Oh. Jai Ganesa, Jai Ganesa, Jai Ganesa Pahimam, Svi Ganesa, Svi Ganesa, Svi Ganesa Rakshamam. Jai Ganesa, Jai Ganesa, Jai Ganesa Pahimam, Svi Ganesa, Svi Ganesa, Svi Ganesa Rakshamam. Jai Saraswati, Jai Saraswati, Jai Saraswati Pahimam. Sri Saraswati, Sri Saraswati, Sri Saraswati Raksamam.

[01:04]

Jai Saraswati, Jai Saraswati, Jai Saraswati Pahimam. Sri Saraswati, Sri Saraswati, Sri Saraswati Raksamam. Jaya Guru, Shiva Guru, Hari Guru Rām. Jagant Guru, Param Guru, Sad Guru Shām. Jaya Guru, Shiva Guru, Hari Guru Ram, Jagant Guru, Param Guru, Sad Guru Sham. Om Jesus, Om Jesus, Om Jesus, Om Om Moses, Om Moses, Om Moses, Om Om Jesus, Om Jesus, Om Om Moses, Om Om Buddha [...] Om Om Shanti [...] Om Om

[02:25]

Om Shanti, Om Shanti. Om Shanno Mitrasyam Varunaha Shanno Bhavatvaryamam Shannayindro Brikaspatihi Shanno Vishnururukramaha Namo Brahmane Namaste Vaya Tvameva Pratyaksham Brahmasi Tvameva Pratyaksham Brahmavadishyami Ritam Vadishyami Satyam Vadishyami Tanmamavatu Tatvaktaramavatu Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.

[03:29]

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. I feel like an intruder having to break silence just by speaking.

[04:41]

I'll try to do this as gentle as possible. break through with the world, perhaps without destroying silence. The great danger of a gathering like this, the great danger of modern be Christian ecumenism, be ecumenical ecumenism, is to limit ourselves to common places for the fear to go on one single path. And a common place is already to assume that there is a common place.

[05:46]

danger of superficiality, in other words, for the sake of universalism. We have to acknowledge that we do not possess a universal language and that perhaps on a certain level what we are doing here is the searching for one And a universal language on that depth where people can really not only communicate but also enter in communion with one another does not yet exist. And to assume that this exists is perhaps already a very heavy dogmatic assumption. I, for one, am too much of a Buddhist, for instance, to use the word of God uncritically

[06:51]

and happily. And yet I fully recognize what is meant by that symbol. And though not objecting to it in the real and living dialogue, I would be very critical to assume that this is one of our common understandings. We do not have, not yet, a universal language. There would be no issue if language were all. There would be no issue if from the end of one path one could not reach the bottom where the other path perhaps also goes. Can I transcend language with language? you today for some minutes.

[07:53]

Can I go today a path and concretely this time the one of the Indian tradition and reach that place which is nowhere where we all meet and help me now in this venture and let us pray myself listening aloud, you listening in quietness, all trying to hear the word, shruti, what is heard. Word out of silence is the overall motto of our symposium. And rightly so, and this is understandable to everybody. The word of silence is the summary of my contribution.

[09:00]

And it is also appropriate because I am not inclined to believe that there is a silence on the one side and the word on the other. out of the silence, here you, in a play of prestidiation, bring out the word. Word of silence, the title of my communication, does not mean word about silence, but the silence that is in every word. Not the objective genitive, the word of silence, but the subjective genitive, the silence that is in every word. Not the silent word, but the silence's word.

[10:06]

I shall explain. In our age, standing as we are, willy-nilly, and especially when one lives in this part of the world. Under the myth of science, a powerful myth, respectful myth, extraordinary, beautiful, but a myth after all, like any other myth which keeps people together and alive. In this our age, standing... under this myth. One hears constantly on different levels the methodological advice to students, to business executives, to people who want to succeed or who have to succeed in order to survive. Whatever you want to say, say it. Young man, write a doctoral thesis and say what you want to say. And this is followed generally by the second golden rule.

[11:12]

and as clearly and as briefly as possible. And I bet some of you have received some letters already saying you speak as clearly and as briefly as possible. And whatever you want to say, you say it. Well, I take objection to the two fundamental assumptions of this first manifestation of the myth of science. The second part of this methodological advice betrays and utilitarian. And I would add, if you allowed me saying that without any ill will or any unrepressed complex on my side, a colonialistic attitude towards time. Time is something which you can manipulate with, something which you can shorten or lengthen at your will. You can say it briefly and independently of its contents. You would not yet perhaps affirm that you can make a plant grow just by pulling its leaves.

[12:18]

But you assume that you can tell a young man to say in a few words what perhaps needs more time and more words in order to be said. Time is here considered to be an extrinsic factor to to the temporal thing, which you can, supposedly, shorten or lengthen without changing the thing said. Time doesn't wet the thing, and you can say it in different times. It presupposes further that all things can be expressed clearly. Because apparently truth is supposed to be clear. And your mind is assumed also to be clear. And obscurity is taken to be black, to be bad, to be untruth. So say it clearly. I mean, Cartesian dogma of clarity and distinction, is he obvious, and perhaps also the white man's bias.

[13:27]

Are we so sure that we are the lords of time and the masters of intelligibility as to be allowed to formulate such a methodological rule? But I would pursue further the first part of the saying. I would link a little more on the first part of the sentence. Say whatever you want to say. This apparently assumes that A, you can say everything that you want to say, and B, that you can say everything, namely, that everything can be said. A assumes that you can say everything that you want to say. In spite of the myth of science in which we live, A phrase which unconsciously and often we use and hear in almost every situation is this.

[14:34]

I mean to say, by which or to which one could retort, then say it. But no, you interpret it constantly. You know what I mean? I mean to say because you don't say what you mean. I mean to say but then say what you mean. No, no, I... You don't say what you mean if you mean to say it. Then say it. You cannot say what you mean if you mean to say something. You cannot say what you mean. I had to catch what you mean in spite of the fact that you have not said it. And only then I will understand you. I understand you when I really understand what you mean to say in spite of the fact that you haven't said it. And you cannot say it. And when you have not said that, and yet I try really to understand it, then I... Ah, you got it. Yes, then you got it. Not before. Oh, what the blah, blah, blah of my saying was nothing. You had to re-transform it.

[15:36]

There is a constitutive gap between meaning and saying. You have to jump from the meaning to the saying. And I have to jump back from the saying to the meaning. In order... to catch what you want to say in order that you really convey some meaning. A word conceals in as much as it reveals. But even more, and this is important, it reveals only and is in us so far as it conceals. And it is only making you aware that it conceals something how it reveals what it says. If it wants to be a revelation, it's a lie. Any word which brings with itself the veil which you unveil when you know what it means, then it's the truth.

[16:42]

Any word is constitutively ambivalent. Any word doesn't say what it says. And any word says what it says when you mean what the word is hiding at the same time that it reveals. The revelation is only the makeup, the clothes in order that you be attracted by a body. Otherwise, you wouldn't care. You cannot say what you mean. You can only translate And allow me a pun which sounds almost Sanskrit. Trans does overcoming space. Late does overcoming time. You translate what you mean. You can close the meaning in words, but a wordless meaning cannot be said. I've only said half of a thing.

[17:47]

You cannot say what you mean. should. You cannot mean what you say. You can mean only a part of what you say. And he who means what he says, that is the one-sided dogmatic shallow until he jumps into another wall and discovers that he doesn't mean what he says. You cannot say what you mean, but you cannot mean what you say. You mean much more. than what you say, and also much less. And further, you cannot control, I think very seriously now, you cannot control it by yourself. How do I know what I say? If it is not because you tell me what I have said, and this feedback makes me discover that I hadn't said at all what I wanted to say.

[18:49]

It has to be the other, the partner in dialogue to tell you what you really have said. I do not know not yet what I have said. You have to tell me what I have said. It is certainly not as if there were a wordless meaning that you can afterwards translate. To speak is not, I'm complimenting what I said before, is not to translate. but to express. And the explosion belongs to the thing you express. It's the pressing it outside yourself, the expression. There are no wordless meanings. This is why they cannot be said. I come to the point. The man who keeps silent in spite of the fact that he has many things to say, he's either a hypocrite or a repressive nature on the fringe of pathology.

[20:01]

Keep silence. Leave it. Stop it. Say! Say, oh, whatever. And when you have the hips, empty yourself. Then may begin to say it again. Silence is not a technique. It's not another advice. Sorry, device. And also not an advice. The meaning of silence is to be meaningless. The silence has no meaning whatsoever. Let the silence speak. If the silence doesn't speak, and you want to listen to the silence, you will develop a tremendous ear, but afterwards you will see nothing. He who wants to listen to the silence and still to press it in the safe, that's something, there's remnants there. Well, you can do on long, that's a beautiful exercise. But it's nothing to be heard in silence and from silence.

[21:07]

And yet, that is my point. The word of silence It's not that there is a world of silence out of which you will, by different devices, something which then you translate and you bring it up to the others. This metaphor precisely here does not work. The word is the symbol of what there is. But there is nothing else. The word does not allow you to enter into a no man's land where then you can work there in a worthless way outside gravitation and then there you are because you are a realized soul. I'm not entering now into Bideha, Jivan Mukta and the other type of Jivan Mukta, Shaiva Siddhanta. Let it be. Let me go on my simple analysis of that common saying that you can say whatever you like

[22:13]

Not everything can be said further. No thing can be said. And he put it according to the rules of the most strict logic. It can only be said that which it can be said. But this can does not depend from your will. what you want to say is already a lie. It's an unauthentic word. The will has begun to manipulate the word. The word you want to speak is not the real word. The real word is simply spoken. It speaks. The real word does not break the silence, does not translate the silence either.

[23:15]

The word is not a device, not a technique. There is nothing beyond and behind the word. Let's not play even with words. The silence out of which the word comes and which the word manifests is not another thing. Where all worlds recoil. if it were another thing another being beyond hidden in silence after which the word comes and which the word manifests then because you are aware of this fact this hidden

[24:16]

think the source of the word would be at the same time, again, another manifestation of a more primordial being, at sic in infinitum. If the word does nothing but just translate into the word of speech, that which exists in the word of silence, then the word of silence is already, again, another thing, because you are aware of, and in a way, I'm speaking now about that, and that is what precisely is not the case. The word is the very silence in word, made word. It is a symbol of silence. In the beginning was the word. And the word was at the beginning. But there where is no beginning, there is no word. The unbeginning, if you allow the word, has no word.

[25:22]

The word is co-existent, co-extensive with being. But the non-being has no word. The word non-being is nonsensical. It is an unword. It is a blasphemy. What we are dealing here is one of the basic assumptions of mankind. One of the few alternatives man has chosen or being chosen to follow. The world of the logos or the world of the spirit. There is a significant passage in one of the Hindu scriptures, scriptures is a wrong wording of the Shruti, the Satipata Brahmana, in the eleventh book probably, tells us of a small quarrel which was going along between Vajj, the word, and Manas, the spirit.

[26:37]

Both of them were saying, I am better and more powerful than you. Then I, word, am able to express, to concretize, to make it effective, to make it palatable, to manifest. I have the whole power in my hand. To which the spirit manners was retorting. But you poor creature, you without me... What could you do? Blah, blah, blah. If I don't inspire you, if I don't push you, if I don't open your eyes, you have nothing to say. What are you going to say and to manifest and to express? And up and down word discussion. Obviously, they could not agree, and so they went to Prajapati, the father, the lord of all creatures. And Prajapati didn't think, otherwise would be already biased in favor of somebody, didn't speak, otherwise already would have precluded his liking and dislikings.

[27:41]

Prajapati sat quiet for a while, and silence was made in disguise. for an indefinite period. And Prajapati finally decided in favor of manas, of the spirit. Whereupon the text, the... ritualistic text of the Brahmana, goes on saying, and that's why the purohi, the priest, when offering the puja to vaj, out of resentment of vaj, doesn't utter a single word and keeps quiet because vaj refuses to collaborate in the sacrifice because prajapati has given the primacy to the spirit.

[28:43]

Obviously the spirit without the word probably is Paulus. And perhaps to make a jump of 40 centuries, we may envisage, without the need of having a whole television set to go into India, that the situation of India is that of so much the predominance of the spirit that is Paulus unable to express herself, incapable to arrange their problems. absolutely important to solve so many queries she has and vice versa. You can have all the power in the world and of the world and you may have it and know everything and yet being drawn to use that power in a way which even the best wills and the greatest saints can not control, can

[29:46]

not avoid, can not direct. And no need to exemplify with another country, if I have spoken of India, what means abuse of power and being utilized by the whole force of the concretion, the word, the expression. The primacy of Vaj rests on the ultimate value of the image, the formulation, the expression, the word. The primacy of Manas assumes the ultimate value of the inspiration, the experience, the thrust. Perhaps time has come in which that old quarrel may come to the awareness that

[30:47]

the spirit without the word is powerless and that the word without the spirit is blind. And perhaps one of the things which we may realize in our own hearts and within ourselves is that symbiosis, that mituna between spirit and spirit. and world. But let me proceed further. You know that good anthropologists studying anthropology, anthropology quote unquote in Africa, and after having realized how really cruel where the conceptions of the divine, of the African peoples, and then just saying a nice word of goodbye, saying, well, and what do you think about us?

[31:53]

You see, we are above all these superstitions and fears of the gods. Oh, I thought you were also a god. You were constantly consulting before doing anything and during the time you were doing those things. Yeah, I saw you, everyone doing like that. Every woman consulting the kind of God you have here in your wist in order to tell you what you have to do. The machines this last week by the grace of God I assume have broken down in this country or in this monastery and the passages of the Brihadaraniak Upanishad, which I, dreaming, being just the opposite side of this world, about 47 degrees centigrade in the holy city of Baranasi, thought people in Mount Xavier would be easily to have a Xerox copy of the Brihadaraniak Upanishad, hasn't worked, gods I thank, so that my comment,

[33:09]

would be much shorter. I wanted to exemplify all what I have been trying to say in these over-condensed words by a running commentary of the one passage of the oldest, most probably, of the Upanishads, a passage which you can roughly situate between 1,800 BC. Brikhateraniak Upanishad, one following, says, In the beginning, this was the self alone in the form of man. Looking around, he saw nothing whatever except himself. He said in the beginning, I am, and then arose the name I. So even today, when a man is addressed, he says, in the beginning, it is I, and then adds any other name he may have.

[34:11]

Furthermore, since before the world came to be, he had burned up all evils, he is called a man. In brackets, this is un-understandable because it's a Sanskrit pun. Purusha, the Brihadra Naku Panishad, says, and this etymology the scientists say is not right, but it works. Purusha means of pur and ush. Ush mean burning. And pur mean precisely the... the flesh, the evil, the dirt. And purva before. So man is he who has...

[35:14]

previously burned all evil. That should be understood in the cosmic setting of the Brighad Raniyaka. The text goes on, he was afraid. So even today, one who is all alone is afraid. He thought to himself, since nothing exists except me, of what am I afraid? Thereupon his fear vanished. For of what Should he have been afraid? It is of a second that fear arises. He found no joy. So even today, one who is all alone finds no joy. He yearned for a second. He became as large as a man and woman locked in close embrace. This self he split into two. Hands arose. husband and wife, wife, pat and patty, and patni, pat means split, patty means husband, and patni means wife.

[36:30]

Thyself is split into two, then hence arose husband and wife. Therefore, as Javalkia used to observe, One's self is like half of a split pea. That is why this void is filled by woman. He was united with her, and thence were born human beings. And she then bethought herself. How does he copulate with me after he has produced me just from himself? Come, let me hide myself. She became a cow. He became a bull. With her he did indeed copulate. Then cattle were born. She became a mare, he a stallion. She became a female ass, a male ass. With her he copulated of truth, etc., etc. He realized, I indeed am this creation, for I produce all this. For he had become the creation, and he who has this knowledge becomes...

[37:35]

All translators put into brackets, a creator, the text says, becomes in that same creation. It's a long text which goes on. Barely at that time, says another portion, the world was undifferentiated. It became differentiated just by name and form, as the saying is, he has such a name, such a form. Even today this word is differentiated just by name and form as the saying is he has such a name, such a form. He entered in here even to the fingernail tips as a razor would be hidden in a razor case of fire in a fire holder. Him they see not for he is incomplete. When breathing he becomes breath by name, when speaking voice, when seeing the eye, when hearing the ear, when thinking the mind.

[38:48]

These are merely the names of his acts. Whoever worships one or another of these, he knows not, for he is incomplete with one or another of these. One should worship with the thought that he is just the artman, the one's self, for therein all these become one. That same thing, namely this self, is the trace, the vestigium, padania, pada, the trace, the padania of all this. For by it one knows this all. Just as verily one might find by a pattern, by a footprint, thus he finds fame and praise. Who knows this? In the beginning this was only Brahman, that Brahman knew only himself as Aham Brahman.

[39:56]

Therefore he became the all. Whoever among the gods became aware of this also became that. Thus also among the seers, rishis. Thus also among the men, the three worlds. Now this is the self, the world of all beings. If a man offers sacrifices, he will attain the world of the gods. If he recites, he will attain the world of the seers. If he offers libations for his forefathers and desires of spring, he will attain... the world of the forefathers. In the beginning, says the last part of this text, this world was just the self, Atman, one only. He wished, would I, or would that I had a wife, then I would procreate. Would that I had wealth, then I would offer sacrifice.

[41:00]

So great indeed is desire, Not even if one desired, would he get more than that. Therefore, even today, when one is lonely, one wishes. Would that I had a wife, then I would procreate. Would that I had wealth, then I would offer sacrifice. So far as he does not obtain any of these, he thinks that he is surely incomplete. Now, his completeness is as follows. His mind truly is this self, His voice is his wife, his breath is his offspring, his eye, his worldly wealth, for with his eye he finds, his ear is his heavenly wealth. The rai, that untranslatable word which means at the same time the material and the spiritual riches. What is

[42:01]

is all this text about? Let me sum it up. Concentrating on very few points. In the beginning was the self. But the beginning was not always there. And other texts, you know, that tell us that there was neither beginning nor non-beginning. neither sad nor sad. Which this means that we are already in the categorical world the moment that we begin to speak, the moment that we begin to think. This which was in the beginning had the form of a man. Looking around, he saw nothing. Looking out, he saw nothing.

[43:03]

Looking in, he saw himself. Only when these two looks merge, and looking out means looking in, only when you cannot distinguish. As the beautiful Sufi poet said, the first time I went to Mecca, I saw the cover, but I didn't see the lord of the cover. The second time I went in pilgrimage, I really didn't see the holy stone, but I saw the lord of the cover. I went for third time to make in pilgrimage. I neither saw the stone nor the lord of the stone. When the looking in and the looking out makes no difference, then the man is complete.

[44:09]

And then he said in the beginning, I am. Only when the I am, we who lived in a printed civilization, I would say to put it shorter, when the I am in capital letters, coalesce and coincide with the I am in small letters, then also we begin to be there. The text you have seen constantly is playing in the beginning and then so even today is a real homology. What What happens in the beginning is what happened today. Anything what happens today is what happens in the beginning. And what doesn't happen in the beginning doesn't happen today. And what happens today, what didn't happen in the beginning, has no importance whatsoever. This is the absolute banality and unreality of what we think it happens and does not happen. But what happens now really happens because it did happen.

[45:15]

It happens in the beginning. And then we have this extraordinary description of the birth of consciousness. You discover that you are alone in the beginning and so even now. This discovery is the beginning of finite consciousness. You discover your limits and you feel alone. But this discovery is already the breaking of being alone. Then when you discover that you are alone, you are no longer alone. You are in the bad company you could be with yourself. You discover that you begin to think. You discover the limits. And then you ask what is beyond. You are no longer the old. You are being afraid. Consciousness is the mortal sin, is the original sin, is the beginning of being afraid, because you begin to discover that you are alone. And being alone, the text says, nobody likes to be alone. And then you desire, and being desired, then you are craving for something which never will get into you, because that which you are craving for and longing for is not a second.

[46:28]

No second will ever give you anything. But once you are in that position, you cannot stop. It would be simply repression. And then you can quote Freud, not before, that this is simply unhealthsome. Real anxiety is only a fear of a second. But then the remedy can only be said in thinking self. Then you have to think. I became fearful. Of what? And then through your thinking, you try to overcome your own fear. If I am alone, I shouldn't be afraid of anything. And so by the process of a dialectical catharsis, you try to overcome this kind of sense of aloofness. The dread of utter nothingness. But nothing is so real as nothingness and nothing is so alive than to speak of nothingness.

[47:29]

Of nothingness you shouldn't be afraid. When you are afraid of nothingness you are already on the mental plane. You are already on another level. You are no longer in that solitude which only the arm can respect. A phenomenological definition of this God I have decried at the beginning could perhaps be, and here I am following the most Orthodox and Selvian and Domestic tradition when they said it, quote, so God is that which breaks our isolation respecting our solitude. Only God allows you to be simply in total solitude, yourself without any impression, impression, condition, from the outside. And yet, you are not isolated anymore.

[48:30]

You are the whole, you are the whole world. The gist of the quoted Upanishadic passage is this. There must be polarities in reality. The universe is made of polarities. Only those polarities create the tension and produce the dynamism for keeping the world in existence. And as David was so nicely translating that into English yesterday, sticking it out from the clutches of time and space. The mistakes are mine. I'm not quoting him. Existence is already the central polarity. But these polarities are so constitutive that they cannot be suppressed nor overcome.

[49:38]

And here's the ontological humility necessary in order to fully accept and affirm the human predicament. have converted these polarities in logical antagonisms, to have interpreted the nature of reality as dialectical instead of dialogical, that is in spermanidus up to the climax of Hegel, perhaps the main feature of Western culture. The polarities I am speaking about are not independent positions governed by the dialectical laws of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. They are not independent not even interdependent but if you won't still go on thinking with words they could be said perhaps to be intra-dependent they are neither mutually exclusive nor dialectical intention so that they do not need to be aufgehoben but rather they are mutually inclusive they need one another and they cannot be without each other they are but

[50:52]

parts, if you want a very imperfect word, of... Sorry, they are not parts of the whole. But they are the whole inner part. The whole partially seen. But the whole, the mirror mirrors the whole reality. And only when you become aware of the mirror, then you become aware also of the split. And then you are no longer in good faith. And you cannot avoid that. The polarities I am speaking about are the character of reality. They need one another and are only in confrontation to and dialogue with and dependence from each other. In point of fact, they are not two to anything. Nor that they are one. All our words are just splitting. into practical devices for hiding, concealing, revealing, lying, and saying the truth all in one.

[52:04]

Of a reestablishment of the whole communion of the real. The moment that I just cut not only the umbilical cordon, Which, curiously enough, in order that the individual lives, you have to cut the cordon. In order that the whole lives, you have to respect all the intra-relationships. There is no man without everything. In our scientific myth, we have calculated the total amount of energy and of matter of the universe. would be also simple to say that everything is not only connected with everything, but needs everything. And I cannot say man if I exclude woman. And I cannot say God if I exclude man. And I cannot say creature if I don't include the creator.

[53:08]

And goodness would not be such if evil would not be its possibility and vice versa. And freedom would not be a real concept if there were not necessity and vice versa. But this makes only sense if we refrain from substantivizing one of the poles and considering their relation only secondary and subsidiary to the independent beings. They are not things which are related. This is only the relation which because you may not be able to embrace everything you see partially. They are not parts of the universe. and everything which is, is the whole, which we may see it only partially. This means that only a holistic point of view will do justice to the reality, and that analysis, analysis as method, is inadequate to apprehend reality, for the whole is more than just some of its parts, so that the integral of the analyzed parts will never be

[54:19]

yield, drill. But can we have such an approach? Is there such a possible embrace and awareness? I think there is. But here I'm going to keep silent about the answer. Because this answer cannot be put into words. But can be made real by the realization of reality. And this, unlike my further pens, is not a pun. Let me sum up.

[55:21]

We cannot speak about silence as one can speak about what happened to me yesterday or about X, any subject matter. Silence is not an object about which you can think or speak. We can speak around silence, circumscribing silence, that is, about what is around silence and what silence is not. We can describe the neighbors of silence and say what silence is not and speak about contemplation and speak about quietness and speak about sitting and speak about transcending thought and speak about not thinking that thoughtlessness is a thoughtless thought and so forth. We can't really describe something which is leading to coming from surrounding silence, but not touch silence.

[56:26]

But further and further, we can speak silence. Letting silence burst into words, allowing silence to explode into speech, Simply and really speaking, any real word is word because it comes out of silence. It is spoken. Silence. They are not two things. The word is the sacrifice of silence. The self-immolation of silence brings about the word. Silence is no more when the Word is there. But the Word is there. And the Word carries all what silence can carry. The Word expresses all what silence can express.

[57:34]

The Word is all what silence is. But silence is no more. There is only Word. Both are coextensive and yet the one cannot be with the other nor can be without the other. We mortals cannot speak that word. Who can be the word of silence? Vaj, the word, is the firstborn of all that there is, says the Tandiamaha Brahmana, in the beginning was the word, says the Taitiriya Brahmana. The sacrifice of Prajapati, the total immolation of the Trinitarian father, my only Christian reference, is the explosion of silence producing the three worlds.

[58:48]

uttering the logos. Only we can overcome this split. Not on the one hand silence, on the other degrading silence and having inferiority complexes and guilt complexes. Very interesting to analyze sociologically. certain interpretations of sacred texts. By really speaking, you don't break the silence. By really speaking, the word is the revelation, the manifestation of the silence. But then there is no longer silence. But then you don't long for silence anymore, because you are the spoken silence. You are the word of silence. you overcome the dualities.

[59:54]

You don't deny them. And in this inter and intraplay, within myself, among ourselves, the world goes on and goes up and the silence is unfolded and becoming more and more word the silences word, the word which does not disturb my contemplation, a word which does not need that I close myself up in an artificial place. The whole universe is our place. Yes, we are this very universe if we are able To speak only when the word speaks.

[60:56]

To listen only when the word does not speak. Otherwise there is no need to listen. To be only when you are needed to be. There is no need at all to be. In the beginning was the word. when there was no beginning, no need of a word. The silence does not speak, but the word that speaks and really speaks carries, is nothing but spoken silence. This silence is not there, but shouldn't be there. We have the Word, but we have recognized that the Word speaks, and what the Word speaks is not a meaning.

[62:04]

The Word is the revelation of that very silence. The Word is the vestment of that very silence. The Word is, the silence is not, and we live in as much as we speak, as we listen, as we really enter into that play in which the word of silence is the silence of the word. I must say I feel a little forestalled by Dr. Panikar, and I really don't have anything left to say, although I may be able to put it in some other form.

[65:28]

But this was one of the most interesting lectures I've ever heard. And one thing that it brought out was the fact that to practice real interior silence you don't have to stop words. Great Buddhist scholars I've known would meditate while they were doing their scholarly work. And those two things are not mutually exclusive. And so it's sort of counterpoint to what Brother David was just saying that you can't meditate unless you can meditate in a boiler factory. Swami Venkatesananda has a comment. That brings us on to the yogi's view of the word. It's more tantra than even yoga, where they trace

[66:43]

The word, so it's something beyond the root. Para, Pashanti, Madhyama and Vaikari. Vaikari is what I am doing now. Before the word got its body. There was an intermediary stage which is Madhyama. Beyond that is the Pashyanti, the vision. The vision. And still beyond that is the silence.

[67:46]

Again, I am not trying to either contradict or fragment the spirit body oneness, the silence word communion. But it is good to realize that there are these stages For instance, perhaps even in our body we have the same problem. We have some organs called vital organs and then the non-vital organs and then the mass of flesh made of bread and butter. And then the skin. More and more the butter than the bread. And then the skin. We do differentiate one from the other. Just like saying my body is covered by the skin, though the skin is part of the body.

[68:47]

And I think it is very important for us to remember that taking the word we can reach out to the silence. The silence which was as Mr. Robinson has often said, pregnant with the word. And the word which didn't come out but in fact and truth is a reincarnation of the silence. Is a reincarnation of the silence. It's not so much offspring, not expression. It is a reincarnation of the silence. Dr. Panika, it seems to me that the paranoia with which most of those of us who are called upon to talk suffer is probably due to the fact that

[70:10]

We feel that we are betraying by the word that which we feel should be committed to silence. And it's probably due to the fact that the words deal with created things. When we say silence, I think we mean the silence of all created things. And in so saying, I think what we do mean is a plane or level of consciousness where thoughts have subsided altogether. And we are all trying to speak from that level, and it seems that when we do try to do this, we find that the only possible language is silence. that I may like perhaps to respond.

[71:14]

I think I understand, and as much as I understand, I share your opinions. And yet, and here we may have symbolized two worldviews in a rather concrete and fascinating way, I wanted, right or wrongly, I shouldn't say to go a step beyond, because it's not this, but with the ultimate, to present silence not as a language, the language of silence, but as the authentic source of every real world.

[72:16]

And that's why this paradoxical situation can come about, that the moment that you are situated there, at the very source of being, you are also at the same time at the source of the world. And that's why the world is Brahman, and that's why There is authentic and inauthentic word, and that's why the lie, untruthfulness, is perhaps the capital sin. And that's how, as also the Satya Bhatta Brahmana says, satyameva upadeshi. Worship, first of all, is truthfulness. On another level, indeed, I shouldn't perhaps speak of levels, because my... All want to stay supplied.

[73:21]

But I was trying to overcome that dichotomy without falling into monism. Between monism, which blurs everything, and which does not make possible any distinctions and thus any tension, and I spoke of the constitutive polarity of reality, and dualism, which splits without any possible natural bridge, only perhaps artificial efforts, and then bringing nice enough at the end the importance to bridge the gap, that there is this other experience, which I do not like now to call it vital, or non-dualistic, but we may, which even on that ultimate level tries to discover that the source of any word, and by word I understand any expression, manifestation, item, revelation, being, I could go as far as saying, is precisely that which we may also

[74:40]

directly symbolized as silence. But I was also trying to say that we cannot have both sides in a dialectical form of apprehension, but only in allowing that our word, our manifestation, our life, the revelation of being which we ourselves are, body and soul, spirit and matter, is an authentic flowing of that very source. Dr. Alan Watts has another comment. I think I could make a comment to that that may be helpful. There's a saying in the Buddhist scriptures that that which is void, that precisely is formed. That which is formed, that precisely is void. Sounds completely illogical to a Western mode of thinking. But if you think what you mean by the word clarity, you can see it at once.

[75:41]

It's a clear day. Let's say the sky is quite empty. Clarity also means articulate detail. You mean the same thing. Both form and void are the one word clear. It's a clear day. You're clear to me. And so... Transparent. Transparent. Invisible. I see through. I think you made an awfully important point when you distinguish non-dualism from monism. And you see, non-dualism is a funny word because it's used instead of oneness because oneness has an opposite, either none or many. And we want to find a word that expresses something which has no opposite. but nevertheless doesn't oppose opposition.

[76:42]

Professor Thomas Berry wishes to speak. One of the problems that emerges from this that perhaps deserves some comment would be silence, a person may assume, is one, but words are many. And one of the great difficulties, and it is the key difficulty that we face here in the meeting of traditions, is that silence has given rise to many words. And once we have gotten this far with relating silence and the word, a person might inquire how this helps in the reconciliation of opposed words. Indeed, this is a problem, and it would be preposterous for me now to give an immediately satisfactory answer.

[77:58]

I may nevertheless make a very short comment. by adding that silence, calling to me, is neither one nor many. That the unicity or multiplicity of silence, I would feel, is outside the question. I would feel that this is not my point. And that's why I would say two things. One, silence is neither one nor many. Two, the Word is one. Creation is the splitting of that Word into thousand different voices, melody, cacophony, and of all types of things, and ease the business of creatures. First of all, to listen to that rhythm, and to reconstruct the Word.

[79:00]

That's why my comment to John 1.1 is, indeed, in the beginning was the word. But the comment still to make is, at the end, the word shall be. And in this between, in this cauldron, in these moments of silence in your orchestra, here's where we are. And indeed, he's absolutely right. Our words are still many and too many. But why stop now? Dr. Alan Watts has a comment. You know, Shankara says in his commentary on the Kenapa Panchat that the Brahman or the Atman, which is the knower in all, is never itself an object of knowledge. So we can never put our finger on it. But we could demonstrate it with mudra, which is a Sanskrit word for gestures which people make.

[80:04]

But I have a Western. which demonstrates perfectly. And all children know the beginning of it. Here's the church and here's the steeple. Open the door and there are the people. Now here's the parson going upstairs and here he is saying his prayers. Catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him. That's the history of religion. And also the religion of history. Because otherwise you don't feel the need to catch me. I have some written questions. One question, I take them as they have been given to me without any previous discrimination. Is it not self-contradictory to speak about silence at such length? Yes, sir. I have tried to let silence speak and I made a triple distinction for those who are dressed in distinctions of speaking about silence speaking around silence and speaking silence

[81:35]

said only the third latter one is what I have tried to do all the time allowing that the word is not a cancer an excretion of some concocted material on the mental level but the expression of a real lived experience which has been shared, probably, through readings and comings and failures and prayers and kneeling down and going up and being in all kinds of moods, but which is nothing but an unveiling of that mystery which reveals and conceals at the same time in the word, understanding by word not only shabda, not only shota, but mainly vouch, not only the sound, not only the articulate language, but any type of expression, revelation.

[82:50]

To speak about silence at length is indeed a contradiction. Dr. J. Bruce Long of Cornell University has a comment. Why can we not let the silence speak for itself? We can. And to me, that is only the real world. The rest is lies, banality. The rest is just flatus, noise. It should be pointed out that Professor Hanukkah was silence speaking for itself. Pierre Velayat has another comment. I'm thinking of a story of the murshid of my father, that means, let's say, the guru of my father in Hyderabad.

[83:51]

He was initiated by a darvish who was really unable to express himself in words. And this man was absolutely full of questions and found it very frustrating to come to his teacher and ask for an explanation of these things and find that He didn't really get a satisfactory explanation. And one day, as this teacher of my father's, who was a pupil then, was repeating the zikr, which is practice of the Sufis at night time, the teacher came in the room and said, I am the answer to your question. And at that moment, he was the answer. Now comes another question, which is not a question, is a whole mandala. The questions are, the theosis, the divinization, of which you speak, is it in the realm of icon, or being, or is it in silence neither being nor non-being?

[85:08]

It is in the realm of It is in the realm of being. It is not in the realm of the Father. You shall be gods and scripture cannot be put aside and minimized. And you, he who hits me, etc. will be one with me. The divinization is to be one with the idol with the logos. God of God, light of light. But the scar of our temporality remains even in the timeless. We shall become, using the Semitic tradition, God. God does not become God.

[86:10]

I have become God. That is the richest That because that dynamism is a real one. And incidentally, as you know, Maya, in the whole very tradition, does mean illusion. It means precisely the power, the Shakti, of the whole dynamism of the world. So the theosis is in the realm of the icon, in the realm of the world, in the realm of the sun. That's why the Trinity is more than just a small mental device for distinguishing Christians from Muslims and perhaps from Jews. Second question. The homo-eussian equality of all things, especially of word with silence, seems to imply a complex paradox of circumincessio, of being, non-being, plus neither being,

[87:13]

nor non-being. Yes, with a qualification that this non-being is not silent and that the relationship between non-being and being is not a dialectical relationship of opposition but of originating the father begets the son is real begotten from the non-being if you want to make this equation so they are not on the same level the circum incestio and here I'm uttering something which is maybe debatable to people who only see tradition regarding the past and not try to discover that tradition is to take it and pass it on thus looking towards the future, that this circumincessio is not well represented by a circle, is not going back, is a new creation.

[88:26]

The spiral may perhaps be, but the spiral on three-dimensional levels where the point is still being created by the very fact that you go another circle. So the paradox is this circumincesio in this spiral way between being and non-being, but not that I just go back to the origins. We do not go back to the origins. We take the origins with us in order to proceed ahead. And it's here, the moment I discover that this pilgrimage is still to be done, that I cannot just be satisfied by repeating words or by just going back to the silence. But I just am going and entering into that dance in which silence and non-silence being and not being are apart in a way of which I'm only aware once I have done it and committed already even the mistake.

[89:32]

Not before. Meanwhile, I'm just in an ecstatic way of making a fool of myself and entering into dance. And the others are going to give me a hand and telling me, brother, come here. And by this effort, both my community mistake and the other miscue me, the dance proceeds. Any other possible planning here is inconsistent.

[90:01]

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