The Silence Of The Facilitators: The Quiet Ones Watch

Part 1: Lessons On Silence And Inquiries Into The Self

The Community Process Facilitation Certification Program (CPFCP) is a 6 month certification course conducted by the Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Science (ISABS). The aim of the program, according to the brochure, is to facilitate a deeper understanding of the self, systems and society (ISABS, 2024). The modules are divided into three components: Module 1 contains a 6 day in person immersion program conducted within T-groups (Basic Lab of Human Processes), Module 2 contains a 6 month teaching course with 10 workshops and Module 3 consists of a 10 day assignment conducted within the communities that each participant is working with.

Expectations

I walked into the experience with a seemingly blank slate: I had barely glanced through the brochure and found it rather vague. The contents of the program and the workshops were non-existent and no structure was provided at first glance. Due to this lack of specificity, I figured I will find out what happens when I turn up there. This is the approach I take to a lot of things in my life: show up and see what happens. However, I very quickly realised that the seemingly blank slate was not so blank after all. 

I had preconceived notions and expectations about my days in the immersion program. I had ‘ideas’ of what the 6 days would look like based on the name of the program: Community Process Facilitation Certification Program. The location, Sevagram, also influenced my notion of the kinds of people who might be organising the course. I had made assumptions based on what we heard from the fellowship team that it would be an intense and gruelling but deeply transformative experience. Naturally, I assumed this program would be similar to other workshops where facilitators would create groups and suggest activities in a way to guide us into a deeper understanding of a specific topic.

The Silence

Silence.

What a word? How can someone possibly describe silence? By concept, silence is that which swallows everything that it comes into contact with. It’s like a great extinguisher that douses even the most powerful of flames and simultaneously it is that which creates deeply entrenched misunderstanding. This powerful paradox suffocated and enlivened every experience within the T-groups. 

The larger group of participants were divided into smaller groups of ten and separated into T-groups. Each group was created intentionally under the following parameters: diversity of language, gender, caste, organisation and to include as few people who knew each other as possible. This was a difficult task as 17 of the 30 participants in the program were fellows and had remained in some level of affiliation and association with one other. Despite this challenge, we were divided into 3 separate groups and were sent off with a strict schedule to follow for the next 5 days.

Day 1

I entered the the T Group we were assigned a couple of minutes before 9:30 AM. Beautiful mattresses, covered in clean, white sheets, lined the 4 walls creating a nice square with an empty centre. An arrangement of Marigold was placed in the centre waiting for us to greet them. We each sat in what seemed to be a circle around the flowers and on the mattresses. 

It was 9:30 AM. The facilitators entered precisely on the dot and sat exactly across from each other. They each opened their notebooks, almost mechanically, and started writing. At first, we didn’t notice and just waited patiently for them to start the session. 

5 mins passed. 

10 mins passed. 

Confused faces littered the room. Someone had fallen asleep. Someone else was drawing the beautiful assortment of marigold flowers in their notebook. 

15 mins. 

20 mins. 

Silence.

The First Interactions

Confused, we stared at each other. The facilitators seemed to be intentionally unresponsive. Now, they were taking in the room and observing each participant intently. I looked from Facilitator A to Facilitator B. Both of them seemed some combination of focused and checked out. I was not sure what we were supposed to do. At first, the silence was enjoyable. I enjoy the calm in stillness and silence and it brings me a feeling of safety. However, I prefer engaging in this activity in an entirely solo manner and with a landscape. I just could not understand why I should sit silently here. 

Overtime, I was growing bored, impatient and curious. I looked from Facilitator A to Facilitator B again. Still nothing. The participants were equally confused. Communication was ongoing but none of it was verbal. Slowly, my curiosity got the better of me and I created the grid for a tic tac toe game. I looked at the participant I was sitting beside. We had never seen or met each other prior to this interaction. I gauged whether he knew tic tac toe and eventually concluded that he must. I nicely placed an ‘x’ on the centre of the page and gently pushed the notebook towards him and handed him my pen. He first looked at me confused and then placed an ‘O’ silently. 2 mins later, he had lost the game!

Simultaneous Interactions

The other participants watched us curiously. We continued on to our 2nd game silently. This time he won. We had to play a 3rd game to finalise the winner and we did. The result, I don’t recall. By this time, the entire group was observing our interaction. I stopped looking at the facilitators and started observing the group more. I am sure the facilitators were observing us too but I was too preoccupied to notice. 

The interest I saw in the group to engage with each other meant that we should expand our circle more. We invited more people to play with us. At first, we lifted our page so they could see the grid and place their own ‘X’s and ‘O’s. This morphed into bigger group games and people started shifting out of their mattresses and onto the floor to be closer to the page and to each other. Other participants started suggesting games and the first whispers started. Slowly, the whispers grew into an audible suggestion for a game and we continued onward. 

During the experience, we were unable to gauge whether they would speak later that hour, later that session, later that day or later through the 5 days. This meant the rules of the game were unclear, the expectations were unclear and the consequences of our misbehaviour were unclear. This was the first time, for most of us in our lives, that we all had unwitting, unintentionally, and obliviously entered a completely unfathomable blank slate.