Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Silence is Golden
The most simple human condition, known by some as the connection to God, others as simply spirituality, is the one condition which humanity has striven hardest to complicate. It has become the battleground of terrible conflicts, an endless cause of war.
Spirituality/God through the fault of people has frequently not been the bond that unites, but rather a flag to be raised on fields of battle, literally and figuratively.
At fault is the attempt to put that beautiful inward sense of unity into defining words, words that crush that beauty under the weight of indigestible abstractions and interminable discussions. Words that attempt to rationalize the irrational. Words that attempt to define how you could understand that small inward voice, by how I define it.
Speech tends to divide, people cling to words rather than their meaning. Words give rise to dogmas claiming to be comforting certainties. Words give rise to religions, to churches, which break up the great family of simple souls in order to create a language that can be shared so that we no longer have to do the hard work of understanding. And in creating a shared language we separate ourselves from the others.
Words split apart, listening in silence gathers together. Words stir up, listening in silence brings peace to both the listener and the one being listened to. Words engender denial, listening in silence invites the denier to find fresh hope in the confident expectation of a mystery which can be accomplished within.
Deep silence, while not always easy, is the very condition for religious experience. It is in this deep silence there comes a silence deeper still which is religious experience in its purest form.
We all have an innate need to express this experience and so we try to fine the right words. Yet often our attempts are tainted by that other simple human condition, the need for power over one's environment.
Spirituality/God through the fault of people has frequently not been the bond that unites, but rather a flag to be raised on fields of battle, literally and figuratively.
At fault is the attempt to put that beautiful inward sense of unity into defining words, words that crush that beauty under the weight of indigestible abstractions and interminable discussions. Words that attempt to rationalize the irrational. Words that attempt to define how you could understand that small inward voice, by how I define it.
Speech tends to divide, people cling to words rather than their meaning. Words give rise to dogmas claiming to be comforting certainties. Words give rise to religions, to churches, which break up the great family of simple souls in order to create a language that can be shared so that we no longer have to do the hard work of understanding. And in creating a shared language we separate ourselves from the others.
Words split apart, listening in silence gathers together. Words stir up, listening in silence brings peace to both the listener and the one being listened to. Words engender denial, listening in silence invites the denier to find fresh hope in the confident expectation of a mystery which can be accomplished within.
Deep silence, while not always easy, is the very condition for religious experience. It is in this deep silence there comes a silence deeper still which is religious experience in its purest form.
We all have an innate need to express this experience and so we try to fine the right words. Yet often our attempts are tainted by that other simple human condition, the need for power over one's environment.
