Yogananda's Silence
The Power of Silence
Paramahansa Yogananda’s “Silence” from Songs of the Soul features four tightly crafted stanzas. The author has appended the following note to the lines, “They hear its call / Who noise enthrall”: “I.e., those who practice yoga techniques of meditation, which enable the mind to disconnect itself from sensory distractions, thus freeing it to experiences perceptions of the Indwelling Glory.”
This note reveals the poem’s theme, while offering another wonder name for the Nameless, whom many simply call God.
First Stanza: “The earth, the planets, play”
The speaker begins by taking the reader’s attention beyond earth-bound awareness, remarking that the earth and other planets all participate in a drama bathed by the sun, and that drama, which proceeds like a game, is “In majesty profound.” “Time” plays a rôle similar to an “umpire,” watching “in silence sublime” as the “cosmic match” proceeds.
Second Stanza: “The Author of the wondrous game”
The speaker then explains that the creator of this heavenly match between the sun and the planets performs according to “His will.” The name of this Creator, Who is “The Author of the wondrous game,” cannot be correctly and completely pronounced. Although His children invent names for their Creator, they are unable to invent one name that can encompass all that such an Author must be.
There is simply no name that can be completely useful in labeling the entire cosmos and all of its inhabitants and entities. The pantheistic claim that God is everything makes an accurate statement, but it remains impossible to think about, and thus name, everything at once.
All names for such an entity are deficient, and therefore unable to be spoken, except in fragments. The concept that the Divine cannot be known by the mind but can be realized by the soul eliminates the deficiency of humankind’s remaining unable to speak authoritatively the name of its Creator.
This wondrous “Author,” however, directs “without a noise.” And humankind can be thankful that as He works, he does so “Ungrateful moods ignoring, / Unkindness all forgiving.”
Third Stanza: “Truth clearly speak to all”
Despite the seeming obscurity of the Author of this game of life, “Truth clearly speaks to all,” even though it “speaks not loud.” Humans are able to perceive that they have transgressed divine laws by the consequences they suffer thereafter; for example, when one overeats, one suffers an uncomfortable stomach. Breaking any law, divine or human, has unpleasant consequences from which the transgressor should learn to change behavior.
Fourth Stanza: “The tiger may be tamed”
In the final stanza, the speaker brings together metaphorically the various transgressions of human behavior that can be overcome through the “powerful silence of unspoken words.”
The Divine does not speak directly as a parent would directly instruct a child through language, but by meditating and “disconnecting” one’s attention “from sensory distractions,” the devotee who seeks to transform his life, to “tame” his “tiger” body, and “maim” his “failure’s talons,” may do so by freeing his attention from “sensory distractions.” After that freedom is achieved, the devotee can perceive that unspoken name as “the Indwelling Glory.
Paramahansa Yogananda
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