The Flow Of Silence

At the end of the day, bathing in the soft light of a candle, lying still on your favorite easy chair, surrender to the silence, and you will find within it, music to disappear in.

Franz Kafka, one of the major German-language novelists and short story writers of the 20th century, whose unique body of writing is considered amongst the most influential in Western literature, knew that if anything has real and lasting value, it is always a gift from within.

He understood the flow of silence, the eloquence that follows from an immersion into nothingness, the transcendence that slips behind suspended action like a shadow.

He wrote: "You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

The practice of stillness is well-known to mystics and geniuses.

In the Bible, in Psalm 24, it has been said, "Be still, and know that I am God."

When you enter the silence, you enter the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High, and all fear, trembling, and doubt ceases. Your restless feet no longer trouble the earth and the mountains of your troubles are carried into the depths of the sea of oblivion.

There is a river in the silence that will carry you into a power that is your very own. When you enter the silence, by learning how to rest and be still, you enter a new place, a virgin territory, where all that is discordant and broken in your life cannot come with you.

Usually, in the first half-hour nothing much happens. Your mind starts to unwind, like a weary warrior dismounting from a spirited horse. You set your shield down, lower your sword, and rest your aching limbs.

Then, in the next half-hour, you gradually descend into a place that becomes increasingly unfamiliar, where thoughts and feelings float by your amazed inner gaze with an alien majesty.

The convulsions of your life, the earthquake that throws the mountains into the sea, the roaring of the waves, the cataclysm of the tidal wave – these phenomena as well as any commotions and revolutions in your world need not shake the one who trusts in silence. Silence is a proven refuge.

Albert Einstein knew about the power of silence and changed the world by what he discovered in it.

Einstein borrowed the idea of the Gedankenexperiment, a thought experiment, from Ernst Mach, the German philosopher, and used it to see what would happen to light beams and gravity when viewed from different imaginary scenarios. He made his paradigm-shattering discoveries by immersing himself in silence and allowing his thoughts to travel where no human thought had ever gone before.

Strange things happen in silence. When the mind-body slows to an even, relaxed pace, thoughts attain a slow rhythm, and intuition arises to resolve paradoxes and invite resolutions and sort out juxtapositions in a unique and exhilarating way.

There is much evidence to show that at alpha and theta brainwaves, which happen in stillness and silence, new thoughts, new discoveries, and remarkable insights await.

Whether you are looking for the God of the mystics or the intuitive hunch that leads to ideas that can change your world, there is only one place you will find it: within. When you discover a resting place free of sound and distraction, you also discover yourself.

There is a world within deeper than an ocean, where archetypes roam and parallel lines do meet at infinity. It is the place where a single whisper can change your life entirely.

Silence is flow; it is music to disappear in; and it has a momentum to it that adds grace to your days and poetry to your life. Pursue it diligently and in your most frantic hour, it will rescue you like the brush of an angel's wing.