The unchangeable can only be realized in Silence.
Once realized, it will deeply affect the changeable,
itself remaining unaffected.
Nisargadatta
As a people, we are afraid of silence. That is our major barrier to prayer. I believe silence and words are related. Words that don’t come out of silence probably don’t say much. They probably are more an unloading than a communicating. Yet words feed silence, and that’s why we have the word of God – the read word, the proclaimed word, the written word. But that written and proclaimed word, doesn’t bear a great deal of fruit – it doesn’t really break open the heart of the Spirit – unless it is tasted and chewed, unless it is felt and suffered and enjoyed at a level beyond words.
Blaise Paschal said all human evil comes into the world because people cannot sit still in a chair for thirty minutes! I hope that is an exaggeration. Maybe he is saying that running from silence is undoubtedly running from our souls, ourselves, and therefore, from God.
If I had to advise one thing for spiritual growth, it would be silence.
Richard Rohr,
from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction
Love One Another - Brian
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