Rumi said that all words are fingers pointing to the moon, and we think the words are the moon. But because of the light, the light of love, the energy and motion that have called us to prayer, bits of this deeper reality are perceivable, and little bits of it will have to do.
Silence is where we learn to listen, where we learn to see. Holding silence, being held by stillness, people go alone to the wilderness "to stop and see", to renew their vision, to enter the mind ground, to hear the truth, to return to the knowledge of the extensiveness of self and the truth of no self. One seeks solitude to know relatedness. There the unknown, the unarticulated, the unpredictable, the uncontrollable appear as protectors of the present.