Dr Tanu jain
Chief executive officer
Bareilly cantonment board
Ministry of defence
My silence was broken after a long session of meditation when my dog returned from his walk and, with instinctive affection, came straight to me. His eyes—gentle, unburdened, and full of presence—met mine, and in that unspoken exchange, I felt the residue of my inner quiet dissolve into a tender joy. It was a simple moment, yet it carried the weight of truth: life, when uncluttered by thought, reveals its purest form.
Moments earlier, during meditation, I had watched the mind in all its mischief—spinning endlessly, weaving stories without pause. Thoughts chased one another like restless winds, untamed and uninvited. Some spoke of what was done to me, others of what I should have done; some carried old pain, others fresh disappointment. I realised, with startling clarity, that most of these thoughts would hold no meaning by the end of the day.
Someone had been kind. Someone had been cruel.
Someone fulfilled an expectation. Someone else could not be bothered.
Someone spoke with grace, another with indifference.
And yet, in the grand design of time, all of it would dissolve into memory.
So what truly matters? When the people fade, when the moments lose their sharpness, when the heart no longer aches as it once did—what remains? Only a feeling, perhaps—hurt, warmth, relief, longing. But even that fades, like the scent of a flower after dusk.
Ultimately, we are left with ourselves—with our own hearts, our own minds, our own beliefs, our own echoing thoughts.
During my practice, I observed how the mind resists silence. It writhes, it argues, it demands attention. I remembered Arjuna’s words in the Bhagavad Gita:
“Chanchalam hi manah krishna pramathi balavad dridham” —
O Krishna, the mind is restless, turbulent, obstinate, and strong.
How precisely that single verse captures the human predicament. The mind, like a child, resists discipline. It delights in distraction, thrives on remembrance and regret. But as I sat unmoving, simply watching, the turbulence began to lose its hold. Thoughts did not vanish; they simply ceased to command. What remained was not an empty void, but a quiet vastness—like a lake stilled after a storm.
Life, I realised, is an eternal play of opposites—joy and sorrow, gain and loss, praise and blame. The Gita counsels us:
“Sukha-duḥkhe same kṛtvā lābhālābhau jayājayau” —
Be even-minded in pleasure and pain, in gain and loss, in victory and defeat.
How liberating those words are. The balance they call for is not indifference, but awareness—an awakened equanimity that neither clings nor rejects.
As I sat enveloped in silence, old grievances softened. The people who had wounded me seemed suddenly small, almost innocent in their ignorance. Everyone acts, I realised, from the level of awareness they possess. Expecting others to see through the same lens as ours is the surest path to suffering. The moment we release that expectation, the heart exhales. Forgiveness becomes effortless, not as an act of will, but as a natural unfolding.
My dog, now resting beside me, seemed to embody this truth. He carried no grudges, no recollections of neglect or affection. He simply existed in the moment—alert, content, and free. Perhaps animals are the silent teachers of the soul, reminding us of the simplicity we have forgotten.
The Gita offers a metaphor that has always stayed with me:
“As the waters of many rivers enter the ocean, which remains undisturbed though ever being filled, so too the one who is unmoved by desires attains peace.”
To live like the ocean—vast, receptive, yet undisturbed—is to live in alignment with the divine.
To give rest to thoughts—vicharon ko viraam de—is not to suppress them. It is to rise above their tyranny. Meditation is not an escape from thought; it is the art of not being enslaved by it. I have begun to build small sanctuaries of silence through the day—a pause before reacting, a deep breath before speaking, a question before worrying: “Is this thought necessary?”
Most of them are not.
At night, I silently release every name, every face that unsettled my peace. I forgive in imagination what I cannot yet forgive in feeling. I let gratitude replace analysis. Slowly, the heart grows quiet, and the mind bows to its own stillness.
When thoughts subside, the voice of the heart grows audible. Compassion begins to bloom where anger once took root. What once seemed an injury becomes a lesson. What once felt like rejection begins to reveal itself as redirection. You begin to see yourself not as the sum of experiences, but as the witness behind them—the still flame that neither flickers with praise nor dims with blame.
Krishna never asked Arjuna to abandon the world; He asked him to stand steady within it. To engage fully, yet remain untouched—to act without agitation and to love without attachment. That is true mastery.
Silence, then, is not withdrawal. It is refinement. It is the polishing of perception until the ordinary becomes luminous. It is knowing that the world will continue its noisy dance—people will come and go, opinions will rise and fade—but beneath that movement, there lies an unchanging core of stillness. To dwell there is to know peace.
Now, as I sit again, my dog asleep beside me, there is no urge to think, no need to remember, no hunger to anticipate. The present moment expands until it feels infinite. Perhaps this is what the Gita means when it says:
“Jitātmanaḥ praśāntasya paramātmā samāhitaḥ” —
He who has conquered his mind finds peace; for him, the Supreme Self is already attained.
When we give our thoughts a moment’s rest, the soul awakens from its slumber. We begin to hear the music hidden beneath silence—the rhythm of existence itself.
And in that soundless expanse, we do not merely find peace;
we remember who we truly are.