Meditation for Thursday 18th May 2023

Silence in our lives offers opportunities for self-reflection and daydreaming.

Silence gives us time to turn down the inner noise and increase our awareness of what matters most.

Silence may have health benefits certainly in the area of increasing our concentration or focus and cognition.

The cultivation of silence in our lives helps us to settle and when settled we are more easily live a calm and meditative life.

Many of us are reluctant to welcome silence into our lives for a fear of missing out. It runs deep particularly in this age of social media. We increasingly use external stimuli like phones, social media, to distract ourselves from silence.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his book “Young India”…..

“It has often occurred to me that a seeker after truth has to be silent. I know the wonderful efficacy of silence. I visited a Trappist monastery in South Africa. A beautiful place it was. Most of the monks in that place were silent. I enquired of the Abbot the motive for silence and he said it is apparent. ‘We are frail human beings. We do not know very often what to say. If we want to listen to our inner voice that is always within us, it will not be heard if we continually speak. I understood that precious lesson. I know the secret of silence.”

In ‘Harijan’ Mahatma Gandhi wrote….

Silence is a great help to a seeker of truth like myself. 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. Our life is a long and arduous quest after truth, and the souls requires inward restfulness to attain its full height.”

Silence is necessary to ….

  • Really thrive.
  • Be creative.
  • Have a creative response to life.
  • Have a creative response to the environment.
  • Develop one’s ‘interior’ life.
  • Live in a spirit of mindfulness.
  • Gain from the practice of meditation.

 “The words of lovers increase the silence. They only serve to make silence audible. Only love can increase silence. Lovers are conspirators of silence. When a man speaks to his lover she listens more to the silence than to the spoken words of her lover. ‘Be silent’, she seems to whisper, ‘Be silent that I may hear.’     (Picard 1888 – 1965 “The World of Silence.”)

MEDITATION

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