THE SILENT RETREAT

AUGUST

“May we suggest that the most important thing at this moment in time is to relax. And take a breather.

Because it is as though the mounting tension culminating in the recent total eclipse of the moon in July was magnificently starred for something extraordinarily new to emerge. And it is  important right now to relax from that mountainous tension and take a breather. In fact, more than that, we ask you to breath into Silence at this time.

Whatever anyone says, silence is not something many people can achieve. So supposing we call August the Month of Silence; the month of quiet, and of taking breaths that are deeply silent.

It is really important not to listen to the noise outside just now. Because, as we know, there is more and more noise outside, whether it is the incessant twittering of politicians – and we mean twittering as opposed to tweeting – or other continuous input. For all they are doing is twittering, endlessly, noisily, because no one knows what is happening next.

What we suggest to our friends in incarnation is that for the moment they just stop worrying about what’s happening next, and take a deep breath into silence. We know it is really really difficult to turn off the noise; to switch off the news; to stop the addiction of looking at Facebook or the latest fake ideas coming into the world, as the noise increases and the twittering becomes a background to everything that men and woman are experiencing right now.

So we suggest that to the best of your ability you take a holiday from it all and take a deep breath into the experience of silence. Make it something that you do consciously, a decision made, to wean yourself off the noise, off the twittering that has become the background to your lives.  Make it a conscious act to stop listening and maintain the silence right through your whole life and being. Take a holiday from the noise. Make it a summer break from the background twittering which is reaching a crescendo of distasteful noise nuisance.

And then we urge our friends to feel the relief. What a relief!  And as you allow the outside noise to go away, also let go the noise, the constant twittering from inside your head; the ‘Is it?’ ‘Should it?’ ‘Maybe’. ‘Because’. ‘How can I?’ You simply take a holiday from all that twittering.

And if you take a break from the noise, you realise how incredibly happy that makes you feel, not to have to listen to it all for a while. Then you’ll know how helpful it is right now to tune out the noise, and tune into your own silence.

Because your silence, of course, is different to everyone else’s. It isn’t following the twittering, which urges you to join everybody else’s noise. When you relax into your own silence it is yours, and yours alone. And you return to yourself in a way that all that noise forces you out of yourself, to join everyone else’s noise.

And in that silence and in that resting, in that holidaying towards your own silence, you will begin to hear again. You will begin to listen again, and you can begin to know again that this is a new time.”

Now sit quietly in a comfortable chair and listen to this audio meditation: