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Chapter 8
In chapter eight, we come to the seventh seal and we read, “And when he had opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Here we have the grand climax to the narrative concerning the opening of the seven seals. Here we also have symbolized the climax of all the steps leading to full self-understanding. The final and greatest step in self-discovery is achieved in the realization of how to become still, how to find silence within.
Entering the true silence is usually one of the final things a person learns to do on his pathway of self-understanding. In fact, almost everything one learns in his study of truth is leading him toward this achievement, the attainment of inner silence, complete stillness. This is a mark of the high spiritual development. It places a person in heaven, because true silence occurs only in heaven, and it results in miracles on earth.
The true silence is very hard to describe with words, because words are not silence. Almost all written or spoken words on the subject of silence are actually really about what leads up to the silence, not about silence itself. For most persons, silence begins with the quieting of all inner mechanical taking with one’s self. It is a conscious, willing merging of self with the great silent principle of being, of absolute good.
It’s an interesting fact to consider that in reality ours is a silent universe. Sound or noise, as such, does not really exist. What you and I call sound is an impression made by silent vibrations on our nervous system. Silent vibrations touch our ear drums and are conveyed to a section of our brain, where it is only interpreted by us as sound, but what we call noise or sound is a concept centered only in our brain, but all the power of the universe is silence.
Activated silence is the Holy Spirit. All ideas and principles are, in the beginning, silence and light, but in order to be put into expression and become manifest, they have to be brought into the realm of vibration, which is the realm formed by the word. In this realm, which is man’s realm, the activity of sound begins its existence, and man has become so fascinated with sound, depends on it so much, that there are times he may overlook the tremendous significance of silence. He may forget that, while the power of the word does produce expressions and manifestations of already existing forms of ideas, it is only in the silence that new ideas can be born.
