And so, one day we finally succeed in establishing silence within ourselves. But it is too early to proclaim victory, for we still find ourselves in the presence of that inexhaustible source that I spoke of earlier. We have to experience the painful reality of our impure hearts: even if our ímagination has fallen silent and our thoughts become stilled, we shall find in the depths of ourselves a kind of fundamental instability, an inexhaustible fount of anxiety, a seedbed of judgements, condemnations and fear. If we are truly to have a strong desire to purify this heart, we must first experience its impurity and feel the radical need to transform it, if we are one day to see God.  —Carthusians of North America, Vermont