As your prayer and meditation become deeper, they will defend you
from the perpetual assaults of the outer world. You will hear the
busy hum of that world as a distant exterior melody, and know
yourself to be in some way withdrawn from it. You have set a ring
of silence between you and it; and behold! within the silence you
are free.
I gazed across the swamp, its beauty overwhelming. I prayed for guidance, then slipped deep into the realm of silence, still not sure as to where I was going or what I was searching for. It did not take too long to reach deep into the quietude of the sacred silence, and in a flash of clarity all body and mind were gone. I emerged into the dazzling brilliance of the swamp in full light. In my imagination the swamp took on a new feel, a feel that reached into the consciousness of my very soul, purifying and healing. All around me was the flow of life ... green carpets of moss, tranquil pools full of frogs and fish, choruses and movements of all manner of birds, other animals dancing to the rhythm of the Earth, and a sense of beauty the like of which I had never experienced before.
