The Need for Silence.
"Each of us has an ever-faithful companion-presence. Something that is always with us. Something that helps us live with inner integrity and depth, to see through the outer coverings of others and of the world to their purpose and core being, and to get over placing ourselves at the center of everything. This companion-presence is Silence. It never goes away. We go away from it, become distracted and forgetful, and lose the manners needed to nurture companionship with it.
We go away from Silence into the world of noise as if into a vast buzzing of insects, pushed to exist within the permanent irritation of dissonance. Our choosing to live in the noise of our thoughts and emotions – within the incessant clamor around us – happens almost without our recognition…But Silence was here before anything else, and it envelops everything else. It is the most primary phenomenon of existence, both palpably something and seemingly nothing. Silence is prior to sound, not the cessation of sound. It is already present.
If we drop into quietness just for a moment, we feel the presence of Silence as an invitation. The center of our bodily being is the organ for receiving this invitation from the Silence. As we enter the mystery of Silence, its presence resonates throughout the fibers of our flesh, while extending beyond the flesh to the soul inwardly and to the cosmos outwardly. Our body’s center is the necessary meeting point where the inward Silence of solitude meets up with the great Silence of Cosmic Wisdom.
When we do not cultivate this meeting point in the right ways, we lose access to our soul, to the presence of the Silence, and to our individual place in the Wisdom of the World. Without Silence, we are lost and cannot get still enough to find our way back. Silence bears the wholeness we keep looking for while we do not know exactly what we are looking for. It is around us and within us. It goes to the deepest depths of the soul into the outermost reaches of the cosmos and continually unites the two at the centering place of a heart."
- Robert Sardello from Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness