When I was small, my father used to recite to me a lot of stories. He has a stock full of stories. He has like a new story to explain every aspects of life, thus making it more interesting and easier to understand. I would love listening to his stories as a child, and I still do.
One such day, he told me this amazing story, which I still remember word by word. The story goes as follows:
There was a small village where people used to live in huts, very close to each other. On one of these huts lived a husband and a wife. They were in their forties and had been married for years. In those villages, girls and boys were married off at a very young age. It was believed that since they grew up together, they would have better understanding among themselves and get used to each other at a very young age.
This couple, however, didn’t get along at all. It began with them fighting some days, to them fighting every day. They would shout at each other on top of their voices, call each other names and sometimes even throw utensils at each other.
As the huts were situated close to each other, the neighbours would have a hard time with the entire racket they created. Moreover, they didn’t want their children to hear and learn the curses. They tried talking to the couple many time, but to no avail.
Once, a Saint visited the village. The village ladies convinced the women to meet the Saint, as he would surely have some solution to help her regain peace with her husband. The women agreed and visited the Saint that very day.
The Saint patiently heard the woes of the women, and once she finished, he asked her to do just one thing —“ Fill your mouth with water every-time your husband is around. Take care not to swallow it or spit it. Do this every day and have patience. All will be well”.
The woman was excited to test what the Saint had just asked her to do. So, the first day she filled her mouth with water as soon as her husband entered. He, as usual, started shouting and cursing her. She too wanted to revolt, but with her mouth filled with water, she couldn’t utter a word. The husband grew angrier when she didn’t react, but it still didn’t make the wife fight back.
This happened for a few days, and slowly, the husband started to curse less, till he got tired of cursing alone and finally stopped it altogether.
What do you think was the reason that the husband stopped cursing his wife? Why would they go on and on in the beginning? The simple reason is, in the beginning, as his wife responded to his shouting, he would instead shout and curse even more. He knew it affected her and that’s what he wanted. Both wanted to win the argument. Isn’t this what we all want when we are angry?
In the latter case, when the wife couldn’t respond, as she had her mouth filled with water, at first the husband got irritated as to why were his words not affecting her? He was getting affected by her silence. As the days passed, he noticed that his words were falling on deaf ears and it didn’t affect the wife. No matter how hard he tried, the wife didn’t say a word. Finally he got tired of shouting alone, and so he stopped.
So, now we see what the Saint’s motive was. He used the wife’s silence as a secret weapon to stop the husband from cursing and bring back normalcy in their lives. This is the strength of silence.
Silence speaks more than words. It also has a greater impact than words. When a mother beats or scolds her child, it may not commit the same mistake once, but it may commit the same mistake the next time. Whereas, if the mother punishes her child by not talking to it for some time, that is the worst punishment for it. A child can bear the beatings and scolding of their parent, but they cannot bear to know that their parents are not talking to them. Their silence causes the child more pain and fear, than their actions. Silence is considered to be the best punishment for a child. This fear prevents the child from committing the same mistake again.
When we hurt someone knowingly or unknowingly, and the person doesn’t say a thing, it makes us feel much guiltier than what we would have felt if the person had taken it out on us.
Silence of a person we love, is very hard to handle. Words help us understand what is going on within the person, their feelings or anything that is disturbing them. Whereas, if a person is silent, we don’t know what is going on within them and this affect us more. It makes us feel as if we are losing our hold on that person.
This is well-stated in the below quote:
It’s a difficult competition against silence, because silence is a perfect language, the only language which says with no words.
So, don’t consider a person, who is silent, to be weak. Silence is, at most time, a symbol of immense strength within. A person, who is silent during hardships, is the one who can overcome any battle of life.
But an alteration to this, however, is if a person is silent, even after witnessing something wrong being done to others, is the most awful person in the world.
So, practice and master using this weapon of silence, to improve your life and that of others, but not to harm anyone in any way.
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