And that’s how everybody thought. At exactly twelve o’clock, for one minute there was absolute silence – not even a single noise. The mystic had managed it. And the king was transformed by the silence it was so deep: its beauty, its music, its exquisite grace. It became the beginning of his own meditation.
If just the outside noise stopping for one minute gives you such stillness, such sweet silence, what will happen when your inside mind stops making noise? It was a turning point in the life of the emperor.
But ordinarily the world is continuously making noise. Everybody is making noise. The people who make much more noise than others are thought to be leaders, politicians. They are thought to be great men. You will be thought great by newspapers and later on by historians only if you have a nuisance value, if you can create trouble. If you can create trouble like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong, then you will be thought a great leader. If you can create trouble like Ayatollah Khomeini, then you will be thought to be a great saint. Your value depends on how much nuisance you can create in the world.
Everybody wants to be somebody, hence everybody has to pretend, to shout loudly. Everybody has to prove himself that “you can’t treat me as a nobody.”
Amongst this madness, amongst these insane people, one who has become awakened, he has to convey the message. It is almost an impossible feat. It is a miracle that once in a while somebody is capable of listening.
The first possibility is: sleepers talking to other sleepers. They talk much, they talk nonsense, obviously they can’t talk sense. Two sleeping persons: they can only make absurd noises. There can be no possibility of any communication.
Hence in the world there is no communication: the husband shouting at the wife, the wife shouting at the husband, and nobody understands anybody else. The world lacks understanding absolutely, totally. Understanding is nil.
People somehow go on dragging themselves. Yes, they become adjusted to each other, but it is not understanding. It is just out of continuous failure, despair, disappointment, that they make a few arrangements, because everybody has to live and a few arrangements are needed to live.
The second possibility is: two buddhas talking. Then communion is possible, but two buddhas never talk. Sleepers talk too much, communication is not possible. Two buddhas can commune with each other, but they never talk. They can’t talk, there is nothing to say. They both are at the same peak, they both are seeing the same sunset, they both are in the same ecstasy. What is there to talk about? Whatsoever you say, the other knows it already. Whatsoever the other will say, you know already. Yes, sometimes it happened in the past, buddhas have met.
Once Kabir and Farid – two buddhas – met, and for two days sat in absolute silence. Not a single word was uttered. When they parted, their disciples asked, “What happened? What went wrong? Why didn’t you say a single word?”