The Meaning of Silence: Quakers Faith and Practice

The Religious Society of Friends, better known as “Quakers,” conduct their meetings for worship in silence. Although worshipers may rise during the meeting to share a spiritual insight they are admonished to do so only if they can improve upon the silence.  Quaker’s have always known and prated what the neuro-scientist, Jill Bolte-Taylor wrote about, after she had suffered a stroke that incapacitated her left hemisphere:

My right mind is open to the eternal flow whereby I exist at one with the universe.  It is the seat of my divine mind, the knower, the wise woman, and the observer.  It is my intuition and my higher consciousness.  My right mind is ever present and gets lost in time.

And it is from this understanding of how each of us has a source of divine Light within us that has led Friends to witness their faith in the world through the practice of simple living, non-violence and the humane treatment of all beings who live on the planet earth.