For sheer adventure, exploring the inner space of the human spirit has to equal the exploration of outer space. Inner space holds a realm of existence not readily apparent when we are in the grip of the strident external world. A powerful launching vehicle for the discovery of the realm within is silence. It is in the vessel of silence that inner transformation can occur.
A saint is a person who practices the keystone human virtue of humility. Humility in the face of wealth and plenty, humility in the face of hatred and violence, humility in the face of strength, humility in the face of your own genius or lack of it, humility in the face of another's humility, humility in the face of love and beauty, humility in the face of pain and death. Saints are driven to humbling themselves before all the splendor and horror of the world because they perceive there to be something divine in it pulsing and alive beneath the hard dead surface of material things -- greater and purer than they are.