The Secret Path to Peace Through True Silence

by Guy Finley

What is required of us to realize the peace of mind for which we all long? No one can come upon this Real Silence without understanding certain truths about its' nature. Concerning peace of mind, one thing should be clear: Either we are at peace wherever we are -- because this peace goes with us -- or what we call our peace is a product of one of the following two possibilities: First, either by choice or by accident we have entered into some pleasing, and therefore peaceable condition, or, second, the peace we enjoy at hand is the child of a particular condition over which we have attained some kind of temporary command.

In all situations such as these, though largely unconscious to us, we know our new-found peace is conditional -- the evidence being that we usually find ourselves hard at work to keep our present circumstances in place, whatever it takes. The proof of this uneasy "truce" with our troubles-at-bay is that we resist any movement that runs contrary to our desired setup.
Clearly such a qualified peace is not True Peace at all, if for no other reason than this order of peace lives in league with our unseen need to fight with anything that threatens its existence! It's obvious: Any sense of peace found through resisting some disturbance passes as soon as does our equally false sense of control (over that commotion).

Which brings us to this first key lesson: True Peace is not a sensation; neither is it anything the mind can imagine. Emotions and dreams are of the finite, temporary world. True Peace is the outpouring of a timeless Silence whose reality sits outside the movement of the opposites at play. In other words: Any peace subject to changing conditions is, at best, a collapsible pleasure.
Before we can hope to know the Peace that "passes all understanding" we must realize the nature of that True Silence from out of which it rises. The path to our perfection in Truth is of this Stillness. And even though it retreats as the acquisitive self approaches -- crying out for its solace -- this relationship is our task. So then, how is one to approach the "unapproachable?"
True Silence may be called upon, but it is without cause, which means it appears on its own and remains with one only as long as it pleases its own secret purpose. Nevertheless, one may court this sovereign Stillness through a quiet wish to understand its life within one's own. But, as with all things of the Spirit, definite rules govern the Higher Realms of this Reality.

To begin with, True Silence cannot be possessed; it is neither a thing to hold, nor some condition to be controlled. Yet, as it cannot be "gained," neither can it be lost, which means that whomever it embraces lives in a world free of fear. What does this mean to us, who seek the Life of Peace? How do we proceed to enter into this inexpressible Being?

To do this one must start out from the right place. And this is where so many seekers lose their way. So our study does not begin with some imagined nature of Silence and the pleasurable sensations of peace that accompany such dreams, but with those unseen barriers within us that prohibit this natural Grace and its Goodness from being our constant companions.

With these ideas in mind, see how simple is the following truth, within which is a great secret about what we need to understand if we wish to proceed into the Peaceful Life: One of the main obstacles barring the entrance to the path to True Silence is that this realm cannot be entered by thought. This fact has far-reaching implications for those willing to investigate it seriously.
For one thing, this means that the True Path of Peace can be known only through the process of negation: the discovery and realization within oneself of what is whole and true by seeing through what is divided and false. Here is such a discovery: True Silence can not be found in one's future, or in any such imagined condition yet to come. Here is why this is true:

The very idea of silence that we fashion for ourselves, regardless of its time frame, produces in us -- at the moment of its conception -- a kind of "noise"- a certain emotional clattering that we have grown insensitive to due to our continual immersion within it. This noise is that familiar and pleasing sensation we feel when we imagine some silence soon to be our own.

Ironic isn't it, if we can see it? The very silence that we hope for in earnest is "disturbed" and kept at bay by our own manifested desire for its presence! And yet, within this very knowledge is a glimmer of Light -- some truth to take us further if we will embrace what it shows us.
For when we realize that our own desire -- that longing that is always at work dreaming up our more peaceable tomorrow -- is actually the agent of what disturbs our peace in the present moment, then we will begin to break free of this unconscious force -- the nature that always craves what it does not have in order to become what it hopes to be!

Before proceeding, here is a brief summary of what we have learned so far: As long as our time is spent in any form of an imagined peace or contrived self-silence, regardless of how we achieve this pleasure for ourselves, such quietude is not real Stillness at all, but only the sensation of it. These sensations always fade away, leaving us feeling betrayed and hungry for more!

The conscious realization of this mistaken identity -- where we have communed with what is little more than a form of psychic noise, calling this state of self the Celestial Quiet we long for -- leads us directly to the threshold of the Real Silence our spiritual heart longs for.

Gradually, but definitely, we realize what must be done: Now we must let go of our thought-self; we must die to its endless desire to become what it isn't by imagining what it will be. So that instead of living from this ultimately empty sense of one's "becoming," we do the real silently-seeing work of being what we are in the moment. This silent kind of seeing frees us.

For this reason, our moment-to-moment meditation, our awaked-ness to life, becomes revelation when we open ourselves to what is and see what it reveals. With these truths in mind, study the following insights into True Silence. Allow their understanding to become your own. Ponder them. Quietly turn them over and over in your mind. Soon you will hear what cannot be told.

1. Just as true emptiness holds all things, True Silence bears all things. Whatever is brought into this Silence, whatever it touches, is gradually silenced . . . yet not by an act of domination, but through a peaceful integration of a lesser into a Greater.

2. True Silence is an interior Presence and not an exterior circumstance. It has no opposite and is not created, which means nothing can act against it or serve to enhance its existence.

3. True Silence cannot be cultivated, but the conditions that prohibit its presence may be understood out of being.

4. True Silence is perfectly empty of content and completely full without contradiction.

5. True Silence is without preference and neither rejects nor resists any condition.

6. True Silence is the heart and soul of compassion.

7. True Silence doesn't have intelligence; it is Intelligence of an order that a divided mind cannot comprehend.

8. If we wish the presence and peace of True Silence, then the great necessity of solitude should be as evident to us as realizing that any seedling must be left undisturbed if it is ever to break out of its dark ground and live in the light.

As the understanding of these truths grows in us, and we look at our life through its eyes, we come to realize that this new silent seeing is itself a part of the contentment we seek. Here is why: The "eyes" of this passive awareness are not just "filled" with what they behold, but actually partake in the life of all that is perceived. Can we see what this means to us?

The absence of division between seer and seen is the negation of desire. And when the stress and pressure of longing to possess whatever it may be are at last negated by this higher self-awareness, goes with them all of that painful conflict that must occur whenever there exists a sense of separation between ourselves and our hoped-for peace of mind.

As challenging as this sounds, we may be encouraged. Truth itself is on our side. In this life everything is either growing or it goes the other way. To this rule there are no exceptions. To positively comply we need only be willing to grow in the Truth of ourselves, and act from what is seen as true. In this way the contradictions in our consciousness are cancelled.

Here is a last thought we can all use every day to help us along the way to living in True Silence: Once we realize that what we must understand (if we are to be quietly free) can not be spoken, imagined, or otherwise fashioned by thought, only then will we stop talking to ourselves about what we need. True Silence awaits the one who will see this Truth and be still.


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