The Language of God Is Silence

I had a great question from Marianne in Boston about our last two newsletters on the Jesus Prayer.  She made a comment that all language seems to divide us, so how could the Jesus Prayer, which relies on words, bring us closer to God?  For that matter, how could any meditation that uses words and language allow us to cross the apparent abyss that seems to separate us from the Divine?  This is a very profound question, Marianne, and thank you for raising it.

We live in a world of apparent duality, and this duality is inherent in our use of language.  In fact, duality appears to be the way we conceptualize most, if not all, of our experiences.  Just think about it for a moment:  there is up, and its opposite down.  There is left, and its opposite right.  Almost all of our experiences can be formulated in this dualistic manner.  Indeed, this is how most of us conceptualize our relationship with the Divine.  “I” am over here, and the Divine is somewhere else.  This kind of understanding leaves us forever searching, and the object of our search always appears to be just out of reach.  Hence, our constant feelings of restlessness – we are always searching and nothing seems to fill us for very long.  Worse, our restlessness covers over our deep feelings of emptiness.

We commonly understand that language is a way of connecting with others.  In fact, that’s how we're using language right now, as a way of connecting.  There is, however, another and opposite aspect to language.  Language also divides.  It operates by invisibly separating everything we experience into subjects and objects. 

Let’s use a simple example, one that describes what’s happening between us right now.  I am over here, and you, my reader, are somewhere else.  On the face of it, this appears to be a simple statement of fact: “I” am over here and “you” are over there.  While this sentence captures part of our relationship, it misses the most important part.  It misses the fact that we are somehow deeply connected.  It misses the fact that we are both searching for something deeper in our lives.  It misses the deep emptiness within each of us that drives our search.  It overlooks the fact that we are deeply connected with one another and with the Divine.

So, what’s more important?  The fact that we are in different places, or the deep interconnectedness that hides beneath the surface?

And this takes us directly into the heart of the problem – that our relationship with the Divine and with each other has no words that can adequately describe it.  Whatever these relationships are, they are beyond the power of language to describe.  You see, when you use words, you must employ a distinction between the subject and the object.  That’s simply how language works; it channels our thinking into divisions, and thus it keeps us from perceiving the underlying unity.  This simple fact has a profound implication for our search.  Whenever you employ the subject/object distinction, you can only perceive the separateness, not the unity underlying the separateness.

The great Christian mystic, Thomas Merton, stated that “The language of God is silence – all else is a poor translation.”  So how can our words take us into the heart of God?

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The Jesus Prayer uses words.  We call upon our Lord Jesus for mercy, for all of us, to one extent or another, are lost in this wilderness that we call the world.  We find ourselves cut off from God, and estranged from each other, and even from our own deepest being.  Worse, the way to overcome these profound separations is not clear.

We are trapped by our dualistic concepts in a dualistic world.  It is as if we have hallucinated a world that, by the nature of the concepts we use, prevents us from discerning the underlying unitive reality in which we live.  Not only that, our dualistic thinking profoundly inhibits us from seeing the world and ourselves as we actually are.  (I will explore this topic of the nature of reality at length next week.  For now, I ask that you trust me on this point.)

So, the question that confronts us, stated as clearly as possible, is how can we use our dualistic tools to escape this gigantic mousetrap that we and our forebearers have created?

The Jesus Prayer is a tool that was developed in the very early centuries of the Christian era.  Over the last 2,000 years, it has been used by a wide variety of people from very different cultures, speaking very different languages, but having in common the dualistic perceptions that bedevil us today.  This tool has been used because it has been found effective in generation after generation.  It is a tool that begins within the common dualistic framework: we are here, and Jesus is somewhere else, a Being from whom we are seeking assistance.

When we employ the Jesus Prayer, we are enjoined to repeat the words of the prayer over and over again.  The goal of this prayer is to “pray without ceasing,” as Paul described in his letter to the Thessalonians.  When I first heard of the Jesus prayer, I thought this constant repetition was simply stupid.  “Why say the same thing over and over again?  If God didn’t hear me the first time, what makes me think he’ll hear me on the hundred and first time?”

At this early stage in my spiritual life, I was missing quite a few things about this extraordinary tool.  I missed the fact that repetition bores me.  My discursive mind was always looking for new and more exciting things to focus on, and the Jesus Prayer simply bored me to tears.  So, what happens when my constantly seeking intellect gets bored like this?  Ultimately, it gives up and shuts up!

That’s right, when I keep repeating the words of the prayer and force myself to focus here and here alone, my discursive intellect stops searching for new and more exciting things to focus on.  If I stay with it long enough, it gives up.  When it stops its striving, it stills and moves into silence.  And this is the point of constantly repeating the words.  We are not really exhorting God, because he heard our petition the first time.  We are simply boring ourselves into silence.

So ask yourselves, why would the language of God be silence?  Since our words divide, it is only in silence that we can enter into union with the Divine.  It is only in the stillness that we are open to the deeper unitive states – the union that takes us out of our separateness and isolation, the union for which we all search.

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“But wait, there’s more!”  As our self-talk grows silent, we come into an awareness of a deeper energy buried deep within our hearts.  It is here, in the depths of each heart, that the mystics from all the great religions have said that we meet God.  As long as our intellects blather on, our dualistic concepts force us into a separation from that great Being which underlies all our apparent divisions.  When the self-talk stills, however, we then begin to perceive that underlying unity.  In this silence, the language of God becomes apparent.

Remember the first component of the Jesus Prayer, to open ourselves to the Presence of God?  When we begin using this prayer, this opening is, for most of us, a kind of pro forma event.  We go through the motions at this point, but we don’t really understand what it means to be open to the Divine.  As our discursive intellect quiets, as our divisive self-talk disappears, we then begin to experience what it feels like to be in God’s holy Presence.  As long as we blather on, the inherent divisiveness of using subjects and objects keeps us from the actual experience of God.  Literally, our languaging is keeping us from our heart's desire!

You may not believe me when I talk about the importance of this holy silence to our spiritual development.  Our discursive intellect would have us believe that “real knowledge” can only be obtained by using words.  This is hogwash, and your own experience proves it.  

Think back to that magnificent sunset you saw, or the tenderness of a father holding his newborn baby.  Think back to the moment you first realized that your partner truly loves you.  In each of these moments, our intellect stops.  There are no words that can adequately describe the experience we have in these moments.  How could that be, if our discursive intellects have the last word?  Clearly, the deepest and most important experiences we have are those we have in silence.  There is a Reality which passes our human understanding.  This is the Reality in which we all live.  We just pretend it ain’t so…

The Jesus Prayer occupies a very special place for those who seek God.  It is a tool that can take us from our ordinary, intellectually-based awareness and move us into stillness and quiet.  In the ensuing silence, we will find ourselves open to God in ways that we cannot imagine from our divided and separated states of being.

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Well, that’s it for this week.  It has been a joy for me to share these words with you, however divisive they may be!  Hopefully you will be able to translate my silly words into silence, and listen for yourself to that still quiet voice in your heart.  Next week, we will explore a topic that will shock and amaze you.  We will take a deep dive into the nature of reality, and I hope to show you that everything you learned in your high school science classes is wrong.

With that teaser, I hope you have a great week.  I encourage you to set aside a regular time to practice the Jesus Prayer, for it can take you into the depths where, with your own eyes, you can see our Lord.

With love,

P.S.  Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class.  If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web.  If you have an interest, please write me at [email protected]. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible:  The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇

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