Meditation through silent mind purification to understand reality eventually aims at Nirvana or liberation from the travails of the physical world into everlasting light.

Tradition reflects 

Tradition always associated meditation with silence, like we connect Michael Jackson with piercing screams or the ocean with water sounds. The forests, caves, and hills were original meditation resorts steeped in the silence of eternity. The Indian land of peace, non-violence, and Buddhism led to the meditation process to understand truth beyond mundane phenomena. 

Meditation brings feelings

We are lost in egos, distractions, and material pleasures as if we will live forever like the gods. The modern world has undoubtedly forgotten compassion, empathy, and charity. Technology has made us mechanical and unfeeling. Innumerable conflicts based on actual or imaginary issues have escalated through ever-present threats of terrorism that rise like the phoenix. Psychiatrists identify delusionary mental diseases when we fear dangers that do not exist. The mind is ultimately responsible for that teeming vortex inside the skull.

Reduce unnecessary thinking 

Amidst such a dark scenario, the world has wisely caught up with the virtues of meditation to tame the frolicking mind and eliminate unnecessary mental baggage, just like recycling old newspapers and clothes. While the recommended half an hour of meditation practice daily in a sitting, standing, or walking posture involves the same principles according to the unwritten rules of a quiet environment, ten-day meditation retreats restrict even speech, reading, or listening to music.

Can you imagine without speech 

Can you imagine ten days without speech when most would not manage 10 minutes without chatter? And what do we talk about all the time, every single day? Mostly unnecessary things! Talking shop is the favorite of the masses, and various social media networks like Facebook provide outlets for text and images akin to speaking. Petty rivalries, innate jealousies, fashions, fantasies, and unfulfilled desires make up the most common talk. Even children are made to write on ‘If I were a ….’

Curtail Negativity and become disciplined

Protracted silence in the retreat forms an escape if you can discipline yourself so far! An escape from the taking-for-granted lives of humdrum gossip, television reality shows, the cinema, parties, gambling sessions, card games, and professional or homely duties. The process of letting go of the phenomena that eternally ruled our lives is a challenging one. Terrible mind urges you would have to be gradually quelled. Negative emotions, thoughts, and feelings would be disciplined and curtailed. Concentrating the mind on an object, a portrait, or the breathing process helps the gradual withdrawal of the mind from the mundane to the spiritual. The final goal is to realize the emptiness like the sky without clouds of doubt, greed, anger, ignorance, and shame. The mind gains clarity and awareness; life becomes a blessing in the here and now.

Though meditation is practiced even amidst noisy cities, it would be a complex process that could only be sustained for a few minutes before distractions get the better of the mind. The best meditation is practiced in the ancient silence, which was the original human existence before the town took over.