Inner Silence

There are few things that help so much for conversing with Christ as silence. The silence I speak of is, obviously, the inner silence of the heart without which the voice of Christ will simply not be heard. This inner silence is very hard to achieve for most of us: close your eyes for a moment and observe what's going on within you.

The chances are you will be submerged in a sea of thoughts that you are powerless to stop-talk, talk, talk (for that is what thinking generally is, me talking to myself) noise, noise, noise: my own inner voice competing with the remembered voices and images of others, all clamoring for my attention. What chances does the subtle voice of God stand in all this din and bustle?

Your tolerance of silence is a fairly good indicator of your spiritual (and even intellectual and emotional) depth.

—Anthony De Mello, Contact with God