.     Being silent is not the same as being quiet. In a Quaker meeting, when all are silent, the noises of the day may fill the room. Kids scream at each other. A bluejay curses. Some huge truck comes to a halt with a moaning of airbrakes akin to the calling of whales. The eaves tick as the wood of the building ages a bit. A cough.

Even the silence within can take quite a while to spread. Sometimes it never does. People leap up one after another, eager to challenge some issue in the news. The tradition is that one sits in silence for some time after a message, beyond the point of “thinking about it”, to the place where all its flavors mingle with those of others who have spoken, my own musings, the jay and the truck.

This is not yet silence. for silence includes listening, but listening beyond the words. Quakers speak of a “still, small voice”, but the voice that speaks most eloquently is beyond words, even beyond thought. Some would say this is a mystical communion. I need not reach so far. Yet here is a somewhat frightening insight: I must be willing to die a little to come into that silence.

I need to start by believing there is balm and answers in no words at all. Insight can come without “figuring it out”. More than that, I can dare to give up, for a time, the need to be in charge of my own life. However, I also give up the need for any one or any thing to be in charge. I dare  to give up preparing or protecting myself. I also dare to be totally alone, though I am in a room crowded with friends.

Perhaps the most important step is to give up any need for some divine connection, love, or assurance. The silence itself is both the method and the goal. Curiously, it can be found by intense listening. The task is to find in myself an inner ear that listens beyond words. In that place I also want an eye that sees beyond known objects.

If this all sounds spiritual spooky it is because I can’t talk about a place without words. I can’t argue the logic of going there.

If this intrigues you, know that it is within your reach. However, the first step is the last. To go into silence you must give yourself full permission to do it before you do it.

Can you give yourself a small passage of time when you are willing not to exist?