Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
The Receptive Silence
To enter, with a peaceful mind and a heart of love, the quiet of one’s own interior self and rest open to the felt inflow of the Infinite Life.
First make the mind peaceful and the heart loving. Then go into the quiet of your interior self and hold, feeling it: “I am one with the Infinite Life; I open fully to its inflow.” Rest there, calm and expectant, until a warming quiet is felt. Believe it is working, and keep returning to that same attitude.
What it is
Trine’s contemplative posture: going “into the quiet of your own interior self” — with a mind at peace and a heart going out in love — and resting there, open, while the Infinite Life is felt to flow in. Where his oneness-realization is the recognition (that you and the Life are one), the receptive silence is the stillness in which that inflow is received and felt in the body as “a quickening and a warming glow.” He calls it, interchangeably, “this meditation, realization, treatment, or whatever term it may seem best to use.” Critically, Trine’s silence is calm and expectant, never anxious or forcing: “It must. be a calm, quiet, and expectant intensity, rather than an intensity that is fearing, disturbed, and non-expectant.”
The Method
Faithful to Trine (In Tune with the Infinite, ch. IV “Fullness of Life — Bodily Health and Vigor”):
- Compose the mind and heart first. Trine’s pre-condition: “With a mind at peace, and with a heart going out in love to all, go into the quiet of your own interior self.” Settle into peace and goodwill before you go in; agitation and ill-will block the channel.
- Go into the interior quiet. Withdraw attention from the outer world and turn inward to the still center. This is the silence — not a blank, but a receptive, restful inwardness.
- Hold the realizing thought. While quiet, hold (and feel) the conviction Trine gives almost verbatim: “I am one with the Infinite Spirit of Life, the life of my life. I now open my body. fully to the inflowing tide of this Infinite Life.”
- Let it be felt, expectantly. Stay until the inflow is sensed — “Realize this so fully that you begin to feel a quickening and a warming glow.” Hold the calm, expectant attitude; do not strain, doubt, or check the clock.
- Believe and continue. “Believe the healing process is going on. Believe it, and hold continually to it.” Then carry the openness on: practise “at stated times, as often as he may choose, and then continually hold himself in the same attitude of mind.” *(Sourcing note: bracketed/quoted phrases are Trine’s own words; the steps reorder his prose into a usable sequence without adding content.)*
Source & Lineage
The “Silence” is the shared inner room of New Thought (Quimby, Evans, Hopkins, Fillmore, Militz, Seton). Trine’s contribution is its warm, love-conditioned, expectant form, fused with his oneness-realization. Contrast (don’t duplicate):
- Evans’s interior receptivity is the Swedenborgian influx ancestor — fourfold “tranquil desire, passive receptivity.”; Trine’s is its popular descendant.
- Seton’s “Going into the Silence” front-loads breath and concentration as the on-ramp; Trine front-loads peace + love + the realizing thought instead of breathwork.
- Fillmore’s silence pairs the silence with denials/affirmations; Trine leans on realization, not formula.
- Quaker/Centering-prayer silence waits in apophatic emptiness; Trine’s silence is cataphatic and expectant — it actively holds and feels a positive inflow.
Common refinements
Anxious, forcing “intensity.” Trine explicitly rules this out — the attitude must be calm, expectant, unhurried. Straining defeats it.
- Skipping the peace-and-love setup. For Trine the “heart going out in love to all” is not decoration; entering agitated or resentful closes the channel.
- Demanding a felt glow on schedule. Expectation, yes; impatience, no. Treat the sensation as a welcome by-product, not a target to grab.
- One-and-done. Trine’s gains come from “continually holding the same attitude of mind,” not a single sitting.