External silence can be the doorway to inner silence.
Remember, Be Here Now.
At first you think that your sadhana Is a limited part of your life. In time you realize that Everything you do is part of your sadhana.
The point isn't to deny our Egos, but to extricate ourselves from our exclusive preoccupation with them.
We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not.
The dark night of the soul is when you have lost the flavor of life but have not yet gained the fullness of divinity. So it is that we must weather that dark time, the period of transformation when what is familiar has been taken away and the new richness is not yet ours.