SILENCE: AN INTELLECTUAL PROCESS

Silence is Golden

ANGER is a very common phenomenon. How to manage anger is a problem faced by every man and woman. The Prophet of Islam has given a wise formula in these words:

When a person is angry, he should keep silence.
Bukhari

Silence is not a state of vacuum. When a person becomes silent, he is often engaged in a great intellectual process. The fact is that anger is a presence of high activity in the mind. Under natural processes the mind releases extraordinary amounts of energy in a state of anger. At this juncture, there are two options for every person; that is, to give this energy either a positive direction or a negative one. If anger is diverted to the negative side, the result would be revenge, intolerance and unsympathetic attitude towards others. On the contrary, if one is able to divert it to the positive side, it would result in such healthy qualities as tolerance, well-wishing and sympathy for others.

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When a person becomes silent, he is often engaged in a great intellectual process.

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Silence has a great role to play in this process. If man is able to maintain silence, automatically the energy released by anger will get diverted to the positive side. And then under the very law of nature, all healthy qualities will arise. If the energy released at the time of anger is turned to the negative side, then man is himself responsible for it. However, when it is diverted to the positive side, it is totally on account of the natural process.