Silence, within. 
This is an idea beyond ideas that seems to indicate finding the quiet in the storm of life. This silence is a place of intimate connection to ourselves and the universe. It may mean finding the quiet between thoughts or the space in life that we are not bombarded by the cacophony of mind.
Our minds are very strong. And many of us are brought up to rely on the prosaic, literal, material part of our consciousness. Its assertion at the service of personal will power is often egoic and self-referential. This Newtonian consciousness sharpens itself at the expense of the less literal Neptunian quantum subconscious. But is sub-conscious an accurate descriptor of the majority of mind, which lies within like the base of the iceberg? And does this deeper consciousness lie within at all, or is it our connection to the universe itself?
These thoughts are overwhelming, of course. As they should be. They lie beyond the scope of our conditioned consciousness and seem irrelevant to everyday experience. However, the truth of our spiritual being is the core of our everyday life. Suffice to say, there is much, so much, more going on than meets our eyes. There is more going on than can be contained in the perimeters of our conditioned, conventional mind. Conditioned mind knows what it has learned. But what it has learned has come from many sources, not all of them reliable. Conditioned mind has been conditioned, sculpted, or some might say warped, by the interpretation of personal experience as codified by concepts common to society. For instance, our trauma has shaped us and our environment has framed our understanding of that. From this we deduce beliefs which, in turn, create identities. I am a victim of this, or a champion of that. Many of us chafe against these delineators even as we cultivate their limitations. Like birds that once freed from their cages fly around for a moment only to land back on the cage. We are more comfortable in limitation than we are in freedom, especially when freedom is an expansive unknown.
The idea of what’s “in here” may be as infinite as what’s “out there”. Yet we seem attached to doing what we have done, again and again, limited to knowing what we have been told. Is it possible that we might contact the greater space of creation which seems to lie both within and without us (Thanks, George) for inspiration and guidance?The problem is trusting our unknowing. Religious people refer to faith as a way of trust. But many religions create solid narratives that try to conceptualize non-concept. But, if we don’t rely on narratives then can we just rest in the emptiness of unanswered questions? This is not just academic rhetoric. So much of life lies outside the grasp of conceptual understanding and yet it is happening all around us. And why can’t understand? Perhaps because we are too busy thinking and speaking instead of listening. My mother, who was a practicing Christian, used to remark that people were always yelling at God, or talking at God. They were demanding, pleading, cajoling, and bargaining. But were they ever listening? From some point of view, listening requires silence.
In the path of meditation, we learn to settle the prosaic mind, quiet the concepts, and let the questions remain unanswered. Unanswered questions remain open. As soon as we know the answer – or think we do – we close the book. Questions are essential, but answers are limited. Meditation affords us the stability to wander into unknowing and settle there in silence, so we might access the vastness of the spiritual universe. And here in the midst of this expanse, we might find a place that lies silent and unperturbed by the waves of mental consciousness. When we learn to rest in this silence, we are able to perk up and listen to the space. If we guard that space carefully, leaving it undisturbed (thanks, Sarah), unmanipulated and unexplained, we can connect to the dynamic open space of the universe. In this way, touch the silence in our being, and reclaim our seat as children of the universe, connected to the mind of all.
We are so much more than we know.