In order to wish to be present, I must see that I am asleep. "I" am not here. I am enclosed in a circle of petty interests and avidity in which my "I" is lost. And it will remain lost unless I can relate to something higher.
I need to understand that by myself, without a relation with something higher, I am nothing.
I can escape only if I feel my absolute nothingness and begin to feel the need for help. I must feel the need to relate myself to something higher, to open to another quality.
In the beginning of every silent meditative period, we send forth a glad call to the Eternal. It is so good to be able to go Home, even for a few moments! As our thoughts calmly turn from the outer to the inner world, we soar into communion with a joyful salutation addressing the Eternal as though standing on a high cliff with arms outflung to the heavens. By degrees we are included in the silence of the Infinite.
In the silence we feel the Light penetrating, recharging, purifying, blessing us. We identify with the Light. Words and thoughts opening from this depth will have life--the Life that will create and endow all things with good.
Those who practice a watch of silence each day find their devotion takes them into ever-deepening realizations of God's immediate presence.
Silent watch periods are momentous opportunities that call for alert, expectant, and reverent participation. They are a foundation for prayer and an altar of awareness in the temple of reception.
They constitute the practice of our realization of God's immediate presence. The high moment of silence is that of consciously realizing God's envelopment.
~ from THIS DAY IS FORTIFIED by Flower A. Newhouse
