You don’t need to have just ears to listen. You can do it far better with your soul. If not this, why would one listen to the beautiful songs of silence in solitudional woods? The voice, whisper and songs of silence that come embracing you to console, to befriend, to comfort, to reassure, to rejuvenate. You need to ‘have’ a soul to listen. Of course everyone and everything has a soul. By ‘having’ a soul I mean one is aware of its presence, its lively throbbing, its guiding light, its essence, its imperishable nature beyond the bodily encasing. Its real feel, its vibrant awareness is what I mean to ‘have’ a soul. The trees, plants, grass, flowers, birds, snakes, earth, sky, stars and all and sundry have a soul. And they listen. I sometimes say a few gentle, appreciating words to the flowers and they smile better. Yes, they do! But you need to have a soul-to-soul connection to feel that. I tried it with a snake but it scampered away and so did I after that brief period of calling it a ceasefire along the human-snake line of fear-fire, the very same primal fear blocking soul-to-soul contact. The next time I intend to use the voice of silence and words of gentility through the eyes instead of oral words. It might work. You never know.
But sadly we are losing soul-to-soul contact. The once beautiful relationships are falling apart. Words of love are replaced by hard rhetoric and arguments. And looks have changed. The eyes are more used to stare these days. A stare speaks for thousands of hateful words. There is distrust and insecurity. There is a sinister willingness to get fitted in the angry stereotypes being cast by those who would benefit from a divided society. In Delhi a young man stabs another. The trigger was that they happened to stare at each other. The crime acquires more serious proportions because the stabber happens to be a Muslim. Someone stabbing a coreligionist stands a chance of being defined as one-to-one illegality. But in case of the two parties belonging to different religions it becomes something far bigger than a crime. Communal haggling, shoving and pushing followed the incident.
Somewhere in the capital, a man pounces on a woman and takes away her gold earrings. But gold is very dear to our ladies. She desperately clung to the snatcher. Her two daughter-in-laws ran and all three of them clubbed him down. But maybe he loved gold even more than all three of them combined. He swallowed the earrings. Now the police have the added task of admitting him to a hospital and ensure that the precious items are retrieved safely at the exit point. They will come out provided the bearer hasn’t the appetite to digest it and make it a part of his anatomy forever. And if the gold comes out it will still retain its value irrespective of its latest exit point, just like heroin and illicit drugs capsules retain their market value after they are successfully retrieved from bellies, anus and vaginas of the bearer by the client.
Turmoil, turmoil everywhere born of the loss of soul-to-soul connection. In Nainital there is a gross abuse of animal rights. A Muslim youth is caught violating the modesty of a cow. A severe breach of conduct even punishable under the laws concerning animal rights. But from the religious point of view it’s a sin. So riots follow. The more we lose contact with our own and others’ souls, the less we pardon. We turn intolerant and unforgiving. We then just need reasons to get angry and hateful.