Guest guest Posted February 7, 2004 Report Share Posted February 7, 2004 >From 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 ------ -------- "Silence is the language God speaks and everything else is a bad translation." Thomas Keating ------ -------- "Be quiet in your mind, quiet in your senses, and also quiet in your body. 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." Gandhi ------ -------- "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 ------ -------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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