| .http://www.puresilence.org/a_tradition_of_silence.htm A Tradition of Silence: Quotes from the Masters
The more I read, the more I surf the web, I am finding an increasing amount of treasure in the words of many magnificent teachers and teachings about silence. I am resonating with these gifts no matter what tradition they come from. There is a commonality of experience and declaration. It is the genuine heart of Spirit speaking here through the ages. The voices differ, the textures differ, and yet the experiential fact is exactly the same. Those who have found Pure Silence: the freedom within, are moved simply to share it. The following are some random texts for your enjoyment and resonance.
"But the perfect reflection of the One is shining by itself in lonely silence, there safely pent as one and indivisible. The unity (of God) is un-necessitous, it has no need of speech, but subsists alone in unbroken silence. The mind is rid of light when it is rid of mode; and it is rid of darkness when letting go of all natural things, it sinks in nameless actuality. Then it loses both light and darkness in the abyss that a creature in its own right never plumbs. Such is the estrangement in one as foreshadowed in the ordinary mind, but the realization of unity which the blessed have lies in the exquisite consciousness of another than themselves. O unfathomable void, bottomless to creatures and to thine own self, in thy depth art thou exalted in thy impartible, imperishable actuality; in the height of thy essential power thou art so deep thou dost engulf thy simple ground which is there concealed from all that thou are not; yet those whom thou wouldest commune with shall know thee with thyself." Meister Eckhart
"Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being, between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality." Thomas Merton
"This silence, this moment, every moment, if it's genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There's nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, 'Be more silent.' Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you've died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence." Rumi
"In listening and stillness there is nobody who is still, and this stillness doesn't refer to any object; it is absolutely objectless; it is our real nature." Jean Klein .......................................................................................................................................... . Then, when all these are quiet, don't do anything. In that state truth will reveal itself to you. It will appear in front of you and ask," what do you want?" Kabir
"Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return. They grow and flourish and then return to the source. Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature." Lao Tzu
"Go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the Secret Place." Yeshua (Jesus of Nazareth)
"Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub." Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
"True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment." William Penn
"Things that are real are given and received in Silence. God has been everlastingly working in Silence, unobserved, unheard, except by those who experience His Infinite Silence." Meher Baba
"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." Deepak Chopra
"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." Ghandi
"Silence is the language of God; It is also the language of the heart." Dag Hammarskjöld
"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature--trees, flowers, grass--grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls." Mother Teresa
"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not all it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance." T.S. Eliot
"Silence vibrating is Creation Silence flowing is Love Silence shared is Friendship Silence seen is Infinity Silence heard is Adoration Silence expressed is Beauty Silence maintained is Strength Silence omitted is Suffering Silence allowed is Rest Silence re-circled is Scripture Silence preserved is Our Tradition Silence given is Initiating Silence received is Joy Silence perceived is Knowledge Silence stabilized is Fulfillment Silence alone is." ~ Author Unknown ~
"How then are we going to reach God? How, but in quietness and in confidence, in the stillness and the Silence? How, but by learning to abide in a quietness within, by being still." Joel S. Goldsmith
"Be still, and know that I am (God)."
Psalm 46:10
"If only all might be hushed, sense impressions, the soul itself,
all imagery, all symbols, all things transient, then we might
hear the very voice of the eternal, and if that experience were prolonged, we would indeed enter into the joy of our Lord."
Augustine
"Passion is overcome only by him who has won through stillness of spirit the perfect vision; it comes through the contentment that is regardless of the world." Santideva
"Thought comes to an end. Then there is that sense of absolute silence in the brain. All the movement of thought has ended." J. Krishnamurti
"There is a silence into which the world cannot intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost." A Course in Miracles
"What exists in truth is the Self alone. The self is that where there is absolutely no "I" thought. That is called Silence. The Self itself is the world; the Self itself is "I"; the Self itself is God." Ramana Maharshi
"No particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence. Not the idea of silence, but silence itself. When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every experience, or, rather, every experience happens against the background of silence." Nisargadatta Maharaj
"...[] remember, in the face of Mystery, silence ultimately alone will do: you simply cannot categorize, in ANY way, that which is radically Unqualifiable. You know that Mystery by being Emptiness, not by conceptualizing it, naming it, labeling it." Ken Wilber
"Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot" Ken Wilber
"There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness. When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence." Sri Aurobindo
"Silence is ancient. Silence has been in the space you
are at this very moment for longer than anything else
has. It will remain after you leave and exist long after
all other things have faded." Pagan reflections Yule: The Silence of Winter
"There is something beyond our mind which abides in silence within our mind. It is the supreme mystery beyond thought. Let one's mind and one's subtle body rest upon that and not rest on anything else." From the Maitri Upanishad
"Real action is done in moments of silence."
Emerson
"For the ignorant there is no better rule than silence and if he knew its advantage he would not be ignorant."
Saadi
No, my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its eyes wide open
far off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.
- Antonio Machado
"Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us." Thoreau
"Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time." Thomas Carlyle
"A tremendous "knowing" comes effortlessly into the mind when it falls into Silence, when it gives up trying to understand, when its reel of stored images no longer projects abstract pictures onto the clean screen of simplicity. This kind of knowing is transmitted to us as pure revelation, as a clarity untouched by words or other symbols of meaning. When we allow this knowing into our minds, our very lives become as clear and startling as this knowing." Robert Rabbin
"Silence is the essential condition of happiness." A Zen Master
Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final dramatic, end result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of silence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of silence, perhaps more than one hour of quietude, before they reach the desired result. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called "stopping the world", the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's always been. This is the moment when sorcerers return to the TRUE nature of man. The old sorcerers always called it "total freedom"
Don Juan (Carlos Castanada)
Concepts can at best only serve to negate one another, as one thorn is used to remove another, and then be thrown away. Only in deep silence do we leave concepts behind. Words and language deal only with concepts, and cannot approach Reality. Ramesh Balsekar
One realizes the Absolute as one's true identity, totally beyond all manifestations, but containing them within its mysterious vastness. The emphasis is on the transcendence of the world, including the body and mind. One becomes the immense solidity of the absolute, totally still and inactive, while dispassionately witnessing the play of all phenomena. [One] witnesses all phenomena as the dynamic transformation of a cosmic and boundless consciousness, which consciousness arises in [its] silent immensity as a surface phenomenon. In the vastness of silence, the world arises in all its multiplicity, but all the world is made out of a conscious presence, a Presence which is a consciousness that can reflect on itself. A.H. Almaas
Discovering silence Your chances of discovering this inner silence serendipitously, are slim. You could get a taste of it when your hand unexpectedly gets caught in a lawn mower or something. You are jolted into silence, and your whole thought process gets interrupted for a few moments. Or you may have a glimpse of it when you jump out of a plane for the first time. Or when you jump out for the 31st time, but now your chute fails to open. In these extreme situations your mind might go into spontaneous silence, a silence in which you are acutely aware. Your inner dialogue can come to a halt because of radical circumstance. And in a way it's a thrill. This silence in your brain, this acute awareness, is so refreshing, replenishing. Timothy Schoorel
To Know ourselves as the Authentic Being underneath the thinking mind, the silence underneath the chattering mind, and the true joy and bliss underneath the misery on the surface, is Success, Freedom, Enlightenment. Ellie Roozdar
Silence is the mother of everything that has come out from the Depth. And Silence kept quiet about what she was unable to describe: the Unspeakable. ~Clement of Alexandria
If I were to say "God exists," this would not be true. He is beyond being. He is a no-thing-ness beyond being. This is why St. Augustine says "The best thing to be said about God is silence." You must love God as not-God, not-Spirit, not-Sun, not-image, but as He is - sheer, pure absolute Oneness, without any duality." Meister Eckhart. ................................................................................................................................... “silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation.”
― Rumi .................................................................................................................................... http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/practices.php?id=28&g=1 Silence  | Quotations In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It's the place of reflection and contemplation, and it's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.
— Angeles Arrien quoted in The Millionth Circle by Jean Shinoda Bolen. Don't look for meaning in the words. Listen to the silences.
— Samuel Beckett quoted in Forty Days of Solitude by Doris Grumbach Nothing is so like God as silence.
— Meister Eckhart quoted in Why Not Be a Mystic? by Frank Tuoti Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.
— Thomas Keating quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub.
— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross quoted in Awakening to the Sacred by Lama Surya Das Silence is the shaft we descend to the depths of contemplation. Silence is the vehicle that takes us to the innermost centre of our being which is the place for all authentic practice.
— Elaine MacInnes in Light Sitting in Light It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.
— Thomas Merton The silence is there within us. What we have to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become the silence. The purpose of meditation and the challenge of meditation is to allow ourselves to become silent enough to allow this interior silence to emerge. Silence is the language of the spirit.
— John Mains in Word into Silence Silence is the cornerstone of character.
— Ohhiyesa quoted in You Already Know What to Do by Sharon Franquemont Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere — in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.
— Mother Teresa quoted in No Greater Love edited by Becky Benenate and Joseph Durepos We can't stand the silence because silence includes thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
— Agnes de Mille quoted in Celebrating Time Alone by Lionel Fisher At such moments we don't choose silence but fall silent. Silence, like love, is not something we reason our way into. And once we are in it, we recognize that it has been there all along. It's there like the background noise of the universe, that uniform hiss astronomers find when they point their radio telescopes at the space between stars, the remnant of the big bang, the residual wind of our origin.
— Philip Simmons in Learning to Fall |
| Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.
— Thomas Merton quoted in Dialogues with Silence edited by Jonathan Montaldo The seeker's silence is the loudest form of prayer.
— Swami Vivekananda quoted in Monastic Journey to India by M. Basil Pennington Silence will illuminate you in God. . .
and deliver you from phantoms of ignorance.
Silence will unite you to God. . . .
In the beginning we have to force ourselves
to be silent. But then from our very silence
is born something that draws us into deeper silence.
— Isaac of Nineveh, seventh century Syrian monk, quoted in The Great Escape Manual by Edward Hays Still music
Quiet sound
Deep water
Silent ground
— C. Alexander and Annellen Simpkins in Simple Zen In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It's the place of reflection and contemplation, and it's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.
— Angeles Arrien quoted in The Millionth Circle by Jean Shinoda Bolen The friend of silence comes close to God. In secret he converses with him and receives his light.
— John Climacus quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub Listen to God's speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle, loving, all-embracing silence.
— Catherine de Hueck Doherty quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.
— Thomas Keating quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two.
— Thomas Merton quoted in Thomas Merton: Essential Writings edited by Christine M. Bochen Are they moved by a sense of human need for silence, for reflection, for inner seeking? So they want to get away from the noise and tension of modern life, at least for a little while, in order to relax their minds and wills and seek a blessed healing sense of inner unity, reconciliation, integration?
— Thomas Merton quoted in Thomas Merton: Essential Writings edited by Christine M. Bochen |
| The good and the wise lead quiet lives.
Euripides Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see
is beautiful and attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we
flee silence. We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy,
our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project.
We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self.
It is a harrowing journey, a death to self—the false self—and no one
wants to die. But it is the only path to life, to freedom, to peace,
to true love. And it begins with silence. We cannot give ourselves in love
if we do not know and possess ourselves. This is the great value of silence.
It is the pathway to all we truly want.
M. Basil Pennington As I age I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me,
coexisting with my tempers and my fears, unchanged by my joys
or my pain. Sanctuary. Connected to the Silence everywhere. Rachel Naomi Remen Silence is something like an endangered species. The experience of silence
is now so rare that we must guard it and treasure it. Gunilla Norris As there are silent depths in the ocean which the fiercest storm
cannot reach, so there are silent, holy depths of the hearts of people
which the storm of sin and sorrow can never disturb. To reach
this silence and to live consciously in it is peace. James Allen Silence stands outside
the world of profit
and utility. It cannot be exploited for profit;
you cannot get anything
out of it. It is "unproductive,"
therefore it is regarded
as useless. Yet there
is more help and healing
in silence than in
all useful things. Max Picard True silence really means going deep within yourself to that place
where nothing is happening, where you transcend time and space.
You go into a brand new dimension of nothingness. That's where
all the power is. That's your real home. That's where you really
belong, in deep Silence where there is no good or bad, no one
trying to achieve anything. Just being, pure being. . . . Silence is the ultimate reality. Robert Adams The truest communication with God is absolute, total silence;
there is not a single word in existence that can
convey this communication. Bernadette Roberts The apron of silence is with me.
Silence is a gift. Be silent. Clara Sandburg * What is it that stands higher than words? Action.
What is it that stands higher than action? Silence. Francis of Assisi * Silence has a regenerative power of its own.
It is always sacred. It always returns you home. Barbara De Angelis * Silence is a true friend who never betrays. Confucius * Silence is the language of God;
it is also the language of the heart. Sivananda * We need to find God, and he cannot be found in
noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.
See how nature--trees, flowers, grass--grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move
in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.
The more we receive in silent prayer,
the more we can give in our active life. Mother Teresa Our greatest experiences are
our quietest moments.
Friedrich Nietzsche * There are times when silence
has the loudest voice.
Leroy Brownlow Our task is to listen to the news
that is always arriving out of silence. Rainer Maria Rilke There are times when silence
is the most sacred of responses. Eugene Kennedy In this noisy, restless, bewildering age, there is a great need for quietness of spirit.
Even in our communion with God we are so busy presenting our problems,
asking for help, seeking relief that we leave no moments of silence to listen for God’s answers.
By practice we can learn to submerge our spirits beneath the turbulent surface waves
of life and reach that depth of our being where all is still, where no storms can reach us.
Here only can we forget the material world and its demands on us.
Alice Hegan Rice A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life,
for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live. Bertrand Russell Talk uses up ideas. Once I have spoken them aloud,
they are lost to me, dissipated into the noisy air
like smoke. Only if I bury them, like bulbs, in the
rich soil of silence do they grow. Doris Grumbach All my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found
nothing better for a person than silence. Pirke Aboth * May my silences become more accurate.
Theodore Roethke * The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
Baba Ram Dass * Silence must be comprehended as not solely the absence of sound.
It is the natural environment for serenity and contemplation.
Life without silence is life without privacy. The difference between
sanity and madness is the quality of our thoughts.
Silence is on the side of sanity. Norman Cousins Silence is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torrent for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words. Carl Gustav Jung What a strange power there is in silence! How many resolutions are formed, how many sublime conquests effected, during that pause when the lips are closed, and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker upon her! They are the strong ones who know how to keep silence when it is a pain and a grief unto them, and who give time to their own souls to wax strong against temptation. Ralph Waldo Emerson Without silence, there cannot be any real appreciation of life,
which is as delicate in its inner fabrics as a closed rosebud. Deepak Chopra
PS: Ergänzt wird diese Zusammenstellung von Aussagen über das Wesen der Stille durch die in dem folgenden Eintrag festgehaltenen: |  |  |  | | 1176 |
| Geschöpfe der Stille Für Christine Lavant Wer sind die Geschöpfe der Stille?
Kräuter, Blumen, Bäume, Wolken.
Fische, Muscheln, Wüsten, Steine.
Wir offenbar nicht.
Wir zerrissenen Zwischengeschöpfe,
der Einfalt nicht fähig,
der Weisheit selten,
der Stille so gut wie nie.
Stille fällt uns nicht zu. Sie ist überall,
für Vermessene nirgends.
Sie ist der Mutterort der Wesen.
Das Paradies trägt ihre Augen.
Wir Zwischengeschöpfe, umstellt
von doppelmündiger Angst,
zu verdursten, zu ertrinken.
Selten kostbar eingeschwungen
in den Tanz, ins Ur-Teil, in die Welle.
Wir Zwischenwesen, in Maßlosigkeit
gestürzt, mit Frechheit gewürzt,
Botschafter und Kundschafter zugleich.
Wir könnten erlöst sein, wenn sich über
dem geschäftigen Tag die stille,
fast heilige Nacht wölbt, die verbindet,
was sonst nur, zusammenhanglos,
dazwischenläge. © Günther Doliwa
Mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Autors aus:
»Tsunami. Gottes Rätsel«, Dresden 2010, Herzovision.de | | | | |
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Generelles PS : Werte/r geneigte/r Leser/in: Sofern Ihnen Form und Inhalt dieses Eintrags zusagen, sollte dessen Weitergabe oder aber gleich des Blogs via Link*** an Ihren Freundes- und Bekanntenkreis eigentlich nichts im Wege stehen. Für den Fall, dass Sie auch über die Adressen offiziöser Stellen verfügen: Geben Sie das Material ruhig auch an die weiter. Damit vielleicht der/die eine oder andere der dort Tätigen sich besinnt und nicht mehr mitmacht bei dem hierzulande weiter und weiter veranstalteten Wahnsinnstreiben. So, dass die von Politikern gepflegte, nur dem Eigeninteresse verpflichtete Verfälschung der Wirklichkeit denn doch einmal ein Ende findet und die Demokratie eine Chance bekommt, mehr zu sein als bisher - eine nur nützliche Fiktion."
***Wie ein Link zu übernehmen ist, findet sich in Post 999 dargestellt, und zwar unter PS2.
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