Begin Your Quest... Sign In

Ways Into God's Presence

Silence, Meditation and Prayer

Jesus Praying in Gethsemane, Harry Anderson

Christians hear much about the use of silence, meditation and prayer. To some, these terms are of mixed understanding. Actually, each of these designations has a definite role and accomplishes a purpose not found in the other practices.

We have not only to think of God as realistically as we are able many times a day; we discover also that there are special ways to think of Divine Reality and to open ourselves to the Presence.

Silence

The practice of silence is a very important art. We use this approach whenever we worship, as well as when we are taking a walk in the outdoors, listening to a vital conversation, or when we want to clear our thoughts for the greater awareness of Divinity.

To practice silence we enter the boundary of the Eternal Threshold. At its entrance we thoughtfully pause to gaze upon, examine and consider the inner territory into which we have been admitted by the questing of our higher selves.
Reverend Flower A. Newhouse, The Quest

We gain an impression of vibrant stillness—of Light in different intensities according to our individual approach. Sometimes the Light of God is softly diffused all around us. Again, It is seen as brightness, and occasionally Its luminosity is dazzling. In silence a strong impression of Presence persists—Presence facing us and enveloping us at this point of Its Everywhereness.

Three things happen to us as we enter the threshold of silence:

We condition ourselves for spiritual reception.
We stand receptively in God's Light.
We enter a higher state of being.

Entering These Thresholds

Back...

Conditioning for Spiritual Reception

In order that we may experience peace and communion in silence it is needful that we quiet our thoughts, feelings and energies. All disunity must be surrendered and all negative states released. So, as we stand at the threshold we unburden ourselves of congesting and worrisome thoughts and emotions.

Then, having cleared our beings, we next condition ourselves for God's Presence. We think and feel the qualities of love, joy, and expectancy; we let these reverberate throughout our natures. How much closer to the Presence we come when these qualities are vibrating through us! We become blended and harmonized with the atmosphere about us.

The work of righteousness (right-use-ness) shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.
Isaiah 32:17

The consciousness and body have been quieted. Now they are brought into a condition of positive attention.

Stand in God's Light

Know the Light in stillness.
Arthur E. Waite

We look up to God and see only His Presence. In this direct gazing upon God Present we find all our faculties becoming alert and attuned. We gaze upon Deity and It observes us and enfolds us with Its all-inclusive love. The Light of God's Spirit confronts us and we behold Its radiance.

Entering a Higher State

As we give direct attention to the surrounding Light of God we step into a higher state of being. We are accelerated and lifted by our Soul's ability to worship the Divine wholeheartedly. These simple yet profound practices are not done with our minds, nor our feelings alone, but with our total aligned Selfhood.

As our surface interests are replaced by our total being's activation, the chakras (the seven vital centers of our superphysical bodies) begin to spin with more rapid and colorful velocity.
Reverend Flower A. Newhouse, The Quest

Whenever we are unable to practice the silence as fully as we can realize it, we should see our return to the Threshold as a true homecoming wherein we shall be welcomed. The Irish poet, George Russell (A.E.) had been in London for a year when he decided to return to his country home where he was always able to tune into Reality readily and successfully. He states:

I felt like a child who wickedly stays from home through a long day, and who returns frightened and penitent at nightfall, wondering whether he will be received with forgiveness by his mother. Would the Mother of us all receive me again as one of her children? Would the winds with wondering voices be as before the evangelists of her love? . . . I knew if benediction came, how it would come. I would sit among the rocks with shut eyes, waiting humbly as one waits in the antechambers of the mighty, and if the invisible ones chose me as companion they would begin with a soft breathing of their intimacies creeping on me with shadowy affection like children who steal nigh to the bowed head and suddenly whisper fondness on the ear before it has even heard a footfall. So I stole out of the cottage and over the dark ridges to the place of rocks and sat down and let the coolness of the night chill and still the fiery dust in the brain. I waited trembling for the faintest touch, the shyest breathing of the Everlasting within my Soul, the sign of recognition and forgiveness. I knew it would come.

In the silence we meet the resurrecting touch of God and we attain clearance from a hundred distractions that plagued us. The silence not only conditions us for further states which are to follow, but it schools us to meet them preparedly.