One of the most powerful forces in the universe available to human beings is also one of the least understood and appreciated. This powerful force is silence. The secret strength found in silence is as practical in daily life as is its true character life-changing. You can actually possess, and reap the benefits from, a quiet mind.

When you want to directly enjoy the sunshine, you must go outdoors. You understand you have to take yourself physically to a place where the warming rays of the sun can fall upon you without interference. Likewise, when you want to know the powers that circulate through a quiet mind, you must take yourself to that place where this silent strength can make itself known to you. To go quiet, you must go within.

In those days now past, when Christ told his disciples to seek the Kingdom of Heaven within, his words of wisdom were not the religion they’ve become today. They were alive with secret, but ever-so-practical, instructions on how a person could discover and realize a secret part of him or herself that was not a part of what was then — and of what still remains — a conflict-torn and weary world.

This master instruction still holds true. If we want to know that stillness, that silent strength, a peace that passes all understanding, we must go within. We must go quiet. Now, here’s how.

A good wildlife naturalist casually observes the diverse ways of birds or bunnies without interfering. In order to study and learn, he or she just watches. And that’s what you must learn to do as you journey within. You’re to be an impartial witness to the life of your own thoughts and feelings. Let them fly and hop around within you without the slightest concern for their direction or character. Neither resist nor let yourself be drawn into any of their attention-stealing antics.

Again, all you want to do is watch. Detached self-observation is your aim. Each time you realize that you’re no longer watching, but rather that you’ve been captured by a thought or feeling and are being carried along by it, just quietly withdraw yourself from that temporary psychic wave. Come back to the awareness of yourself in the present moment.

This part of your practice is the heart and soul of going — and knowing — quiet. You must experience it for yourself. Let go, give up, go within, and watch. And over and over again, bring your awareness of yourself back into the awareness of the present moment.

Pay no attention to what your own thoughts and feelings are trying to tell you. Learn to watch and drop these dark inner voices. They don’t want you to succeed and there’s a good reason why: They can’t dwell in that silent world you wish to enter and that wishes to enter you.

So persist! You will prevail. For even as you struggle to stay aware of yourself in the present moment, that moment itself changes. And as it does, so do you.