The Healing Power of Silence
Silence heals. . . The healing of Silence does not carry a medical intent; that is, its function does not centre on the rapid removal of symptoms. . . Silence is self-healing. It is a process in which a direct and non-mediated connection is made between the forces and inner currents that join the invisible worlds of Silence and the tangibility of our bodily presence and being. . . .
From time to time, we may notice that there is another presence within the Silence, our companion-presence that is a “you that is not you.” It has a certain autonomy to it in a way that ego-consciousness does not have. We notice this presence out of the corner of our consciousness, so to speak. It is its own centre, but we experience this centre as a higher or more refined sense of ourselves. In the esoteric tradition, this presence is called the witness. This term is quite descriptive, for eco-consciousness does not know how to witness; it has to feel itself at the centre of our consciousness and in charge, to the point that it identifies itself as the whole of consciousness. We first experience witness-consciousness as a kind of encompassing consciousness that we do not fully identify with, but at the moment we feel its presence, our ego-consciousness quickly reduces. . . .
When we have learned to enter witness-consciousness, are well acquainted with the experience of the healing currents, are comfortable moving attention around, and are sure that we have not switched from witness-consciousness to spectator ego-consciousness, we can move into a second aspect of the healing of Silence. We can scan the body using the spiritual act of attention and begin to allow Silence to come into specific bodily symptoms. . . . .
Symptoms become for us unrecognized possibilities rather than indications of something gone wrong. . . Symptoms are our greatest gift for guiding us toward our destiny. . . Destiny is a particular feeling quality, not cognitive knowledge of what is going to happen to us in the future or what we are going to be or do. . . .
The purpose of working with symptoms by going into the Silence, by entering into the inner experience of the invisible form of our body, by scanning this form with the act of attention, by finding and entering symptoms with our attention, and then by simply inwardly listening, is to connect with our soul-spirit being. Symptoms have a strong material-like component and so we sense them as foreign to who we are, but that is because consciousness withdraws from them. A conscious effort is then required to fill them again with the presence of a consciousness that is both diffuse and quite specific at the same time. When symptoms are filled with Silence-awareness, we are able once again to be within the fullness of silence.
There is no doubt that making the claim for symptom alleviation would entice many people into working with Silence. Such a claim, and indeed such a hope, produces a shrinking from the being of Silence right back into our own egotism. The intention of working with the healing of Silence is to provide us with an important means by which Silence can become a central and ongoing focus of our lives. And such a focus is for the sake of Silence, not for our immediate and direct benefit. Bringing symptoms into relation with Silence opens up the highly significant time current that has to do with our “becoming” and with how we can increasingly be of service to the spiritual realms.
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