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Wisdom Quote
Raimon Panikkar, in The Experience of God, differentiates between "the silence of life" and "a life of silence." He says ...
The silence of life is not necessarily identical with a life of silence, like the silent life of desert monks. ... The silence of life is the art of making silent the activities of life that are not life itself in order to reach the pure experience of life itself.
We frequently identify life itself with the activities of life. We identify our being with our feelings, our desires, our will, with everything that we do and everything that we have. We instrumentalize our life while forgetting that it is an end in itself. Plunged into the activities of life, we lose the faculty of listening, and we alienate ourselves from our very source: silence, God.
Silence appears at the moment when we position ourselves at the very source of being.
Musings of a Modern Day Mystic
Silence, my Source, is you, for you are the perfection of every good. I cannot find the silence of life, which is spiritual life, without silence being an expression of reverent submission to you. Indeed, this silence I long for, arising from spirit and Spirit, is worshipful quiet. And this finding of the fontal quiet and simplicity is a rediscovery of the wellspring of my being, all being, the center, where both you and I, along with all creation, enjoy oneness in astonishing and awe-inspiring mystery. This is holy communion.
The mere stillness of my body, or the quiet of my mind, is not the silence I seek, though these may be preparatory, setting the table for the feast of the inner eucharist. This eucharist is found within the quietude from which my sense of I, consecrated in Christ, arises and returns in and by you.
I long for life, true life, not mere phantasms that lead away from the fontal center, offering promises that are empty while filling our beings with noise and rush. Still my body and mind, for they always offer resistance to this entrance into the holy of holies that is none other than Christ, the Word, permeating and animating and unfolding the divine potentials in and through creation. Indeed, silence ones me with the one who enfolds all Nature, that all Nature may be unfolded to enjoy union with all other aspects of nature in Love, as each, in varying degrees, is one with you.
And may, my God, the silences I enjoy here prepare me for the great silence that shall descend upon me at death, ushering me into a fullness of being that I glimpse in those moments of quiet rest through and in your Son, Jesus Christ.
Suggested Reflection
How do you practice the silence of life daily?
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