THE GOD-MAN The Life, Journeys and Work of Meher Baba with an ...

408 THE GOD-MANsilence is a form of discipline, and for the sake of self-recollection; when long silences are ordered they arefor other unexplained reasons. In the East the avoidance of words and explanations is a recognized techniquein spiritual training; the guru or teacher often gives no answer to his pupils' questions.(2)Silence has been practised throughout the ages. 'Be still and know that I am God', said the Psalmist. 'Hewho knows does not speak', said Lao-tze. When the Buddha was asked to state the duty of a disciple, he tookthe golden flower and gazed on it in silence; he was silent when questioned about the nature of Reality andnirvana. For thirty-two years the life of Jesus is shrouded in silence (apart from a single episode), and towhat extent he practised silence during those years is unknown; we do know that afterwards he was often insilence, and when questioned by Pilate about the nature of Truth said nothing. The second-century SaintIgnatius of Antioch said:He who also possesses Jesus' word is able also to hear his silence, in order that he may be perfect, so thathe may act through his words and may be known through his silences.Plotinus declared:You should not ask questions but understand keeping silence, as I keep silence, for I am not in the habit ofspeaking.The sixth-century Armenian saint, known as John the Silent, was a Bishop at twenty-eight, and ten yearslater became a 'walled-up' recluse, but lived to be a very old man. Silence is usual in Christian religiousorders and is virtually complete in some. Eckhart referred to the divine as 'the wordless Godhead', and in thediscourse entitled, 'From whom God hid nothing' said on a text from the Book of Wisdom, 'Out of the silencea secret word was spoken to me"Ah Sir! - what is this silence and where is that word to be spoken? We shall say ... it is spoken in thepurest element of the soul, in the soul's most exalted place, in the core, yes, in the essence of the soul. Thecentral silence is there, where no creature may enter, nor any idea, and where the soul neither thinks nor acts,nor entertains any idea, either of itself or of anything else.