There’s one truth, and it is silence. All truths come from, exist as and return to silence. Silence is behind every holy thought, word and act. All holiness is silent.

This is what all sages know and say: Enter silence and we leave behind the rubble of self and no-self, time and death. Enter silence and we see the world that God created; that we are the created. God, the world and being are one. Life is suddenly real—beautiful and perfect in each curve and angle.

This awakening into truth happens as we surrender everything to silence. We must give away our inventory of unreleased thoughts and cherished beliefs, undigested experiences and dogma, disappointments, fears, worries, resentments and sorrows; even personal desires and joys.

If it’s difficult to do: throw it away, fling it off, kick it out. Just don’t let it stay. We must empty our storehouses of past, present and future, and then burn them down so that nothing can ever accumulate again.

Now give more. Let go of ego, will and humility, ignorance and knowledge, the body and its faculties. Surrender what is and is not yourself. Give away meaning, purpose and happiness, even precious life itself. Nothing can remain.

Then, by letting everything go the second it occurs, we return to clarity, freedom and eternal openness. We live in silence. For it is in silence that God is working, playing and loving. In silence, we become perfectly one with that divine working, playing and loving.

When absolutely all has been given up and only emptiness remains, even then, take one more step towards silence. Give away the emptiness. Hold back nothing. Even the giver is given away.

Celebrate the dawn of the winter solstice on December 21 in nature and in silence.

In silence, we transform and are reborn. We become real with more joy, pleasure, peace and contentment than we ever hoped for. Our highest purpose is fulfilled, our greatest longing is realized in ways we know not.

In becoming nothing, we become everything. We need nothing, and thus have everything. With nothing to protect, only peace remains. It cannot be controlled or fathomed, only lived. We love this about the holy ones, the sages. No one knows how it happens, only that it does.

In silence, we are moved by what moves all else without knowing how, why or when. This is freedom, love and truth.

Robert Rabbin is a self-awareness teacher and author. Connect at RobertRabbin.com.