Are You The One Who Speaks
Remember the song, The Sound of Silence? Recently I watched a stunningly beautiful new rendition by the band, Disturbed. The power of the song demanded that I pay attention to the message.
After hearing this song for years, I finally realized it spoke of two kinds of silences.
The silence of quiet. The silence of no words. The silence as a grace. The silence we strive for in meditation. The silence where we exist as one.
The silence of being afraid to speak the words that need to be spoken.
Peddling away on the bike at the gym, I was counting down the minutes until I could go to yoga. A few other members of the class and I had already laid our mats in the room. About ten minutes before class we sit on our mats and wait in the semi-dark and the silence. As I biked one of the women who was also waiting for class to begin, told me that another instructor was in “our” yoga room teaching his boot camp class. She wanted to go in and meditate.
Instead, there were sweaty, jumping up and down, loud bodies in the room. This instructor had his own room. He had just decided to use our space because it was nice and warm.
My friend had peaked in the door and saw the man teaching the class, but although understandably upset, hadn’t done anything about it. Part of me wished I didn’t know what was happening because I knew what I would do next. I would have to do something about the “wrongness” of this event. And that’s what happened.
I entered the yoga room, tried to ignore the blasting music, and asked the tall, strong, and imposing man teaching the class if he would mind going back to his own room so we could come in to meditate. He looked down at me. “No,” was his answer.
I could have stopped there. But I didn’t.
Instead, first I spoke to the man at the front desk, and then the manager. After doing all I could, I waited outside for class to begin. As the members of the boot camp class exited the room, they saw me standing there waiting. I smiled at them, in spite of the dirty looks aimed at me.
During yoga, I explored how that felt. To do what seemed the right thing to do. Speak the words, and sacrifice the possibility that people might like me. I realized that I could suffer about that. Or not. My choice. In the same way, it was my choice to do what felt right to me rather than sacrifice my sense of fairness for the opportunity to be liked.
What happened is such a small event in the bigger picture of life. But when no one else spoke up I muttered under my breath, “and this is why things don’t change. No one speaks.”
What we can be grateful for is that we are living in a time when people are speaking up. They are speaking the words against injustice, and inequality. As they do so, it’s good to remember that speaking involves sacrifice for them. Even if it becomes just the relatively small sacrifice of not being liked, it can still be painful.
Sometimes it is a much more significant sacrifice.
Are we grateful for what they have done? Can we learn to do it ourselves even on a small scale? Speaking up will change the world, just as much as choosing the silence of no words and feeling the essence of One in that silence changes our lives.
Yes, there are two sides to silence. As we practice moving into the quality of mindfulness silence, let’s remember the other side of silence. Sometimes there are words that need to be written and words that must be spoken. If we can’t voice them ourselves, at least we can support those that do.
But you, my friend, I know you have words to share.
When you share them, do your best to not take the suffering with the sacrifice that can sometimes go along with speaking up.
Because even if sacrifice and suffering often go together, they don’t have to.
And for those that do suffer from their sacrifice, we can reach out, with our words, and our silent prayers, and make a difference for them.
Imagine all the people speaking out for what is right, and also finding peace in silence. Imagine all the people living in harmony. Yes, John Lennon, we are working on it!
Go ahead, speak what needs to be said. Someone needs to. Might as well be you and me.
Originally published at theshift.com on April 2, 2018.
