The strange result of going deeper and deeper into the Real is that silence falls more and more as a curtain over his private experience and private thought. The strong urgency of communication which the missionary and the reformer feel, the strong need of expression which the artist and the writer have, trouble him no longer. The inner voice is tight-lipped, or speaks to him alone. He begins to see how much apostolic utterance is merely the overflow of personal emotion, how much artistic achievement is motivated by personal ambition, how much spiritual service is simply another phase of the ego adoring and serving itself. Thomas Aquinas came to such an insight late in life and he, the author of so many books dedicated to the glory of God, could never again write another line. Those who stand on the outside may consider such a severe restraint put upon oneself to be harsh and fanatical, perhaps even antisocial. But it is safe to say that all these critics have never tracked the ego to its secret lair, never had all movement of their individual will stopped by the divine Stillness.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You > Chapter 4 : Seek the Deeper Stillness > # 193
