Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Going Into the Silence
Sit in stillness, become inwardly quiet and peaceful, and listen for the ‘still small voice within’ — then test what comes against reason and reality before acting on it.
Going into the silence in 5 lines: Keep a regular appointment with stillness. Sit, settle, and become peaceful and receptive. Listen for the quiet inner sense — the “still small voice” — without forcing it. Write down what comes, then test it against reason, values, and reality. Act on what stands up, and carry the stillness into daily life.
What it is
This is the core practice of Eileen Caddy (1917-2006), co-founder of the Findhorn community in northeast Scotland: deliberately becoming still, turning the attention inward, and listening for what she called “the still small voice within” — a source of inner direction she also named “the God within.” From 1953, sitting in silence at a sanctuary in Glastonbury, she reported first hearing an inner voice say “Be still and know that I am God,” and she spent the next half-century recording the guidance she received this way and teaching others to find their own.
Opening Doors Within (1986) gathers that guidance into daily readings whose recurring instruction is simply to be still and seek within. Presented faithfully and honestly, the practice has two halves that should not be separated: receiving (settling into quiet and noticing what arises) and discerning (testing what comes before treating it as direction).
Caddy framed the voice as divine; this entry presents the practice neutrally — the stillness and inner listening are real and teachable, while the source and authority of what is “heard” remain the tradition’s interpretation, to be held with discernment.
The Method
Caddy taught this as a daily discipline she called keeping her “appointments with God.” A faithful outline of the practice she modelled and described:
- Make an appointment with stillness. Set aside a regular, protected time and a quiet place. Caddy treated this as a fixed daily meeting, not an occasional mood.
- Be still. Sit quietly, let the body settle, and let surface thoughts, worries, and agendas subside. Her foundational instruction was the simplest one: “Be still.” As she put it, “All you have to do is be still and take time to seek for what is within, and you will surely find it.”
- Become peaceful and receptive. Don’t strain to make anything happen. Let the mind grow quiet and open, waiting in an attitude of trust rather than demand.
- Listen for the still small voice. Attend to what gently arises in the quiet — Caddy described inner wisdom as coming softly, as a gentle resonant knowing, not as a forceful command. Let it form without forcing it.
- Receive without grabbing. Notice impressions, words, or a sense of direction. Hold them lightly; receptivity, not effort, is the operative attitude.
- Write it down. Caddy recorded her guidance; keeping a brief note captures what came and lets you examine it later with a clearer head.
- Discern before acting. This step is essential to an honest practice: weigh what arose against reason, your values, known facts, and the likely consequences for yourself and others. Sit with it again on another day if it concerns anything important.
- Act on what stands up — and carry the stillness out. Where guidance survives reflection, act on it in ordinary life; Caddy’s whole point was inner listening expressed in outer action. (Sourcing note: the quoted phrases — “Be still and know that I am God,” “Be still,” and “All you have to do is be still and take time to seek for what is within, and you will surely find it” — are short, attributed renderings from Caddy’s guidance and the Findhorn tradition; the protocol is a faithful description, not a reproduction of the text.)
Source & Lineage
Eileen Caddy began receiving inner guidance in 1953 and, with her husband Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean, co-founded the Findhorn community in 1962, where her daily guidance shaped many early practical decisions.
Opening Doors Within, compiled by David Earl Platts in 1986, presents 365 daily readings drawn from that guidance. Her lineage runs from Christian contemplative and devotional practice and the spiritual circle around Sheena Govan into the broader New Age inner-listening movement; the phrase “still small voice” is itself biblical (1 Kings 19:12).
The Traditions' versions
Quaker worship — waiting in expectant silence for the “inner light” / promptings, then testing leadings in community. → (contemplative-listening tradition)
- Jean Klein — unconditioned listening — welcoming what arises in choiceless receptivity, listening without a listener.
- Alan Watts — listening meditation — receptive attention that simply receives sound and experience.
- Emerson — listening to the Over-Soul — trusting the intuition that wells up in the receptive mind.
- Kabir — inner listening — attending to the “unstruck” inner sound.
- New Thought “the Silence” — entering inner quiet to contact the indwelling power. → (Julia Seton’s concentration version)
Common refinements
Skipping discernment. Treating every impression as infallible direction is the central risk; what arises is input for reflection, not a verdict.
- Straining to “hear” something. Forcing or demanding a message defeats the receptivity; Caddy’s instruction is to be still and wait, not to interrogate.
- Mistaking wish or fear for guidance. Strong wants and anxieties imitate “the voice.” Notice your stake before trusting the answer.
- No outer follow-through. Caddy meant inner listening to issue in action; guidance left unlived is incomplete.
- Doing it only in crisis. She treated it as a daily appointment; the discipline of regular stillness is what makes the practice reliable.