Thou sweet Well for all who thirsteth in the desert! It is closed to the one who speaks, but it is open to all who are silent. When the one who is silent comes, lo, that one finds the Well.
~ Egyptian - 13th century B.C.
In order to listen to God's silence we must escape the din of distractions that normally deafen us to it. Being deafened to the silence within as well as the silence without is corrosive to God-hearing. To be silent is to so empty oneself of the din of transitory distractions that one becomes fully receptive to the silence that always and everywhere underlies them. Silence is that state of spiritual sensitivity in which seekers make themselves available to the silence of God's voice.