Plate

Quality

The inner emptiness is the door to God, silence.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness. Your sense of inner peace depends on spending some of your life energy in silence to recharge your battery, remove tension and anxiety, reacquaint you with the joy of knowing God, and feel closer to all of humanity. Going into the quiet and listening will heal and inspire you. In silence, you make your personal and conscious contact with God. As Melville reminded us, “God’s one and only voice is silence.”

You live in a noisy world, constantly bombarded with loud music, construction equipment, jet airplanes, rumbling trucks, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and tree cutters. These human-made, unnatural sounds invade your senses and keep silence at bay. In fact, you’ve been raised in a culture that not only eschews silence but is terrified of it. The car radio must be on, and any pause in conversation is a moment of embarrassment that most people quickly fill with chatter. For many, being alone is a nightmare, and being alone in silence is pure torture. The famous scientist Blaise Pascal observed, “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Make a conscious decision to reduce the noise level of your life. Noise is a distraction to your highest self because it keeps your ego on red alert. Learn to take time each and every day for quiet contemplation: For example, when you’re driving alone, turn off the constant chatter bombarding your inner world. Then when you arrive at your destination, honor the OFF button on the TV remote—and honor the ON button for your highest self!

Try to make meditation a daily practice as well, even if it’s only for a few moments. All creation stems from the void, the great silence—this includes the creation of a new you devoid of self-defeating thinking habits and accompanying excuses. As Swami Sivananda reminded his devotees: “Silence is the language of God.”  Mother Teresa described silence and its relationship to God by saying, “God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, grass, grow in silence; see the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence…. We need silence to be able to touch souls.” This includes your soul!

All creativity requires some stillness. Your sense of inner peace depends on spending some of your life energy in silence to recharge your battery, remove tension and anxiety, reacquaint you with the joy of knowing God, and feel closer to all humanity. Silence reduces fatigue and allows you to experience your own creative juices. Ask in silence, listen in silence, and let silence be the jumping-off point for becoming one with the creative force of the universe.

Quality of Plate: Be Silent