The Beauty Of Words And The Beauty Beyond Words

How can silence and revelation be complementary? Revelation implies insights, ideas, concepts, and the words to express these insights. Silence, deep silence, implies the absence of all these – of words and the internal narratives that overflow in speech. I love both the beauty of words and the beauty beyond words – silence. 

Many are rediscovering the ancient practice of entering into meditative silence. And by silence I do not simply mean the absence of auditory sounds, I mean an end to all the stories, concepts, and conversations, both external and internal. The stillness and peace found here, is not the result of having resolved all the contradictions within our stories but, rather, it is the disappearance of all these narratives, a dissolving of consciousness. Here all our concepts lose their form and meaning, and our words become unnecessary. Now, in this place, we may experience reality unfiltered by our interpretations.

There is great benefit in regularly escaping the world of our thoughts, of our repetitive predictive stories, and the droning noise of so many voices wanting to be heard and entering the deep stillness. This place is both an escape and a return – a return to the wordless womb from where we came. Here all structures are dismantled and the possibility of new form is no longer restrained by old paradigms. The silence, the very absence of familiar interpretations, becomes the source of surprising creativity. But the doorway to this realm is a deadly silence. Deadly, for the one who produces all the noise must cease. The source of our thoughts, ideas and narratives must dissolve to truly enter this silence. Here I let go of my ordered sense of self and melt into utter chaos. What I consider my essence becomes nothing. All the events and memories that I have endued with meaning, and sequence, and logic, now lose their meaning, their context, and become part of the chaotic meaningless swirl of signifiers – fragments of events, flashes of memories, unconnected, undetermined. This might sound unnerving for many, and so it should. Yet this is exactly the practice through which we lose our fear of death. Death no longer has a sting, not because we won’t ever face it, but because we do not fear it. And why don’t we fear it? For we have discovered that it is not my ‘self’ that needs to be in control in order to have meaning, but that even when this ‘self’ dissolves and it is no longer I who live … there is another benevolent center in whom all things consist.  

“all things were created through him and for him; And he is before all things, and all things hold together in him, And he is the head of the body, of the assembly—who is the origin, firstborn from the dead, so that he might himself hold first place in all things” Col 2:16-18 DBH

But let’s first take a step back into the death experience, the process of dissolving. It is exactly this lack of connection, of context and meaning, that makes new meaning possible. It is letting go of our self-constructed order and descending into chaos that makes new order possible. The very process by which we lose our familiar sight and become deaf to the usual sounds, is also the process that opens our eyes and ears to a whole new reality, it is entering into a consciousness not constrained by the boundaries of self-consciousness. This is a reality so completely other, that none of our familiar narratives do it justice. New concepts must be formed, new words must be found, and a new story must be told to communicate this reality.

Words without a connection to this deep silence have no meaningful roots. They are shallow and soon grow old and wither. On the other hand, silence that does not unfold in new insight and eventually overflow in new words, remains a vague promise, an unfulfilled potential. But when these two phenomena, the ecstasy of revelation and the quiet abyss of possibility, meet, something magical happens. The joy of new insight does not fade if it remains connected to the infinite abyss from which it came. 

The author of Genesis unveils a profound insight when he describes the process of creation as beginning with silence. The spirit of Elohim hovers in on the face of the deep before a word is spoken. 

Creation does not begin with self-sufficient power or authoritative words, but with a wordless hovering. It is in this contemplative silence that the possibilities within the chaos begin to dance. Tohu wa-bohu a poetic echo in the silence: Elusive messages drifting; unlikely possibilities awakening; signifiers rearranging. With each repetition of tohu wa-bohu the surface grows more unstable. Possibilities vibrate. What might be nothing, murmurs of what might yet be something. And within the formless, patterns emerge. Creation is not the result of an enforced design but a willing response to divine seduction. 

Andre Rabe. Creative Chaos (Kindle Locations 1760-1764). 

May you continue to experience the beauty of this creative silence, and find words that draw others towards this beauty.

And enjoy this song: Silence is calling you