Gentle blessings to each of you in this new year, dear friends! May you find times in STILLNESS and SILENCE to nurture the Sanctuary within. In this Sacred Space, you can retreat any time to rest and just be.
How cooling is silence! Talk is like the surging sea; silence is like the surface of still water. Silence settles down the disturbed mind to its native calmness. Peace is silence, love is silence, the great Truth is silence. Silence is the cause of all birth. From silence evolves out the varied universe. Silence is the beginning and the end of all things. In the middle state it is all activity, noise, turmoil and the mad rush.
Silence is really vital for the human heart. You see, the human heart can't live with constant sound or noise. It needs silence in order to heal itself. The only two things that are ultimately required for spiritual homecoming are stillness and silence. If, into your day, you can build little windows of silence and little windows of stillness, you will never lose touch with your deepest voice. You will never lose touch with your most secret belonging. Even though you walk and talk and act in the world, you will never leave the inner, tender home of your own soul.
Unless there is a still center
in the middle of the storm ...
Unless a person amidst of all their activities
preserves a secret room in their heart
where they stand alone before God ...
Unless we do this,
we will lose all sense of spiritual direction
and be torn to pieces.
In the stillness, empty spaces occur and new possibilities are searching their way to the surface of the mind. A connection is made, new relationships are formed and new patterns emerge. This process of being still and moving at the same time to something new is the way the experience of metaphoric or creative thinking comes about in our minds.
In this process images that are far apart become connected at a deep emotional level, and we feel a jolt of surprises.
As long as the soul is not still, there can be no vision. But when stillness has brought us into the presence of God, then another sort of silence, much more absolute, intervenes: the silence of a soul that is not only still and recollected, but which is overawed in an act of worship by God's presence.
When the whole consciousness is silent and tranquil, free from all becoming, which is spontaneity, then only does the immeasurable come into being. For, when the mind is still, reality, the indescribably, comes into being. So the mind must be simple, unburdened by belief, by ideation. And when there is stillness, when there is no desire, no longing, when the mind is absolutely quiet with a stillness that is not induced, then reality comes. And when that happens, it is a blessing.
Silence is fruitful only when it leads to interior peace and stillness.
Contemplation is a country whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
You do not find it by travelling, but by standing still.
Silence is a directed stillness, which receives rather than acts.
Understand -- through the stillness,
Act -- out of the stillness,
Conquer -- in the stillness.
In order for the eye to perceive color, it must divest itself of all colors.
In the Middle Ages people were well aware of the inexhaustible power that arises simply from sitting still... The inner quiet which arises when the body is motionless and in its best possible form can become the source of transcendental experience. By emptying ourselves of all those matters that normally occupy us, we become receptive to Greater Being. True enlightenment has the effect of so fundamentally affecting and shaking the whole person that they themselves, as well as their total physical existence in the world, is completely transformed.
In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where humans may enter the harbor and reclaim their dignity. The sabbath is a designated day -- also a state of mind -- a time of detachment from things, instruments, practical affairs and the hurly-burly of life's struggles. In the sabbath state-of-mind we can seek attachment to the spirit, recapturing the goodness of our essential being.
Breathing is one internal function that the conscious mind can control with comparative ease. The effect of controlled breathing is almost like communication with all conscious parts of one's being saying to them, "Simmer down and listen; there is something beyond the turmoil". It is communication in action that often works when words merely go in one ear and out the other, not even changing the cognitive mind. In essence, the effect is to turn all the elements of our will toward stillness and waiting.
A stillness descended upon the room, and in the heart of that stillness was something beyond the power of mere language to describe. I felt we were being given a glimpse of the underlying unity of all things, and that this harmony -- though no metaphor was adequate to describe that singing silence -- was enfolding us so that we were wholly in tune not only with one another, but with a healing presence at the very centre of our being.
The moment passed, but I thought of the disciples on the road to Emmaus and how they had recognized the stranger in the breaking of the bread.
In the rhythm of each day, may you find silence amidst speech, stillness amidst action, and peace amidst creativity.