If Silence is "the Reality," then all words as intrusions lie. But the simple voice within us lies least that speaks of, and for, the Silence.

Why is it that most people, when they're with someone else or in a group, feel it's necessary to talk?

Recently, I took a trip to Egypt. The sacred places were swarming with tourists. I came away with a new "tourist" definition: someone who travels thousands of miles to see a renowned thing and then goes home having never seen it. A few years ago, I gave a talk on earth religions at Rio Caliente in Mexico. I began by saying: "the first thing to know if you want to practice earth spirituality is that, when walking on the paths in the gorgeous mountains that surround us, you must be silent. Cut out the abstract chatter. Not only does it upset the sacred energy of these forests, just as importantly, it prevents you from making real contact with them."

Many claim that we're heading to a "new age." But there will be nothing new, ever, as long as our collective consciousness is defined in the same way as it always has been: by words and thoughts.

When two people are together, what is it that prevents them from not talking and being silent together? The first thing is uneasiness and embarrassment: we assume that the other person expects us to talk. That is, there is an implied contract when two people are together because our "normal" way of relating is with our minds and language. Silence requires a mutual understanding and shared knowing. Together, they must establish a new contract. This new contract not only must be an agreement to be silent but, if it's a real coming-together, must contain an intuitive understanding of what silence means.

Secondly, just stopping the flow of words and thoughts is not enough. A person can be silent but if he/she doesn't have a clue about silence, he/she will quickly become bored and return to the "thinking" mode. It's not enough to just stop talking to someone. When you are alone, you aren't talking. Even so, usually, your mind is working and you are involved in your thoughts. And out of contact with the world. The same often happens when you are silent with another person. You both can be in your own separate thought worlds: out of contact with what's around you and with each other.

So, this is what I'd say you need to do with special friends. One, there has to be a silence contract. A mutual, understood understanding. Then you need to get out of your language/word/thought mode and enter the silence mode.

And then you need to make contact. You need to experience with all of your five senses and extra-senses the physical, extraordinary outside where you are. You need to experience the inside too: what you are feeling at that particular moment. And, at the same time, you must make contact in the same way with the person, or persons, you are with. Then you will start to SEE. Then you may enter the Silence. VictorGreentree.