The discipline of silence was leading me not only to a keener attention to language but to an improved capacity for hearing. On silent Mondays, I began to listen differently—to myself, to others, and to the world around me. It was a listening I would call both active and without an agenda...I began to observe that when there was no expectation for me to respond, acknowledge, analyze...I listened differently. My ego relaxed... In silence I was hearing others more keenly and witnessing my own thoughts, too, and seeing how they served to separate or to connect me. I was learning not to turn away from the parts of myself that were difficult.
He was still and gazed deeply into the infinite pool that bears stars into being. Above him was a tiny smudge of light that was the closest galaxy. It was spinning, spinning, but so far away that one could look for a whole lifetime and not see it alter. The galaxies out there whirled into each other like discs, blinding into space without colliding--passing through each other at thousands of miles per second, yet they did not appear to move.
Suddenly he understood: Time is an illusion of the mind. Only love remains.