The discipline of silence doesn't mean just taking a short vacation from the spoken word. It also means giving complete relaxation to the muscles, the tissues, the tongue itself. A modern writer once said: "Knowledge has never been known to enter the head via an open mouth." It is when you become completely silent that you are able to absorb knowledge. God speaks in silence. The discipline of silence is essential on the path.
This is essentially the argument for the soul: it holds reality together, it is my offscreen director, my presiding intelligence. I can think, talk, work, love, and dream, all because of the soul, yet the soul doesn't do any of these things. It is me... Everything that makes the difference between life and death must cross into this world via the soul... Soul is a connection between the world of the five senses and a world of inconceivable things like eternity, infinity, omniscience, grace, and every other quality unmanifest.