Prayer Is About Silence

When we begin to pray we experience prayer as a struggle. Because of our love and intense desire to be in communion with God we cry out to Him. This is a cry that comes from the depth of our heart. But when we find that our cry is not being heard what do we do?


Elder Aimilianos says the following:

It has to be transformed, reversed—into silence within an atmosphere of silence. God is the God of those who live in tranquility and silence.

This may seem contradictory. First we cry our from our depths with intense desire but then we change our direction to silence. But this is not a contradiction. It is a transformation. We must transform from trying to speak, to intent listening. This requires silence. It’s a sequence of successive steps.

The Elder says,

Everybody’s got to stop, including you, if you want to hear the other person. And if they are talking, the first thing you’ll say is “Shh!” and then you’ll speak, to make yourself heard. It’s this experience and this reality that we’ll go through when our soul has recourse to God, too.

What he is talking about is a progression in our prayer. We are making a monvement toward God. This happens in silence.

He says,

When prayer is about to leave from inside us, to become, truly, a movement towards God, then we will see a “silence within silence”. Absolute silence, in other words.

This means we have to learn to learn how to pray in silence while surrounded with noise. It helps to find a quiet place to pray as Jesus instructed His followers. He used to go away from the crowd to pray where it was quiet. This why it is best to pray at night or early in the morning when your surrounding are quieter.

If we are following our breath while saying the Jesus prayer there is a cycle of crying out and silence. When we breath we inhale and then exhale. There is a midway point where we make a transition, an interval between these two movements. It is in the interval that we can find silence and listen for God.

Elder Aimilianos says,

I have to learn to keep this interval, this tuning, this setting of the ear, and then I’ll see that this is a fundamental thing in prayer, not the sound of my own voice... I have to learn to be silent, I have to learn to wait, to await the voice of God.

Resource: The Authentic Seal, pp 205-206
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