Ultimate Unity – In Gita Verse 17.15 Austerity of speech consists in speaking words that are truthful, pleasing, beneficial, and not agitating to others, and also in regularly reciting Vedic literature.
Krishna is saying only when you are silent, truth can be conveyed.
Then immediately the question will be there – Can silence be heard and understood?
Only silence can be heard and understood. Words can be heard but only superficially, and can be understood – but only intellectually. Silence is heard existentially and is understood from your innermost being. It is a total understanding.
We asked the question, because ordinarily we understand only words. We are prepared to understand only words, not silence. We are educated to understand language and all its complexities. Nobody helps us to go beyond language, to go beyond words, to reach the wordless space within us.
Society is against it, because if you can hear silence you will not be a part of the crowd mind, of the collective mind. You will become an individual immediately. And an individual is a danger to the state, to the church, to the society. An individual is always dangerous, because an individual is nothing but rebellion. His very presence is a risk for all the vested interests, for the establishment. The establishment wants you to be obedient: he wants you to understand the orders. The establishment wants you to be slaves, servants – efficient, of course, but not too intelligent; just intellectual, not intelligent.
Silence is the explosion of intelligence. Silence means: inside you, you are just spaciousness, uncluttered spaciousness. Silence means you have put aside the whole furniture of the mind – the thoughts, the desires, the memories, the fantasies, the dreams, you have all pushed aside. You are just looking into existence directly, immediately. You are in contact with existence without anything in between you and existence. That is silence.
And to be in tune with existence even for a single moment – is enough to make you aware of many things. One is that you are deathless, and the person who is deathless cannot be forced to be a slave. He would rather like to die than to become a slave. He would rather like to risk everything than to risk his freedom because death means nothing to him….
The moment you understand that you are eternal, all fear disappears. And the society exists through exploiting your fear; hence, it teaches you from the school to the university, it devotes almost one-third of your life in learning words, language, logic. It is not concerned at all that you should understand silence. That’s the function of a Master: to undo all that the society has done to you, to help you to go beyond words. And you can experience it happening here – you can hear the silence. And when you hear it, there is immediate understanding. Understanding comes like a shadow following silence.
To understand words and to hear words is very simple. Anybody can do it; just a little education about language is needed, nothing much. But a tremendous transformation is needed to hear silence and to understand silence…. Silence is the basic requirement of understanding God, the basic requirement to know truth….
Silence can be profane too. Silence can be sacred too. Silence has as many nuances, as many dimensions as your being has. It is multidimensional, and it is tremendously pregnant.
Being here with Krishna, being a seeker, can be defined very simply as learning to be silent – sitting in silence. Krishna is using so many words for the simple reason so that words can give you the gaps.
It is really a torture for Krishna to talk. He would like as quickly as possible just to sit silently within you. But if you are not ready to understand it, you will fall asleep: you will start dreaming, you will start dozing away. You will not be able to understand it.
Krishna’s words keep you awake, and just between the words he gives you gaps. And those are the real, essential things. Waiting for another word, you have to listen to silence.
All this situation is being used to hand over to you a few pieces of silence. It will look very strange to us that he is talking just to make you able to hear silence and to understand silence. But that has always been the way of the Buddhas.
The day you are ready…and slowly slowly many people are getting ready. The day is not far away when he will have enough people ready; a certain quantity is needed. Just as at a certain temperature, a hundred degrees, water evaporates, there is a certain quantity which is needed for silence.
The silence all around will go on goading you to keep alert. The silence all around will not in any way allow you to fall asleep. Silence has its own tremendous force, its own power.
Krishna says verbal communication is only an introduction for the nonverbal. The nonverbal is energy communication. The verbal is only preparatory; it simply prepares you so you can allow the master to communicate with you energywise, because energywise it is really moving into the unknown. Energywise it needs great trust, because you will be completely unaware where you are going – aware that you are going somewhere, aware that you are being led somewhere, aware that something is happening of tremendous import; but what exactly it is you don’t yet have the language for, you don’t have any experience to recognize. You will be moving into the uncharted.
The buddha represents dhamma, truth, in two ways. Verbally he communicates with the students; nonverbally, through silence, through energy, he communicates with the disciples. And then there comes the ultimate unity where neither communication nor communion is needed, but oneness has been achieved – where the master and the disciple become one, when the disciple is just a shadow, when there is no separation.
Tags: Ultimate Unity
