Going into the Silence

From Lessons in Truth, Lesson 9 (“Finding the Secret Place”):

1. Set a daily season of stillness. Cady prescribes regular, daily times of withdrawal: “have seasons of doing this daily.” Sit where you will not be disturbed and lay off all care.
2. Begin by speaking to the Father first — do not start with an empty mind. This is her key sequencing instruction: “ Begin your silence by lifting up your heart in prayer to the Father of your being.“ Use a short, simple, present-tense statement such as “Thy will is being done in me now” or “It is being done; Thou art working in me.” Speaking first centres the mind on the Eternal before you fall silent.
3. Relax body and mind — active passivity, not rigidity. “While waiting upon God we should as much as possible relax ourselves both mentally and physically.” Be “still, absolutely still. Relax every part of your being, and believe that it is being done.” Hold “a relaxed passivity and yet an active taking it by faith.” She warns: “ the moment you get into a rigid mental attitude you shut off all inflow.”
4. Do NOT try to make the mind a vacuum. Cady’s distinctive correction: “ Nature abhors a vacuum, and if you make your mind a vacuum, the thought images of others which fill the atmosphere about you will rush in.” So you do not blank the mind — you fill it gently with the aspiration toward God.
5. When the mind wanders, return with the anchor phrase. “If you find your mind wandering bring it right back by saying again: ‘It is being done. Thou art working in me.’“ The short phrase is the rope you climb back on; this is the entire mechanics of dealing with distraction.
6. Then shift from speaking to listening. Having centred and stilled, “ be still, and listen to that which the Father will say to you through the Intuitional part of your being.” The posture is “listening for the Father’s voice and expecting a manifestation of the Father to your consciousness.”
7. Become receptive — “as a little child.” “Become as a little child,” abandoning yourself: “When you have learned how to perfectly abandon yourself to Infinite Spirit and have seasons of doing this daily, you will be surprised at the marvelous change which will be wrought in you.”
8. Don’t make it bondage; balance inflow and outgo. If the practice turns into strain, “ get up and go about some external work for a time.” She insists on “a perfect equilibrium between the inflowing and the outgiving” — silence is balanced by service, not endless sitting.
9. Extend it into the day. With practice the silence becomes portable: “You will soon get so that you can go into the silence. at a moment’s notice, at any time, in any place“ — abiding in the secret place rather than merely visiting it. (Sourcing note: quoted phrases are from Cady’s Lessons in Truth, Lesson 9; the numbered ordering is an attributed paraphrase of her instructions.)

H. Emilie Cady (1848–1941) wrote the Lessons in Truth articles for Unity’s Thought magazine in the 1890s; collected in 1903, the twelve lessons remain Unity’s core text.

The silence teaching is Lesson 9, “Finding the Secret Place.” Cady learned New Thought metaphysics from Emma Curtis Hopkins, and the practice of “going into the silence” was a hallmark of early Unity under Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, who built it into a daily devotional discipline.

Cady’s distinctive refinement is psychological: her explicit instruction not to blank the mind, and the use of a verbal anchor to recover from wandering.

Unity “Silence” / Fillmore stillness — the same practice systematised into daily devotion; Cady is its primary lay teacher.

• Christian contemplative prayer / “the secret place” — wordless waiting on God; Cady frames hers in this scriptural language (Psalm 91, “be still and know,” Matthew 6:6).
• Centering Prayer (Keating) — uses a sacred word to return when the mind wanders, structurally near-identical to Cady’s anchor phrase.
• Mantra/japa & focused-attention meditation — a short repeated phrase as the object of attention.
• Quaker waiting worship — silent, expectant listening for inner leading.
• Relaxation response (Benson) — relax the body, repeat a word, passively dismiss intruding thoughts: a near-exact secular parallel.

Trying to blank the mind. Cady’s explicit warning — a vacuum invites intrusive thought. Fill it gently with the aspiration phrase instead.

• Rigidity and strain. “A rigid mental attitude shuts off all inflow.” If you are clenching for results, you’ve lost the active passivity; loosen.
• Skipping the opening prayer. Diving straight into silence leaves the mind to drift into “vain imaginations”; speak the centering phrase first.
• Making it bondage. If it turns heavy, get up and do external work — she builds the off-ramp into the method.
• Sitting without serving. Cady insists on equilibrium between inflow and outgo; silence is balanced by action, not hoarded.
• Treating intuitions as infallible. Guidance received in the silence still needs ordinary discernment; never use “the silence told me” to justify harm.