The Life of Stillness
The Life of Stillness
One of the spiritual writers said:
“When God cast me like a pebble into the lake of life, it created bubbles on its surface and countless circles. But once I reached the bottom, I became calm”…
There are many who are busy creating bubbles on the surface of life and countless circles.
They do not love quietness or stillness. They consider it death, and they find their life in noise, clamor, and disturbance. Loud sounds make them feel alive, because they live by their senses more than they live by their inner feelings.
Those who love stillness and quiet the most are the monastic fathers, especially the hermits among them, and even more so the anchorites…
They see that stillness is suitable for spiritual work, for solitude with God, for quiet contemplation, for self-discovery, and for touching the truth in its depths…
These realized that through the quietness of the body, they could acquire the quietness of the soul. So they lived in quiet places, in the depths of the wilderness, بعيدًا عن شغب الحواس. They were alone with God there. They let the ship of their life pass calmly in the sea of life, creating neither bubbles nor circles, nor drawing people’s attention to what they do or the opinions they express. Rather, they longed for the world to forget them so they might find rest.
They saw that the true life of stillness must include the stillness of the senses, the stillness of thought, and the stillness of the heart.
As for the stillness of the senses, it is their distance from frivolity in what does not benefit them, for they store in the mind what they gather from sights, sounds, news, and the like. It is difficult for thought to become calm if the senses are restless.
As for the stillness of thought, it does not mean that the mind stops thinking, but that thought becomes calm in one divine path, instead of being scattered in many directions.
And the stillness of the heart is its freedom from the whirlpool of desires and emotions, and its settling in the depths of love, humility, and the rest of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
The heart cannot become calm if it is far from love and humility; rather, it will continue to create bubbles and countless circles on the surface of life, thinking that these bubbles and circles are great works that satisfy its love of movement and its love of appearance…
Our holy fathers lived in quietness, therefore they were deep. The world did not disturb them, nor did they disturb it…
And what confirmed their stillness was their distance from desires and passions and the fears surrounding them: the fear of a desire not being fulfilled, or the fear of losing it after attaining it.
Therefore Saint Augustine said:
“I sat on the summit of the world when I felt within myself that I desired nothing and feared nothing”…
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