Silence in the Desert

The value and beauty of inner silence is a core teaching of Royal Way, and Royal Way Spiritual Center in the high desert of Southern California is a beautiful space to experience and pursue the inner journey to which silence is the key.

Silence Is One of the Three Pillars of Royal Way

Silence is central to the Royal Way teachings and is a beautiful component of the retreats, meditations, and practices that members of the Royal Way community pursue on the path toward higher consciousness. Silence stands with service and ecstasy as one of the three pillars of Royal Way. Michael Gottlieb, founder of Royal Way Spiritual Center, teaches that silence is a direct and sacred path to our inner divinity, to spiritual fulfillment, to the experience of God.

The silence Michael teaches is profound. It isn’t merely an absence of external noise. Silence is the key to experiencing our inner world. It incorporates an absence of all noise.

“All noise,” Michael says, “including your heartbeat, including the vibration of your thoughts, is of the outer world. If you hear any part of that noise, you are still in the outer world. The inner world is absolute silence, ‘the peace that surpasseth understanding.’ In that silence, you grow sacred.”

And when we grow sacred through silence, we are touching the experience of God.

Michael continues, “When you drop your mentalism and go behind the mind, you discover a silence deep within you … that is God. ‘Be silent and know God.’”

Silence Was the Way of Moses

Michael stresses that silence has been practiced and pursued for centuries by spiritual teachers and masters of higher consciousness.

“This is the way of Moses,” Michael writes. “According to the oral traditions, Moses pursued the path of silence for 40 years. That is why when God said to him, ‘Go speak to Pharaoh,’ Moses replied, ‘I am not a man of words. I am on the path of silence.’ This is also the way of the Buddha. This is also the way of the yogi.”

Moses’ 40 years of silence took place in the desert wilderness of Egypt. And though we know that silence is a deep inner state—not necessarily the absence of external noise—we know in Royal Way that the immensity and beauty of the desert is conducive to the experience of silence.

Royal Way’s Desert Setting Is a Place to Experience Silence

Royal Way Spiritual Center, also known as Royal Way Ranch, is a beautiful oasis in the high desert of Southern California, filled with meditative energy and natural beauty.

The breathtaking desert views, serene gardens, abundant orchards, and tranquil mountainscape combine to create a place where one can seek and find inner silence. One can sit on a bench beside a spring-fed stream to meditate, or walk to one of the sacred spiritual sites tucked into the mountainsides above the retreat center. It is a place where you can experience the intimacy of a Zen Garden or the immensity of a vast desert landscape. Every aspect of the Ranch is touched with a tangible spiritual quality, a unique presence that is a beautiful way to go inward—to taste the experience of God.

Michael describes this quality, this presence, that is available to those who seek it: “This presence is not an object outside of you or inside of your skin. God is a presence at the innermost core of your being. It is your own presence. It is not a meeting with somebody else. ‘God is a presence’ means that silent core in your innermost being, that space where nobody else can enter you, that private, absolutely intimate virgin space. Your most interior place is God.”

The mysterious desert energy of Royal Way Spiritual Center propels us toward our inner silence, and that silence brings us closer to the experience of God.

The Benefits of Experiencing Silence

Whether at a group retreat or an individual experience, the kind of silence one experiences at Royal Way Ranch conveys all sorts of benefits. It allows us to know life in a pure state, beyond the chatter of our minds. It enhances creativity, focus, and perhaps above all, it gives us a sense of peace, serenity, and fulfillment.

“In that tranquility,” Michael writes, “in that calmness, you become aware of a luminous quality to existence. Then the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the people are all surrounded with an aura. All radiate light in different forms, in millions and millions of forms. This experience is God. This aliveness is God.

This aliveness is deeply gratifying to pursue. The experience of it is life-changing.

Conclusion

The desert at Royal Way Spiritual Center has a mysterious energy that immediately brings forth our own natural beauty and serenity. Being silent is a direct pathway to God, to our inner divinity.

From the time of Moses to today, the desert has held a mystical quality of silence. Royal Way Spiritual Center offers seekers the opportunity to connect with their inner silence and experience an inner expansion that the surrounding ambience beautifully reflects. The outer beauty and tranquility of the desert enhances the inner journey. It is life-changing.