Stopped In Our Tracks
Stories of U.G. In India from the Notebooks of K. ChandrasekharTranslated and Edited by J.S.R.L. Narayana Moorty 2d/3d Series
Silence Is Brahman
How can you understand that silence? Chaotic or otherwise—is it possible for you to capture that silence? When that silence starts operating through you, it is something extraordinary, something vital and living. This structure which is trying to understand the nature of it, capture it, contain it, or give expression to it, cannot co-exist with it.
The difficulty is you seem to know a lot about this state—you have imagination. You imagine it to be what is described as "Silence is Brahman" and begin to think about it. This imagination must go. That is something living, and the structure which is trying to capture it is a dead structure. You are all dead. You are not living human beings at all. You have never known one living moment in your life.
You are living the lives of your thoughts. All thoughts are dead, it doesn't matter whose thoughts, whether those of Shankara, of Ramanuja, or of the hundreds of sages, saints and saviors we have had and perhaps have still. It is useless to try to understand that. How can you capture it?
If there is any such thing as silence—chaotic or otherwise, living or dead—it will begin to express itself. When it expresses itself, you are not there. So you will never know the nature of that silence at all. What you call silence is not silence at all.
The difficulty is you seem to know a lot about this state—you have imagination. You imagine it to be what is described as "Silence is Brahman" and begin to think about it. This imagination must go. That is something living, and the structure which is trying to capture it is a dead structure. You are all dead. You are not living human beings at all. You have never known one living moment in your life.
You are living the lives of your thoughts. All thoughts are dead, it doesn't matter whose thoughts, whether those of Shankara, of Ramanuja, or of the hundreds of sages, saints and saviors we have had and perhaps have still. It is useless to try to understand that. How can you capture it?
If there is any such thing as silence—chaotic or otherwise, living or dead—it will begin to express itself. When it expresses itself, you are not there. So you will never know the nature of that silence at all. What you call silence is not silence at all.
