Silence

I've been trying to track down something I read in Thomas Merton a long time ago on contemptus mundi. No luck so far. But in the process, I came upon some wonderful passages in his book, Contemplative Prayer on the importance of silence. I'd like to share a couple of these. The first is from Isaac of Niniveh, a Syrian monk:

"Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence ... Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself ...

"More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this 'something' that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence .. after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence."

Further on, Merton quotes one of the Desert Fathers, Abba Ammonas, a disciple of St. Anthony:

"Behold, my beloved, I have shown you the power of silence, how thoroughly it heals and how fully pleasing it is to God. Wherefore I have written to you to show yourselves strong in this work you have undertaken, so that you may know that it is by silence that the saints grew, that it was because of silence that the power of God dwelt in them, because of silence that the mysteries of God were known to them."

In relation to the subject of contemptus mundi and withdrawal from worldly attachments, this passage is not exactly what I had in mind, but it is very relevant (I'm quoting Merton himself this time):

"Far from establishing one in unassailable narcissistic security, the way of prayer brings us face to face with the sham and indignity of the false self that seeks to live for itself alone and to enjoy the 'consolation of prayer' for its own sake. This 'self' is pure illusion, and ultimately he who lives for and by such an illusion must end either in disgust or in madness.

"On the other hand, we must admit that social life, so-called 'worldly life,', in its own way promotes this illusory and narcissistic existence to the very limit. The curious state of alienation and confusion of man in modern society is perhaps more 'bearable' because it is lived in common, with a multitude of distractions and escapes -- and also with opportunities for fruitful action and genuine Christian self-forgetfulness. But underlying all life is the ground of doubt and self-questioning which sooner or later must bring us face to face with the ultimate meaning of our life. This self-questioning can never be without a certain existential 'dread' -- a sense of insecurity, of 'lostness,' of exile, of sin. A sense that one has somehow been untrue not so much to abstract moral or social norms but to one's own inmost truth. 'Dread' in this sense is not simply a childish fear of retribution, or a naive guilt, a fear of violating taboos. It is the profound awareness that one is capable of ultimate bad faith with himself and with others: that one is living a lie."

It's a very strong idea in monastic spirituality that life in the "world", if it doesn't actually force us to live a lie, does tend to keep drawing us up to the surface of things. We have to break contact at times if we want to get down to the depths of reality, where the encounter with God can occur. Again, Merton says this better than I can: "[the monk] plunges deep into the heart of that world of which he remains a part although he seems to have "left" it. In reality the monk abandons the world only in order to listen more intently to the deepest and most neglected voices that proceed from its inner depth."