By and large, cities have spoiled the reputation of sound, nearly getting it dumped in the same category with noise. City music itself built a sort of continuum with bothering noises. Cities swarm with noise, big and small, close and far. The passing by cars, trucks, busses and trains , the planes flying over, the cranking of shops, elevators, televisions, mobiles…all around us is noise. Echoes of noise persist even after their sources have withdrawn! This explains so well the term “noise pollution”, that was ‘in’ for quite a while, but now seems forgotten.

But one can only realize the nature of this pollution, when good chance takes him to a far away mountain village. Yet even here some traces of noise remain. Reaching still further away, on mountain slopes, fields or even empty deserts with no horizon, one would suddenly encounter that infinite invisible silence. The quality of silence becomes detectable. The ears become suddenly as if open up to the sounds of another nature. The none sound. It connects you to the vast universe, since silence is surely a better conductor to your soul variations, than noise.

And it’s not here only that silence plays a spiritual role, so to speak. Poetry, oration, music, and even love all have special brackets for silence, that are strictly guarded and revered. The moment an orchestra concludes a music score, there passes a very fine and short moment of silence, that precedes audience applause. This moment that takes no more than half a breath, and a fraction of a time, has that rare character of transcendent silence. Go far away, meet the universal sound, encounter the invisible silence yourself.