Activity

Brush

Every life is a canvas and every interaction is a Brush, therefore we’d be wise to consider how we handle the paint.

Communication as such is difficult. Of course it is more difficult between lovers. But first you have to understand the general difficulty of communication. Each mind has been conditioned by different parents, different teachers, different priests, and different politicians. It is a different world in itself. And when two minds try to communicate, as far as the ordinary mundane things are concerned, there is no difficulty. But the moment they start moving beyond things into the world of concepts, communication starts becoming more and more difficult.

Truth cannot be communicated but it can be communed. Communication is verbal; communion is non-verbal. Communication is through words, thoughts; it is a conversation. Communion is silent… it is silence itself.

Science can be communicated, religion cannot be communicated. It is a transmission beyond scriptures. It is saying that which can be said so it can be said only through silence. Even if words are used, they are used only to emphasise silence. They are used only to create a background for silence. Buddhas have spoken, and have spoken more than anybody else, but all their speaking functions only as a contrast for the silence that they want to deliver.

When somebody visits Master and he is just an outsider, a spectator, and is there out of curiosity, all that he hears is what words can say. So there is communication between Master and him, but only communication. He will become more knowledgeable but he will not gain anything in his being. He will have something added to his memory but not to his being.

Becoming a disciple means that now the world of communion starts. Now you will not only be hearing Master words but my silence too. And slowly slowly the gestalt changes: words become a background and silences become the real thing. One starts reading between the lines, and that’s how a master has to be read and understood.

So let this be the beginning of communion – a heart to heart relationship, a melting, a merging, and then something that has happened to Master can start happening to you too. It is contagious, it is a kind of infection. Truth can only be delivered like an infection; there is no other way.

So all that is needed is that the disciple should start coming closer and closer to the Master, closer in the heart, dropping all defences, dropping all rationalisations, growing into trust. Then, at a certain point, when the trust has grown, the flame jumps from the master to the disciple, and suddenly the candle that was unlit becomes lit. This is what Zen people call ‘satori’, and in India we have been calling ‘samadhi’.

It is the most miraculous thing in the world – the communion between the Master and the disciple. It is almost magic, unbelievable, because just a moment before the candle was unlit and all was dark, and in a split second all is light, and the darkness has disappeared and disappeared forever. Just a moment before it was all noise and now there is no more noise – all is melody and all is music. Just a moment before all was hell and now there is no hell at all, nowhere. One is back home, one has entered into paradise again.

This is not possible through communication; it becomes possible only through communion. Communion is the whole art of being with a master. That is what Sufis call ‘adabh’.