"As the world moves so rapidly into ever denser folds of communication its need for silence grows proportionally. The Internet has exploded into modern consciousness with exciting vistas of communication and conversation opening up across cultures and time-zones. The terrible risk is that it will produce nothing but more noise in the head; and if we hear only noise we turn off and cease to communicate altogether.
"The 'law of white spaces' is an important piece of universal legislation that we ignore at our personal and collective peril. The law states that it is the white space between the words on a page that make it readable. Or the silence between two musical notes. Or the rest between periods of action. Without periods of silence and non-action our words and our deeds jumble up into meaningless spirals of stress. We need a web of silence spread around the world just as extensively as the web of technology.
"In fact, as the developing networks of spiritual groups around the world testify, such a web of silence already exists. This web of silence will become ever more personal, deeply personal and must therefore form itself into community. As a community it will be an active working symbol of the underlying unity of humanity in a world of diverse faiths and cultures. Meditation, the universal human spiritual tradition, is both the way of silence and the way of deep community, communion with ourselves and others, with the terrestrial environment, with the universe and with God."