This video has extracts from the book The Path of Silence by Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov.
We all need silence. We particularly need the silence of nature, for it is in nature that we have our roots. Sometimes, when you are alone in a forest or up in the mountains, you feel as though you were being carried back into a distant past…into an era in which human beings were in communion with the forces and the spirits of nature. And if the call of a bird or the sound of a waterfall is heard, it is as though these very sounds were part of the silence: rather than destroying it, they emphasize and contribute to it…. Quite often, we are not even conscious of silence; we don’t notice it. It takes the sound of a twig snapping, a bird singing or a pebble falling to suddenly awaken us to an acute perception of the silence around us. Even the subdued roaring of the waves cannot destroy the profound silence of the oceans.
How many travellers speak with wonder of experiences they have had in the desert or on a mountain summit! Faced with the immensity, imbued with the all-pervading silence, they had a revelation, they say, of a time and space different from human time and space. They sensed a presence which is beyond all explanation, but which they recognised without question as something real, as the only reality. Do we really need exceptional conditions to live such an experience? The truth is that this presence sensed in the midst of silence can be experienced everywhere, wherever we may be. We must silence the discordant voices of our instincts and passions, of our dark and chaotic thoughts and feelings. The silence which then pervades us will be strong enough to project us into another time, another space, where the divine knowledge inscribed in our being since time immemorial is gradually revealed to our consciousness.
Silence, peace and harmony are all expressions of the same reality. Do not think that silence is empty and mute, no, silence is alive and vibrant, it speaks and sings. One day, thanks to contemplation, prayer and meditation, you will manage to hear the voice of silence. Once all the chaotic forces within you have finally subsided, silence will draw closer, it will spread all around you and enfold you in its marvellous mantle.
Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov