Chapter 17 Chapter Seventeen The Voice of Silence

"It was written for a man standing on the threshold of divinity without law and guidance. Yet the final struggle to make the disciple enlightened may be expressed thus:" "Hurry up and grasp that which is neither real nor existing." "It was written for a man standing on the threshold of divinity without law, without guidance." There is no map of the ultimate realm.There is nothing to be said about it, for what is unspeakable is true.It remains undefined, unmapped, unknown, for many reasons.Not just unknown, but in another way, it is unknowable. The first reason is that those who have entered the ultimate state are already dissolved in it.They cannot maintain their identities.They are completely destroyed.They are reborn, they are completely new people.And only the old can be defined.

Try to understand this.Only the old can be defined.If I see you and I've seen you before, I'll recognize you right away.Who is recognizing you?is the past.Because I've known you before, I remember your face; I recognize you.This recognition comes from the past.But if my mind is completely washed out and the past is completely forgotten, or if my memory is wiped out and there is no connection to the past, I will not be able to recognize you.A person who enters the ultimate state completely loses his past, so he cannot recognize what is happening in the present.Nothing to refer to.

Second, you can only recognize what you knew before.And this divine phenomenon is completely unknown.You never knew it before.What terms would you use to translate it, to define it?You don't have any references, you don't have any terms, you don't have any definitions.This is a completely new experience, how to translate it into language? Thirdly, when you go to the ultimate level, language becomes impossible, because all language is based on duality.You define life by death.You may not have noticed the absurdity.You define matter by mind, and you define mind by matter.If someone asks you, "What is matter?" you will say, "That is not mind." But are you sure?What is mind?Then you define mind as something that is not physical.You are going in circles.

When you are asked about matter you talk about mind as if you knew mind well.You say, "That which is not mind." But if someone asks you, "What is mind?" you start defining it in terms of matter: "That which is not matter." Both are unknown.But you are playing tricks with yourself.When one of them is asked, you define it in terms of the other.When the other is asked, you define it with the first.Both are indefinable. There is no problem in doing so in terms of worldly activities.That is useful and helpful.While unreal, it is useful.But when you're in the ultimate state, duality doesn't help.You cannot define God by what is contrary to it, because nothing is contrary to it.It is the whole.

You can say matter is not mind, or you can say mind is not matter, because mind is not the whole thing; matter exists in the opposite state.You can define everything by its opposite.You can say that life is not death; you can say that death is not life.You can say that darkness is not light, and light is not darkness.You can say that men are not women and women are not men.You can go ahead and define in terms of opposites. But what is the opposite of divinity?There is nothing contrary to divinity. "Divinity" is the whole, the whole, so how to define it?It is indefinable because all definitions are based on opposites, and the Divine has no opposites.Language is flat.Language says, "I cannot enter this dimension." Language exists in duality and cannot penetrate what is not dualistic.

Divinity has no map because it is like the sky.It is not like the earth.If you walk on the ground, footprints are left behind; others can follow.You pass a certain point and others can follow you.As long as they follow your footsteps, they can go to the same destination.But the whole, the divine or the divine or whatever you want to call it: XYZ, the whole, it's like the sky.Birds flew by, but no footprints remained.You can't follow along.You have to start with ABC. When you enter divinity….Buddha entered before you, Jesus entered before you, Krishna entered before you, but no footprints remain.When you enter divinity, divinity is like someone entering for the first time.The sky remains virgin, untouched, unfrightened.But it's good.This pure virginity is good, because then it will be your unique experience.

Otherwise, if you find Buddha's footprints, Krishna's footprints, maps, definitions, guidebooks, everything will be second-hand.Many have known it, many have reached it before you.They said everything you could possibly know.Everything becomes second-hand. But divinity is not secondhand; it has always been firsthand.When you enter, it's like someone is entering for the first time.No one has entered before you, and no one will enter after you, because footprints cannot be left; each is unique. That is why all mundane experiences become boring.One gets bored because everything becomes second-hand; everything becomes borrowed.Others already knew it; nothing remained virginal.

Divinity has always remained virginal, it is absolute virginity.You can't corrupt it, you can't make it old, you can't make it repetitive.Therefore it cannot be defined, cannot be recorded, cannot be guided. "However, in order to make the disciple enlightened, the final struggle may be expressed in such a way." But just to make the disciple enlightened, the disciple is a person who has not yet entered but is on the edge, ready to jump off, you can try to treat them Say something, give them some direction.But don't accept them with any absolute feeling.They are only a help, the last help that can be given.

This is the final instruction from the "Master": "Hurry up and grasp that which is neither real nor existing." "Have a quick grasp of that which is neither real nor existing." There are two things.Matter is substance; it is actual.If I throw a stone at you, it has substance, quality.It will hit you; matter is matter.But what is the mind?What is that which is in your inner nature, in your consciousness? Consciousness is not a physical entity.It exists, it has the quality of being, but it is not a substance.I can't throw consciousness on you.Even if I drop it, you won't get hit.Consciousness will exist; matter will exist.Matter has an actual quality; consciousness has an existential quality.

The verse says, "Hasten to grasp that which is neither actual nor existing." Neither of these two qualities is divine.It's not like matter, it's not like physical objects.It's not like mind or consciousness.You cannot say that God is real, and you cannot say that God exists. There are many reasons for this.When you say that divinity exists, you are saying something repetitive.It makes sense when I say that this table exists because this table can leave existence; we can destroy it.But it doesn't make sense when I say God exists, because God cannot exist without being and cannot be destroyed.Existence makes sense only if non-existence is established.If it does not exist, it is meaningless to exist.

When you say God exists, what do you mean?Can God not exist?Then the words would make sense.But if you say that God cannot be non-existent, then what you really mean is that God is existence itself, not that God exists. God cannot exist; God can only be Being itself.When I say the table exists, the table does not exist itself.It is capable of leaving existence, so this sentence makes sense.When I say that God exists, it makes no sense, because God cannot be separated from existence itself.When I say God exists, I mean existence itself exists.That's a useless repetition.Even saying that God "is" is meaningless, because He is that "is" itself.There is no need to say "yes".God is not "is"; He is "is" itself. You cannot say that God is real, and you cannot say that God exists.He is beyond both: beyond matter and beyond mind.Or rather, he is both.In every respect, he surpassed. So this is the final instruction for those disciples who are ready to enter the hall.Other than that there is nothing to say. Remember, God is not matter.We have a concept that God is physical.That's why we create idols, temples, images.These things are real! Islam does not allow making idols of God for the following reason: Because then God would not be equated with matter in any way.Idols and images of gods should not be created, because images will give people a sense of reality, but gods are not reality. But we would then see God as mind: controller, creator, sustainer.We have some unclear ideas about God, we see God as a supreme mind who sits in the sky and controls everything.But God becomes the mind.He may be a great engineer, or like Plato said, a great mathematician, but people's concept is that God is mind.God is neither mind nor matter.God is beyond both. This verse says, remember this transcendent nature.God is neither external nor internal.He is neither body nor mind.He is neither a thing nor an idea.It is impossible to come back from the ultimate palace, and before you enter the ultimate palace, remember: "Grasp that which is not real and does not exist." "Listen only to the voiceless." "Listen only to the voiceless." All voices are created.All sounds as we know them are created in some way.The wind is blowing, and a sound is created.You clap your hands and you create a sound.I speak and I create a voice.But these are created sounds.They will die, for what is born is destined to die, and what is created will be destroyed. Are there any uncreated sounds?If there is any voice that is not created, truth can only be expressed through that voice, because what dies cannot be used to express truth.That is why people say over and over that truth can only be expressed in silence; truth cannot be spoken through words. Words may bring you peace, but words cannot tell the truth.Words die, and the immortal cannot be spoken through decaying words.How is that possible?That is impossible.How can the eternal be put into the temporal?How can something timeless be brought into time?How can something beyond space be placed in a temple, in space?Truth can only be revealed through something eternal. Through meditation, many seekers understand an inner sound of silence, a sound of stillness.A literal oxymoron: the voice of the silent.It's silent because you can't hear it with your ears.It is silent because sound is always produced through conflict and it has no conflict.Sound is always created through duality, two things in conflict, but there are no two things in the mind.It is silent because it cannot be heard; it can only be experienced. Remember, "Listen only to the voiceless." How can one listen to the voiceless?There is a koan in Zen: Listen to the sound of clapping one hand.They call this the deepest meditation: trying to hear some uncreated voice.If you go on meditating, meditating all the time, just sitting, meditating, trying to listen, you will hear many things.This is the most beautiful technique.Just close your eyes, sit under a tree, and start listening.You'll hear a lot of sounds you've never heard before.Birds, insects....Slowly, you will become aware of many sounds around you.Go on to find that uncreated voice. Every sound will be created.The bird starts singing and then it stops.That which was created has now passed into non-existence.Keep listening, keep listening.Keep trying to find that uncreated voice.Gradually, you will hear more subtle sounds.You'll start hearing your own heartbeat, you'll start hearing your own breathing.But that too was created.Your heart stops and your breathing cannot go on forever.That's not always there.When a child is born he is not breathing.Then suddenly the child starts crying and breathing starts. Continue to listen carefully.These are not silent voices.Drop them, eliminate them.You will start to hear the sound of blood flowing.That's more subtle.You usually don't feel the flow of blood.You will hear the sound of it flowing, you will hear the sound.But it is also a created sound, created through flow, through conflict.Continue the action of elimination.If you are persistent enough, eventually there will be a moment when all the sounds will disappear.And the whole universe disappears with these sounds, as if you fell into a kind of emptiness. Don't be afraid now.Otherwise you will fall back into the world of sound again.Be fearless.It looks like a death.It is death, because when all sound is gone, you also lose your mind.Your mind is just a chattering box.You no longer have a mind.Without sound, the world would cease to exist.You will feel as if you are dead; you no longer exist.You are just a combination, a collection of sounds. To stick to it.This death is beautiful because it is the door to divinity.Keep trying to listen to what comes up now.After the gap, if you walk the path without fear, without fear...   If you are afraid, you will fall back again; you will run back into the world of sound again.The mind will start functioning again.But if you are not afraid, and if you can hold on to this silent gap, you will perceive a new sound that was not created.Hinduism calls this sound Omka: Aum.Om is just a symbol, the one that is always present at the innermost core.Om, Om, Om - this sound is going on inside, it is not created.No one is making this sound.It just exists. This is the voice of the voiceless, which was not created.And only with this sound can you enter the holy within the holy. "See only that which neither the inner nor the outer senses can see." We see the world with our external senses.Matter is felt.But the matter isn't really there.Now physicists say matter doesn't exist.It is just energy, vibrational energy.Matter is illusory.This is very strange.In the East, the mystics have been saying that matter is illusory, maya.They use maya to mean that matter is not what it appears to be.Now physicists agree with Shankara, now Einstein agrees with Vedanta.Now scientists also say that matter is illusory.No one ever imagined that a day would come when scientists would also say that matter is illusory. Matter appears one way, but it is not that way.It is energy.But energy moves so fast that you can't see it moving.That's why it looks like there's no moving matter.They create an illusion of stillness and substance. Matter does not actually exist, but through our external senses, matter appears.That's your interpretation.The mind does not exist either, but it appears to exist through your inner senses.So what is real?If you look through the outer senses, matter will appear, that is unreal; if you look through the inner senses, mind will appear, that is also unreal, that is also a sensory interpretation.Eastern mysticism says that you can only find the real when you stop using your inner and outer senses.When the senses are completely unused, reality cannot be distorted.Then immediately you will be in reality. The senses make the distinction.I look at you.I don't know who you are or what you are, but looking into those eyes gives me something.I cannot touch you directly; the eyes are the mediator.No matter what the eyes tell me, I have to believe it. You have to believe what your senses tell you.You have no way of knowing whether it is true or not.Your senses may be defective, or they may be interpreting the world in a wrong way.There is no way of knowing whether your senses' interpretations are wrong or right.There is no way of knowing these things, because whatever you know, you know through the senses.There is no other way to know, judge and compare. Because of this, Emmanuel Kent once said that nothing can be known as it is.There is no way of knowing what a thing is like in itself, because whatever you know, you know through your senses.You cannot know something directly, you can only know it in an indirect way.You have to trust your senses.Otherwise who knows if things are really there?You have never been there.Your senses get there, and it tells you the message.You have always been a part of the senses in interpretation. The same thing happens when you use your inner senses.They tell you what's inside: what's your soul, what's your self.But that too is just a sensory interpretation. The verse says, "See only that which neither the inner nor the outer senses can see." The real thing is what neither can see.It cannot be understood through the mind; it cannot be understood through meditation.You can enter into truth when both mind and meditation are dropped.You can understand it when there is no meditation, when you are in direct contact with the truth, when you have entered into the truth, when you have no distance from the truth, when you have become the truth. This thing can be said in a different way.You cannot know God unless you become God.If I say that you can know God without becoming God, you are saying an impossibility.Because of this, a very strange thing happened.Both Christianity and Islam think that to say that you can become a god is blasphemous, impious; that is disrespectful to God.The attitude of Islam on this matter is so stubborn that Muslims killed Manso and other Sufi mystics because they claimed that they were God. Manso said, "I am divinity." He was killed because it was too much!A human being says he is a god?But Manso was speaking a very simple, fundamental truth.He means that you can only say that God cannot be understood, or that you can only admit that man can become God.For how can you know God unless you are in God?How can you understand God unless you enter into God and become one with God?You can only go around in circles outside of God.But what you understand is only information that you gather from without; that is not immediate understanding. Manso says you can only know God if you become God.Otherwise there is no way.How can you know it from the outside?How can you understand unless you become the divine heart, unless you become divine? This passage is saying that the truth is neither accessible from the outer senses, which interpret truth as matter, nor through the inner senses, which interpret truth as mind.Truth can only be understood when you jump into truth itself, without a middleman; when you have lost your mind and still have meditation. Meditation is done when you are able to drop it.You have entered into samadhi, you have entered into the truth, the ultimate state. "Peace will be with you." And only then will peace be with you; not before that.Until then, you will still suffer psychologically in some way; you will still be tense in some way.You are tense and miserable.You feel that your very existence is the problem.When you are not there, the problem is not there. How can you be in a state of non-existence?How can you cease not to exist?That's the way to be calm.If you can cease not to be, you have entered into truth; you have entered into infinite, absolute peace. Your separation from the whole is the problem.You feel like an outsider, a stranger, an outsider.This alienation creates distraction, this alienation creates fear, this alienation creates death.You cannot be at peace.When you drop your alienation completely and merge into the truth, losing yourself in it - you are no longer there and only the truth is - then you can be in a place where it is impossible to be disturbed, and there is nothing In the peace that can be disturbed. Remember that you are the disease.You cannot be cured because you are the disease.If the disease were something else then it could be cured, but you are the disease.You cannot be cured; you are incurable.Get rid of the disease.Throw yourself away and feel as if you don't exist anymore.Gradually create the feeling of being nobody, nothing. To advance towards non-existence, for non-existence is the door to ultimate existence.When you cease to exist completely, you become divinity.When you don't exist, you become a god.