoning bank account and the latest "must have" gadgets hold the key to the meaning of life is revealed as little more a distraction of the ego. In these times of bust, when everyone is questioning their future and what it all means, it is a relief to know that the spiritual side of life is enjoying a revival - in particular, the need for silence.

This is nothing new to me, since I have craved silence for all of my life. My father used to say that he could quite happily pitch a tent in the middle of nowhere and live completely by himself, and I am exactly the same. In fact I frequently do just that - admittedly not in a tent, but regular readers of this blog will know that I frequently disappear for weeks at a time to a lump of granite in the middle of the Bristol Channel known as the island of Lundy. There is nothing to do on the island except walk, sleep, read and eat, pretty much in that order. The silence is golden and like pouring liquid light into the soul.

The island, in keeping with other centres of retreat, has never been so prosperous as people begin to realise that a shallow existence filled with "stuff" and constant activity is not the key to happiness, and does not hold the answers that they seek. The answers can only be found in silence, and that to most, means leaving the rat race behind.

Some people are afraid of silence, which I must admit, I find difficult to understand. As Father Cyril, a novice master at a closed Catholic Monastery that Stanford visited says, "Silence is not an absence of something. It's a sort of presence. Not talking does allow people to live more deeply, to try and find themselves at a deeper level than the emotional, pretty egocentric trivial level. When that's taken away, bit by bit the person discovers who he really is".

Perhaps that is the cause of the fear, for deep down, most of us do not want to look at who we really are, for it is just too painful. So, we continue to beaver away in jobs that we hate, in order to pay for things that we do not need, simply because we are too afraid to admit that there is an alternative. Perhaps that is the lesson behind this crunch, to force us to a point where we have to look at this stuff, to see behind the illusion that keeps us trapped like donkeys on a treadmill going round and round and round, only to end up at the same point where we started.

There are many different paths to silence - at the extreme end, living as part of a silent religious order. At the less extreme end, it may mean simply meditating each day, or spending time in nature. What matters is the benefits that silence brings - a stilling of the mind, so we are no longer slaves to our thoughts, but can get to the point of stillness that lies beneath. The one thing that all these different paths have in common is that they satisfy a need that is borne from the economic uncertainly that we all face.

As Stanford so rightly says, they satisfy something deep within because they stand in direct contradiction to everything that the world, until recently, has prized. Silence is not a commodity that can be sold on the High Street or through the Internet, for it has no price, it is something that cannot be denied, for it is the core, the truth of who we are.

That more than anything is the lesson that this crunch brings, that the soul cannot be satisfied by "things" and "stuff", for these are transient things designed to keep us trapped in the illusion, distractions from the truth of who we are. Silence is who we are and it can no longer be denied.

God Delusion to be banned in Turkey?

I see from the Independent that Richard Dawkins' Turkish publisher Kuzey Publications is being hauled over the coals by religious fundamentalists. It seems that they are being threatened with legal action by prosecutors who claim that their publication of Dawkins' best selling work The God Delusion insults believers. I don't know they are so upset about myself, as the Turkish translation has apparently only sold 6000 copies since publication.

Erol Karaaslan, the founder Kuzey Publications could though face between six months and twelve months in jail if found guilty. Prosecutors are still debating over to press charges.

It is not the first time that Dawkins' has come against such problems in Turkey, since it seems that Islamic fundamentalists also tried to ban his earlier work The Selfish Gene.

I don't understand the furore personally or even why it was deemed necessary to publish in this territory in the first place - the book discusses Christianity more than other religions, and Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country. It also then puzzles me as to exactly who has been offended. Having read the book myself, I don't recall it even mentioning Islam.

Neither is Dawkins the first author to face controversy. The article states that Nobel prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk and Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink were just two several dozens writers to be charged last year under a controversial law that makes it a crime to insult Turkishness, whatever that means. Pamuk was acquitted, but Dink – who was murdered earlier this year by a teenage ultra-nationalist - was found guilty.

What though does it mean to be Turkish, or for that matter, any other nationality? Does one have to be born in that country or have parents who were, or is it sufficient to have lived there for a certain number of years. If so, then how many? Is a child of Jamaican parents who emigrated to Britain in the 1950's any less British that I am - of course not, for in their hearts they still think of themselves as British, and that is what counts.

This also brings to mind an episode from my favourite science fiction series Babylon Five entitled Infection. It is I believe an episode from series two. It basically revolves around a machine on an uninhabited planet that seems hell bent on destroying everything in its path. When they ask what the machine actually wants it transpires that it was put in place to protect its former inhabitants, the Icarans from raiders by destroying anything that was not pure Icaran. The predictable result was of course the destruction of the entire race. Muslims and for that matter any other fundamentalist regime, should take note for if they do not pull up their own socks and start to behave in a more sensible manner by not being threatened by anything that does not agree with their own faith, they will ultimately share the same fate.

The word atheist is generally recognised in most societies as meaning one who does not believe in God. There is nothing wrong in this, as it is like anything else just one of many widely held beliefs. Being an atheist does not make one less moral or less of anything in fact, in fact when you look at the statistics the opposite is true. The more secular societies are nine times out of ten more tolerant and understanding of each other.

The word atheist has it seems only recently crept into the Turkish language, where it is regarded as a kind of insult. The Independent cites a survey of religious attitudes conducted in Turkey in 2006, which found that less than 2 percent of corespondents claimed not to believe in God. More recently polls showed that just 25 percent of Turks accept evolutionary theory.

On the one hand, while I am the first to espouse religious freedom, and in no way agree with the ridiculousness of this case, one has to ask why the book was published in this territory in the first place, when there seems to be such limited demand. Surely they must have known the controversy it would cause. The cynic or perhaps spiritual aspect of myself, wonders if this was the whole idea, since the only way to really shed light on these situations for them to be open to the light of public scrutiny so that they can be discussed by the world media and these regimes will realise and understand that their views are simply not those of a civilised society.

The treatment of women in Islamic countries has also been in the news in recent days. Firstly of course the ridiculous case in Sudan where a female teacher has been jailed for allowing the children in her case to name an innocent teddy bear as Mohamed. The British Government are I understand intervening to get her released, but in the meantime, some have called for a suspension of aid to that country. They are cutting off their noses then to spite their face.

The other case is that of a young recently married woman in Saudi Arabia, whose husband thankfully is standing by her. It seems that in Saudi Arabia with its extreme laws of sexual segregation, the only way that men and women can form any kind of relationship is for men to stand in the streets with their mobile phone numbers either on display as women walk past with their male chaperone's, or to literally throw them car windows. Somehow then prior to her marriage, this woman then formed a phone relationship with such a man.

After she was married he threatened to tell her husband unless she agreed to meet him, and so foolishly it seems she did. They were driving together when another car swung in front of them, hijacked their own car and drove them to an isolated place, where both her and her male companion were gang raped repeatedly by up to seven attackers. She tried to keep it from her husband and family, but the rapists (who had filmed the attack on their mobile phones) started to boast about what had happened and so the truth came out. Astonishingly the woman was sentenced to 90 lashes and then when she and fer family complained this was increased to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail. The rapists in the meantime were sentenced to between 2 and 11 years apiece.

The world can no longer sit back and allow this kind of thing to happen, we have to send a strong signal to these countries that this behaviour is not acceptable.