Silence = Focus
We are used to always listening to that for us to find the balance of spirit, mind, and heart, we must look for and practice the essential, Silence.
— Whoever preserves stillness [of the soul] is also master of restlessness. (Lao-tsé)
— moments arise in life when only the profound silence of the soul can translate peace, recognition, and joy. (Brother Jacob [Spirit], in the book Voltei)
— “Right speech” is like a mute person thinking he is not mute. In the world of ordinary people, a mute person does not speak; however, in their own world, there are no mute people. We must study the proverb, “the mouth is hanging on all the walls – every mouth is on all the walls.” That is, the silence of Zazen is the actualization of right speech. (Dōgen Zenji)— It is only that quality of stillness, that absolute silence of the mind that can see that which is eternal, timeless, nameless. This is meditation. Right? Right, sirs. (Krishnamurti)
— When you enter Silence, you hear the Voice of God and dialogue with Him. Whoever enters Silence penetrates the Spirit of God and is sublimated by Him. All that we learn of the eternal comes from this Silence. Our most beautiful phrases were confided by him. He gave us these teachings in secrecy. (Alziro Zarur)
— But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus (Matthew 6:6)
As you can see in the title we invite you to see Silence as equal to one word: Focus. That’s how we find and get into the spiritual state of Silence.
It may seem confusing, but silence is not what most of us commonly think. It doesn’t mean the total absence of sound, rather it is the focus on a specific sound, making others silent to your ears. It's much more connected to an absence of attention to what's external to your area of focus.
Otherwise, it would be much more confusing to understand those insights about the characteristics of Silence. How could you seek silence to then listen to God or fuel your mind with Divine Wisdom?
Brother Alziro Zarur brings us a vital comprehension of how we can, nowadays, listen to God’s voice: “Previously, the disciple had to go into the desert. Today, to prepare ourselves spiritually, we don't need to go to arid or distant places, because we just need to enter into the Silence”.
What can we take from that? I would conclude that we already experience Silence in our daily lives, and what we need to do is to start perceiving this condition. Every time you get into a state of focus, having the exterior and interior sounds absent from the stream of your current thought, you are in Silence. Our effort shouldn’t be on mystical ways to get into Silence, but rather on taking out what is getting our focus from what is spiritually important for us.
What is in your mind that it’s taking your attention from everything else? Through that, we can notice the sound-polluted world we build for ourselves in this modern society. How we direct the focus of our minds to things of no greater importance to our intrinsic spiritual value.
Pray or meditate
“Jesus went to the Mount of Olives”. (John 8:1)
It’s common for the spiritually initiated to understand the importance of a moment of retreat to talk to God, or, if you prefer, to get in tune with a Higher Consciousness. All that is a way to gather their thoughts and reflect on a specific theme that can put them closer to God. As we said before, you don’t need to retreat to a desert, you can pray or meditate wherever you are. But between all those practices is there a difference?
Brother Paiva argues that there isn’t: “Praying and meditating have an exact correspondence. Being humble, before the Truth, is essential conduct. This is how the remarkable Methodist teacher and missionary Eli Stanley Jones (1884-1973), who spent a long period of his life in India and visited Brazil several times, thought: ‘Humility is the essence of Divine Creation. The first measure to meet God is to get rid of pride. (...) When pretense ends, power begins’”.
They are two sides of the same coin because it really doesn’t matter how you work your way to get connected to God, the important thing is that you do it.
The act of Praying and Meditation
How Pray could be defined? From the Hebrew palal, it can mean “to intervene, to interpose, to arbitrate, to judge”. We see in the Old Testament, that every time someone decided to act, they would first pray to God, that is talk to Him so what they externalized could be judged and if they succeeded in their objective it would be a sign of the approval of God toward their intention. That does not mean God approves acts of violence as we see in the Old Testament, I’m just saying what is behind the idea of the act of prayer.
We need to understand that there are two kinds of Will, from the Creator and the creature. Through that, we start to comprehend that the First one is absolute and pre-exists, and the Second is constructed in a Chain where its links are collective thoughts of a defined goal. Could the second one override God’s Will? Of course not; there is respect for the Divine Law of Free Will, but if it goes against other Divine Laws, the first link won't be formed.
The act of praying is a reflective action of the words you use to express a will in a conversation with God or the collective ecumenical spirits towards a defined goal. Through that sense, we can discuss Meditation: which, we could argue, is an active reflection about which words you will pronounce to manifest your defined goal. One is the act of putting out from your intimacy the words that define your spiritual state, the other is the moment where you reflect on which words to use. They complement each other.
My goal here is to talk about the commonality of all that. We are already doing it. The initiated is the one that willingly starts to pay attention to those things and then works his or her way to not be a victim of spiritual ignorance and acts in a balanced and joined effort according to God’s Will. As Christ pleads in His Prayer to the Father (Gospel, according to John 17:15-19):
“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified”.
The Authority of Christ's Silence
Jesus, showed us His Authority in teaching the meaning of Silence when He was taken to Pilate (John, 18:38). That’s a moment in the life of Christ where He shows us that we have to seek to rise in God’s concept, rather than the concept of all Humanity.
As a quiet river that absorbs the rock and the resultant shock of its throw, Christ’s Silence is not shaken by the unsettling external interferences. All His work manifests from the Silence of the Soul.
Because of that, He understands the subtleties of the relationship between the Divine Laws and its subjects. As we can see in the passage The Healing of a Paralytic in Capernaum (Gospel of Jesus, according to Matthew, 9:1-8).
Knowing what was inside of the hard-hearted, Christ showed that it’s not necessary to express in a shouting manner your will to have God’s approval and form a spiritual chain. That is, in the Silence of your Soul you can meditate and pray to God, creating the necessary chain or spiritual link to manifest His Will.
He showed us in practice the meaning of His words (Matthew, 6:1-8). By that, we can understand that it is important to please God rather than man. There is no need to show miracles for appraisal publicly, and that true repentance toward God’s judgment of our spiritual sins comes from the heart.
It is much more efficient to receive it in the Silence of your Soul, as it will not be men who will give you the strength to carry your sins out, but the Heavenly Father who helps you in secrecy. I’m not arguing against the importance of a therapist for you to realize the necessary changes you need to go through, nor against someone that chooses to publicly ask for the forgiveness of the offended. But, that won’t matter if you don’t take it to heart. Jesus demonstrated that by speaking “Get up and walk!”.
The Divine Friend won’t allow the sins of any humble spirit to be exposed to “pigs and dogs” unless it is necessary when even by being warned in secrecy, the person does not realize the mistake he's still committing. Therefore, the person must bear the shock of being exposed publicly, but never if it is not necessary.
God and His Only Begotten Son are One, His mercy is infinite, and it matters that forgiveness be received in our hearts rather than in the ears of those around us.
Ecumenical Prayer of Jesus
To conclude, let’s meditate on the words of this prayer taught by our Divine Master. Which, Brother Paiva calls the Ecumenical Prayer of Jesus (Gospel, according to Matthew, 6:9-13). That is, anyone can say these words without being offended. May Christ blesses our Eternal Spirits with the enlightenment of His Life.
Our Father, who is in Heaven
Hallowed be Your name,
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven. Gives us this day
Our daily bread, and
Forgives us our trespasses just as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
For Yours is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory
Forever and ever. Amen!
