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I
left my home in California one summer to go on a driving tour of some of
the most sacred sites in the Southwest, seeking a deeper relationship with
my own spirituality through the spirituality of place. Everywhere I
went--the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Chimayó--there
was one common thread to the spiritual experience I sought.
People would not shut up.
When I got back home, I met up for dinner with my best friend Shannan to
tell her about my trip.
"So," she asked. "Did you work on the book you had
planned?"
"No, I got a new idea for a book while I was gone," I told her, lips
contorting in faintly disguised disgust. "It's going to be called America,
Shut the Hell Up."
Not a very spiritual response, I'll admit. But it wasn't as if people were
talking about the magic of the place or the spirit dwelling within or
sharing their heart-felt responses. Most conversations that intruded upon
my consciousness were about the most mundane things, empty words polluting
the air. One case in point: the man who, while walking down an ancient
ladder into a more ancient Native American kiva where even more ancient
Native American spiritual rituals were held, was telling his companion
about the great deal he got on his Nikes at the outlet store.
"A fractured rainbow
Is staining under thunder clouds with
Cathedral quiet."
"Cathedral quiet," James Kirkup wrote, and in that simple pairing of
words, he illustrates that there is something religious about silence.
"Would you talk this much if you were in a church?" I wanted to ask them.
And then, "And when are you not in a church?"
I could write a book. |
ewf
If you ask us, "What is silence?" we will answer, "It is the Great
Mystery. The holy silence is God's voice."
--Ohiyesa
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and
what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.
--Mahatma Gandhi
God's one and only voice is silence.
--Herman Melville
Silence is not an absense of sound bur rather a shifting of attention
toward sounds that speak to the soul. In a moment of silence you may feel
your heartbreat or hear your breathing. Silence is a positive kind of
hearing, which requires turning off the know that tunes in to active,
literal life and tuning on the one that amplifies the movements of the
soul.
--Thomas Moore
Only in the oasis of silence can we drink deeply from our inner cup of
wisdom.
--Sue Patton Thoele
There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters.
Silence illuminates our souls,
whispers to our hearts,
and brings them together.
--Kahlil Gibran
Through the orifice of silence,
the whole geyser of Bliss,
perpetually shoots up and flows over the soul.
--Paramahansa Yogananda
If you love truth, be a lover of Silence. Silence like the sunlight will
illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance.
Silence will unite you to God.
--Thomas Merton
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God
is the friend of silence.
--Mother Teresa
Not only a truer knowledge,
but a greater power comes to one
in the quietude and silence of a mind
that, instead of bubbling on the surface,
can go to its own depths and listen.
--Sri Aurobindo
Silence is the language of God; it is also the language of the heart.
--Dag Hammerskjold
Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable
being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his
inner sanctuary.
--Peter Minard
Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself, and know that
everything in this life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no
coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.
--Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay
attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration,
knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core
of inner silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, ''Only let the moving
waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of
your being."
--Deepak Chopra
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration.
--William Wordsworth
To find God there must be calm within, certain senses must be hushed.
Tossed around as we are, if God wishes to speak to us, his voice, small
and still, will be lost in the hubbub of our daily lives; the rackets and
noise drowning our minds will prevent his penetration into that seclusion
we call 'heart'-the living witness of that life in us which is most sacred
and most true; the life we call inner and spiritual.
--J.M. Dechanet
Listening to the eternal involves a silence within us.
--Thomas Kelly
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