Out of the Silence: After the Crash

by Eduardo Strauch Urioste

The silence of the mountain instilled in me the possibility of inner silence, and it was in that silencing of my thoughts that I found a lasting peace capable of expanding all the abilities and gifts that humans possess.

That capacity of the mind to embrace infinity, that path toward an authentic spirituality, is one of the most beautiful lessons that my life on the mountain left me with.

You can’t know when fear is truly justified, but in any case, it is always lost energy, useless strain. Yet even so it seems unavoidable in any situation of risk and uncertainty.

Life seemed to be reminding us yet again that we are never completely safe and that risk is an integral part of life itself.

What did I learn about love in the silence of the mountain? That it is the most important thing in life. And that if it is not present in some form, no action, however right it may seem, makes any sense at all.

you should put in effort only where it really matters, in areas that help bring you closer to your fundamental values.

But nature is neither good nor bad, it simply is. So perhaps its only indisputable quality is its magnificence.

At heart, what I’m talking about is nothing more and nothing less than self-knowledge, which is the clearest expression of spirituality. It is good to know who we are, for everything that happens to us happens within us. It is only in silence, and in the tension of that silence, that we can start to look inside. If we look hard and deeply and quietly enough, the sublime moment arrives, the explosion of gratitude for life. This is what I have come to understand: although nothing is certain, anything is possible. Something beyond us protects us, and it is found in solitude . . . in observation . . . and in silence.