Silence

Silence is often referred to in terms of space: the immensity inside, the cave of the heart, the oasis of quiet, the inner sanctuary, the interior castle, the sacred center where God dwells. For centuries, people have used this practice as a resting and renewal stop on the spiritual journey. It provides a way to periodically withdraw from the world. You may go into silence as a prelude to prayer, or you may seek it as the place where through meditation you can contact your deeper self and Spirit.

How can you find this inner quietude, tranquility, and calm? You must make room for it - literally. Find a space for physical silence where you can sit quietly, away from distracting demands, voices, and sounds. Go there every day. It is the gateway to your interior silence.

Why the spiritual practise of silence may be for you:
Our world contracts sharply with the inner world of silence. We are bombarded daily with the noise of crowded residences, workplaces, and entertainment sites. The clamorous voices of the media are always trying to get our attention. We live amidst the seemingly relentsless roar of our machines, our tools and our toys.

Very few places today are soundproof. The norm is noisy verging on chaotic. The Tower of Babel still stands in our midst, a grim reminder that our various expressions can devide and even conquer us. When this world feels overwhelming and chaos seems to be getting the best of us, silence is a powerful antidote. This practice increases our capacity for contemplation. It enables us to focus our attention on deep matters of the heart. It is where we can commune with things greater than the cacophony all around us.

Perspectives On Silence

* At such moments, we don't choose silence but fall silent. Silence, like love, is not something we can reason our way into. And once we are in it, we recognize that it has been there all along. It's there like the background noise of the universe, that uniform his astronomers find when they point their radio telescope at the space between stars, the remnant of the big bag, the residual wind of our origin.
-Philip Simmons In Learning To Fall
* Don't look for meaning in the words. Listen to the silences.
-Samuel Beckett quoted in Forty Days of Solitude by Doris Grumbach
* Nothing is so like God as silence.
-Meister Eckhart quoted in Why Not Be A Mystic? by Frank Tuoti
* Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.
-Thomas Keating quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by General Thomas Straub
* There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.
-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross quoted in Awakening to the Sacred by Lama Surya Das
* There is silence there within us. What we hve to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become silence. The purpose of meditation and the challenge of meditation is to allow ourselves to become silent enough to allow this interior silence to emerge. Silence is the language of the spirit.
-John Mains in Word into Silence.
* Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere - in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.
-Mother Teresa
* We can't stand the silence because silence includes thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
-Agnes de Mille quoted in Celebtrating Time Alone in Lionel Fisher
* Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. It's fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.
-Thomas Merton quoted in Dialogues with Silence
* The seeker's silence is the loudest form of prayer.
-Swami Vivekananda quoted in Monastic Journey to India