Robert Sardello - Silence

This book is a breakthrough. In Silence Robert Sardello modestly, elegantlyand magisteriallybrings thirty years of work in phenomenological, soul-based spiritual psychology to a new level. What was implicit before becomes explicit: spiritual psychology is not just another theory; it is a path to a new reality. Walking itnot just reading, but doingreaders will enter a new creation where all things are made new. Through nine short chapterseach a meditative journey in itselfSardello phenomenologically unveils silence to be the ground of the world. Each chapter gives practices whereby we can begin to enter into and engage the being of silence ever more deeply and widely, and begin to discover the healing and revelatory wholeness in which we live, move, and exist. This work of the heart is for those who seek the wisdom of the heart for the sake of the heart of the world. Read it and do it!

Christopher Bamford
author of The Voice of the Eagle: The Heart of Celtic Christianity and An Endless Trace: The Passionate Pursuit of Wisdom in the West

Reading Sardellos Love and the World was an exciting, heady experience. His book verified and strengthened all I had experienced in eight decades, recharged my faith in life, and brought about a revision of a manuscript I had been immersed in for several years. Sardellos work Silence has proved, and is proving to be, quite the opposite. It stopped my world. There was nothing in the work that I could use, extract, or purloin for my purposes. Silence stripped me to an embarrassed nakedness that was uncomfortable. From the very beginning of the book, a sharp twinge of an anguished longing long buried within me surfaced, slowed my reading to a snails pace, and forced me to abandon my usual goal-orientation through which I look at any new writing. The book opens a door within that catches me unaware and anew every time I start reading. I feel quite inadequate to make any statement other than recognizing that this book and its Silence is the key. The key to what, however, I dont know. The work sets a momentum into order every time I pick it up, one which asks only that I stay open to that momentum and drop my ingrained pattern of looking to see where it might lead or whats in it for me? I havent encountered this kind of book before, and I dont know whats in it for me, only that I have a longing to stay open to it. Such a testimonial may be of small use for drawing people to the bookbut even purpose of such a noble nature as that seems dishonest in the light of the book itself, and words on its behalf break down. I daresay the work will speak for itself. I cant speak for it except to pray it finds a very wide audience and works its magic thereon.

Joseph Chilton Pearce
author of The Biology of Transcendence:
A Blueprint of the Human Spirit;
Magical Child; and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg:
New Constructs of Mind and Reality

R obert Sardello, Ph.D., is co-founder with Cheryl Sanders-Sardello, Ph.D., of the School of Spiritual Psychology, which began in 1992. He is author of Facing the World with Soul, Love and the Soul (re-issued as Love and the World), Freeing the Soul from Fear, and The Power of Soul: Living the Twelve Virtues. At the University of Dallas, he served as chairman of the Department of Psychology, head of the Institute of Philosophic Studies, and graduate dean. He is also co-founder and faculty member of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, author of more than 200 articles in scholarly journals and cultural publications, and was on the faculty of the Chalice of Repose Project in Missoula, Montana.

Having developed spiritual psychology based in archetypal psychology, phenomenology, and the Spiritual Science of Rudolf Steiner from over thirty-five years of research in this discipline, as well as holding positions in two universities, he is now an independent teacher and scholar teaching all over the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as in the Czech Republic, the Philippines, and Australia. He is a consultant to many educational and cultural institutions, as well as dissertation adviser at numerous academic institutions.

Also by Robert Sardello

Facing the World with Soul

The Power of the Soul:
Living the Twelve Virtues

Freeing the Soul From Fear

Love and the World: A Guide
to Conscious Soul Practice

Love and the Soul

Copyright 2006, 2008 by Robert Sardello. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by G OLDENSTONE P RESS , Heaven & Earth Publishing and North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712

Cover photograph and cover design by Susan Quasha

Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, call 800-733-3000 or visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sardello, Robert J., 1942
Silence : the mystery of wholeness / Robert Sardello.
p. cm.
Summary: Presents ways to achieve self-awareness and access the healing qualities of silence from withinProvided by North Atlantic Books.
eISBN: 978-1-58394-415-8
1. Silence. 2. Conduct of life. 3. SilenceReligious aspects. 4. Spiritual life. I. Title.
BJ1499.S5S37 2008
248.34dc22

2008028789

v3.1

For Rose and Albert Sardello,
who live in Silence

G OLDENSTONE P RESS seeks to make original spiritual thought available as a force of individual, cultural, and world revitalization. The press is an integral dimension of the work of the School of Spiritual Psychology. The mission of the School includes restoring the book as a way of inner transformation and awakening to spirit. We recognize that secondary thought and the reduction of books to sources of information and entertainment as the dominant meaning of reading places in jeopardy the unique character of writing as a vessel of the human spirit. We feel that the continuing emphasis of such a narrowing of what books are intended to be needs to be balanced by writing, editing, and publishing that emphasizes the act of reading as entering into a magical, even miraculous spiritual realm that stimulates the imagination and makes possible discerning reality from illusion in the world. The editorial board of Goldenstone Press is committed to fostering authors with the capacity of creative spiritual imagination who write in forms that bring readers into deep engagement with an inner transformative process rather than being spectators to someones speculations. A complete catalogue of all our books may be found at