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Tomorrow, on the 10th of July, full thirty-five years will have been completed of Avatar Meher Baba's unique and significant silence. It is worthwhile for us to ponder over its tremendous significance. Our age is addicted to words, so much so that more often than not, we find that we have spoken out long before our thought has been completed. And we strangely persuade ourselves to believe that the leaking vessel will be full of the waters of life. The psycho-physical energy which should go into understanding the eternal Truth gets dissipated in the flinging of slogans and the brandishing of phrases, leaving the heart empty as ever. The movement of the mind-heart gets tied to the outgoing psycho-chemical nervous discharges through the speech centers. Like the high-tempered steed whose feet are hobbled to each other, the life-action of knowing and feeling gets retarded at every step, if during the process of understanding, there is an unavoidable compulsion towards self-communication through words. The result is helpless confusion within and disastrous chaos outside.
It is as if all the steam in the engine had managed to escape through the whistle, leaving no reserve for driving the train. The only radical cure for our age would lie in prolonged and universal silence for each and all. But this is an impossible feat, requiring as it does profound understanding on the part of all. It seems to me that the inscrutable silence of our Beloved Avatar vicariously and representatively fulfils this supreme need of our distracted age.
In fact, Meher Baba has himself once said, "I observe silence, because I am tired of talking through you all." The unique, unparalleled and uninterrupted silence of Beloved Baba is an adequate balancing counterpart for the endless chattering and gossip that drains the energy of our age. It is not a silence of just one man against the meaningless voices of the multitude. It is the silence of the Avatar, whose life, in its universal aspect, pulsates through all beings in all kingdoms and worlds. The counterpoise is a complete set-up for his Avataric working.
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