A Full Sort of Silence

The contemplative life trends towards silence, but that silence isn’t empty. It is full. The analytical approach to anything is to take it apart. But if it can be—taken apart—then it isn’t what we’re seeking, therefore the “Not this, not this” of Hindu religion. Not that the restless self is satisfied. Somebody, surely, knows something beyond a mindless, “No, no, not that.” On to the next teaching, the next guru. But if the teaching is promising at all, the Neti, neti once again appears in some other guise or formulation. The odd thing is that if you do this long enough, you actually learn something, namely that there is knowledge beyond words and an inner capacity, able to grasp that, gradually increases. Communicating that, using words, is hopeless, but the power can be felt. All religious teachings, all schools, all methods, sects, movements, and the like, therefore, are entirely introductory to something that only raw experience actually teaches. But the labor itself, the endless analysis, examination, weighing this, weighing that—the frustrations of the quest—are enormously useful in teaching the unlearnable, namely that Unity, as such, cannot be analyzed but is the very core of the self.