Silence is an experience with which many are unfamiliar.

A busy world

      We live in a busy world. We are in a hurry. While we have not deliberately chosen to live this way, it is not easy to opt out, particularly where employment opportunities are limited and where we have made commitments involving others.

      Some are driven. Ambition, fuelled by the need to prove ourselves or to distract attention from painful realities, is a hard taskmaster. Others are caught up in a frenetic lifestyle fuelled by external pressures. Global trends, driven by the logic of scientific and economic development, have taken us captive. The fiscal engine is

      Even if we wanted to, we could not flag it down.

A wordy world

      We live in a world in which words substitute for presence and separate us from each other. The greater the volume of words, the less there is of honest communication. Words, devalued by their overuse, are conscripted into the service of deceit.

      The list is unending and includes answering machines, voice-mail, call-waiting, faxes, the internet, and that great symbol of the decade, the outgrowth of the human ear, the mobile phone!

      Were we to retreat into the silence, we would suffer withdrawal. We would be forced to tease our thoughts into an interior gaggle of voices, a methadone-like substitute to compensate for the wordage to which we have become addicted.

A noisy world

      We also live in a noisy world.

      The streets of our cities reverberate to the ear-shattering cacophony of vehicular traffic. Discos and nightclubs pulse with strobed lighting. Ghetto-blasters tear at the silence of bushland settings. Jet-skis disturb the tranquillity of sand-fringed beaches. Chainsaws, gnawing their way through logs, advertise their alien presence in rainforests.

Avoidance

      Trapped in a busy, wordy, noisy world, we have lost the taste for silence.

      Silence is a stranger to us. We equate it with inactivity and boredom, or with empty space that offers hospitality to our demons. It is to be avoided.

Intimidation

      Silence intimidates us.

      Silence threatens the agreement we have made with ourselves to silence inner voices; voices of dissent that advertise our hypocrisy, and voices of lament. Silence disturbs the accommodation we have made with our pain and challengers the arguments we have marshalled to deny the possibility that we are trapped in a meaningless universe. [144]

Recovery

      It is important that we re-stimulate our appetite for silence.

Discernment

      Silence is a central to discernment.

      Discernment begins with an understanding of ourselves. Silence provides us with a creative space within which self-understanding is birthed. Silence enables us to attend to inner dissonance. It offers us the opportunity of exploring the deeper layers of the self and gives us access to the place of wisdom, and the wisdom of the bodyself.

      Silence enables us to draw close to others. It is silence, rather than words, that leads to the deepest intimacy. We fence with words to shield ourselves from others. The silence encourages us to dismantle our defences. It is in the silence that our closeness becomes palpable.³

      By reducing distractions, and heightening our capacity for discernment, silence enables us to identify the pattern of forces impacting on us from without. It also enables us to initiate creative responses. It is in the silence that we are gifted with serendipitous insights.

      Silence helps us come to terms with our limits, with our inability to deal with intractable issues. In also helps us avoid blaming ourselves for our incompetence.

      Silence provides us with an environment within which it becomes possible for us to discern the presence of the universal Self, the cosmic Consciousness, the constituent Spirit that breathes through the whole of reality.

Transformation

      Henri Nouwen has argued that solitude is the place of transformation. His contention is that in the absence of solitude we remain captive to the false self and to society.⁴ Solitude is the place where we are freed from the imprisoning, debilitating compulsions of the world.⁵ [145]

      It is in the silence, in a silence heavy with Presence, that relationships are nurtured. As the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton argued, solitude nurtures gentleness, affection and a reverence for the solitude of others.⁶

      When friendship is based on respect for the solitude of others, and on the quality of mutuality that solitude fosters, then others can be more present to us in their absence than they are in their presence. As Kahlil Gibran contended, we should not grieve for an absent friend, because it is likely that we will see him more clearly when he is no longer physically with us, just as a mountain is clearer to the climber from the plain, than when he is in the process of scaling its heights.⁷

      It is in the silence that we feel the pain of the world and sense the arousal of compassion.

Words

      Words that illumine, and heal, are gestated in silence. As Henri Nouwen argued, illuminating, healing words issue from silence. It is silence that gives them their strength and fruitfulness.⁸

      Words arising from the silence are not cheap tokens. They are coins minted in the furnace of transformation.

      Silence helps us centre ourselves deep in the self, where the Spirit, enlivening the soul and informing the mind, gifts us with life-giving words.

Making space for silence

      If we treat silence as an unwelcome stranger, it will continue to threaten us.

      We must make space for silence.

      Some will find this more difficult than others. Extroverts are at a disadvantage, as are those with heavy commitments.

      How do we provide ourselves with opportunities for silence?

      We can schedule times when we will be undisturbed. The options are unlimited and can be tailored to our biorhythms and opportunities. [146]

      Where your private space is in your home, sculpture your day to allow for media-free zones. I determined, years ago, that I would not subject myself to the emotional static of early morning news programmes. There is plenty of time, later in a day, to catch up with what is happening in the world. Dousing your soul in corrosive acid, first thing in the morning, is not conducive to healthfulness.

      Books that speak to the soul can lead us into the silence. One does not speed-read these books. They are savoured.

      Music can reign in our fruitfulness. It can draw us into the gentle oscillations that are the heartbeat of the self.

Taming the tiger

      Once you have found a sanctuary and have retreated into the silence, you need to still your mind. Tibetan Buddhists described this process as "Taming the Tiger".⁹

      This skill is not difficult to develop. It involves becoming aware of your body and your breathing. You learn to observe your thoughts and feelings as they arise, without labelling them "good" or "bad". You become an external witness to your inner dialogue. This is a form of meditation, a prelude to deeper forms of meditation.

      Meditation is one of the most fruitful ways of using the silence. It centres us and brings a peaceableness that retards the aging process. Over time, it develops into a lifestyle that fosters wisdom and compassion.

      The Desert Fathers of the 4th century BCE, escaping the corrupting influence of a jaded world, sought solitude in the vastness of the Egyptian desert. Contemplative experience today rarely involves a permanent retreat into a physical wilderness. Instead, we create a desert; a space for solitude, within ourselves.

      We carry this space with us, retreating into it for shorter or longer periods each day. I welcome unanticipated delays for this reason. Caught in slow-moving traffic, I descend into the bodyself, into the desert I have created. Rather than yielding to frustration, I take the opportunity of living the moment. [147]

      Thomas Merton confessed that he found silence an essential ingredient in his life.¹⁰

Loneliness

      Some find silence difficult because it forces them to admit that they are isolated in their aloneness.

      Existential aloneness, the knowledge that each of us is essentially alone in the universe, cannot be easily dismissed. Each of us has to live our own lives. No one else will ever know us fully. One of the primary sources of our existential aloneness is the knowledge that we will have to do our own dying.

      Henri Nouwen suggested that we use the experience of loneliness to connect with ourselves at depth. We do this by transforming loneliness into solitude, by following it down into the soul.¹¹

      Existential loneliness, of which other forms of loneliness are a pale reflection, is sourced in our disconnectedness with the self, and with the Spirit that energises the self. Were we in touch with the Spirit, we would be sustained by a sense of our interconnectedness with all reality. As Râbi'a commented, the source of our grief and loneliness lies deep within. It is a disease that doctors cannot cure. This malady can be cured only by union with the Friend.¹²

Creative solitude

      Anthony Storr, an eminent British psychiatrist, has argued that we place too much emphasis on relating. People are left with the impression that they are dysfunctional if they are not constantly engaged in relational encounters.

      Storr argued that, while relationships are important, psychological health is also dependent on our ability to enjoy our own company. He argued that this ability is fostered by caregivers, particularly mothers, who develop in children a sense of security. They help them feel loved, thereby providing them with a safe space. [148]

      Children who can play contentedly on their own will become adults who will be able to function autonomously and relate to others warmly, without crowding them. They will also be creative.

      Storr argued that creativity in music, art, literature and science has its genesis in our solitariness. Creativity is a function of our aloneness.¹³

      Our senior years are generally marked by a growing preference for our own company. Of course, we easily tire and need rest, which requires time alone. But we also crave the leisure that age provides, to come to terms with unfulfilled life-tasks and to prepare for death.¹⁴

      If prayer has been part of our lifestyle, we are likely, as we age, to be drawn increasingly to silent contemplation. Solitude will be our special space.

      As he grew older, Jung coveted time alone at Böllingen, a structure he built with his own hands on the foreshore of Lake Zürich. Jung was introverted, and suffered, in his middle years, intense psychological distress that some argue bordered on schizophrenia.¹⁵ Nevertheless, allowing for the influence of both factors, it can still be argued that this cameo of the pioneer of Analytical Psychology, alone in his solitariness at Böllingen, is symbolic of the final stage of the human journey [149]

[LS 143-149]