The Prayer of Quiet
Teresa of Avila - The Prayer of Quiet
November 16 , 2023
The Prayer of Quiet……..
Transcript
It is absurd to think that we can enter Heaven without first entering our own souls, without getting to know ourselves.
Remember how important it is for you to have understood this truth, that the Lord is within us and that we should be there with Him.
The whole mischief comes from our not really grasping the fact that God is near us and imagining He is far away, so far that we shall have to go to a distant heaven in order to find God.
How is it Lord that we do not look at thy face when it is so near us?
Let our thoughts always be fixed upon what endures and not trouble ourselves with earthly things which do not endure even for a lifetime.
Think and meditate upon what is real and upon what is not.
Pray without ceasing.
All our trouble comes to us from not having our eyes fixed upon the Divine.
When one of you sisters finds herself in this sublime state of prayer and the understanding or to put it more clearly thought wanders off after the most ridiculous things in the world she should laugh at it and treat it as the silly thing it is and remain in her state of quiet
For thoughts will come and go but the will, the intention is mistress and all powerful and will recall them without you're having to trouble it, but if you try to drag the understanding back by force you lose your power over it.
In the prayer of quiet the Lord begins to give us His Kingdom on earth so that we may truly praise Him and hallow his name.
This is a supernatural state and however hard we try we cannot reach it for ourselves for it is a state in which the soul enters into peace or rather in which the Lord gives it peace through his presence
In this state all the faculties are stilled and have no wish to move, for any movement they may make appears to hinder the soul from loving God.
During the prayer of quiet what the soul has to do in the time of this quiet is no more than to be gentle and make no noise.
Let the will quietly and prudently understand that one does not deal successfully with God by any efforts of one's own.
Let her pay no heed to understanding or reasoning which is a bore.
It avails her more to let it alone and not to run after it.
The only reason that has to be held here is to understand clearly that there is no reason why God should do so great a favour, except his goodness alone.
By the goodness of God all may reach this point
In these times of quiet then let the soul repose in her rest.
Let learning be put to one side.
In such spiritual activity as this the person who does most is the one who thinks least and desires to do least.
The soul must just leave itself in the hands of God.
To know nothing is everything.
Some people attempted to imagine that they can prolong the prayer of quiet and they may even try not to breath, this is ridiculous we can no more control this prayer then we can make the day break or stop night from falling.
It is Supernatural and something we cannot acquire.
We can neither diminish nor add to it, but being most unworthy and undeserving of it can only receive it with thanksgiving.
The will simply loves, and no effort needs to be made by reason or understanding.
Not so much an absence of external noise or sound, but more an inner stillness, an inner detachment, an inner negation of the back and forth, the tos and fros of life, as we navigate our way through this forest of chaos.
A silent sense of intent.
An intuitive directedness toward the centre.
Seek without grasping.
Let the Christ, Tao, Divine Universal Light do the work in you.
Not my will, but thy will be done.
Be still, and know that I am God.
Psalm 46:10
What is your life about, anyway?
Nothing but a struggle to be someone,
Nothing but a running from your own silence.
Rumi