DREAMS IN A BACKWATER

PART SIX

III

(Inside language there is silence.  In between words there is silence.  Inside the mind there is silence.  Between the letters of words there is silence.  When I speak of silence, the silence speaks of me.  When I embody silence, the silence speaks me.  There is a disease which springs from language.  But language is not a disease.  When I listen to the silence inside me, then I can speak.  When I listen to the silence inside me, then I have the will and the strength.  To go on.  To continue.  To believe.  To dream.)

(1)

THE GIFT

My inner development sometimes undergoes unexpected surges, unfolds in unexpected ways; at such times it feels as if the changes result not from any conscious motivation, but rather, are unfolding via a process analogous to that by which genetic material fosters changes upon the physical body.  My internal development does not necessarily refute the trajectory I've proposed for it intellectually, but the experiential realization of such development, whether it follows the trajectory presupposed by conceptive reasoning or not, differs markedly in quality from the intellectual.  It differs so markedly, in fact, that the intellectual and experiential modes of knowledge appear at first glance to be the hallmarks of two entirely different forms of intelligence altogether.  Experiential knowledge must be recognized to be the more natural, the more organic, of the two, for by definition it is; consequently, it feels to be the more honest and true.  Of course, experiential knowledge predates the intellectual both in the development of humans as individuals and, evolutionarily speaking, as a species; and it retains its primacy even after the development of abstract thought:  experiential understanding is what we constantly turn to as a measure by which to propose and revise intellectual theory.  This is true even in the scientific realm, notwithstanding the fact that experiential knowledge must there be formulated in concretely measurable terms.  Experiential understanding and conceptual thought may both be said to spring from the same causal force; however, wisdom dictates that we never place more than a provisional faith in theoretical abstractions.  Experiential knowledge renders the intellectual obsolete in every case.

I have begun of late to enter into a new "phase" – if I may call it such – of what I have hitherto described as "turning my back on the world."  I have defined this act previously in terms of emotional desire and psychological need, as well as holding it to be a necessary prerequisite to both enacting social change and to effecting a withdrawal from society.  But experientially, I discover that to turn one's back on the world is a process of turning towards blankness, towards coldness (intellectually and emotionally speaking):  it is to become, in a word, "detached."  This detachment, I now see, is not directed towards the outer world but rather, towards one's own response to that world; detachment is, in its experiential realization, a matter of encompassing a quality of emotional and psychological blankness.  "Indifference" is perhaps the nearest verbal correlative I can find to describe this experiential state, yet even indifference is too strong a word, connoting as it does a certain psychological predisposition.  Such a predisposition may well exist prior to the realization of detachment, but the two states are not interchangeable.  By definition, they cannot be:  one suggests a state of desire; the other, its cessation.

Experientially, it's as if I have turned to face a featureless wall and (however imperfect my contemplation of that wall may be) it is this contemplation which yields the condition of detachment.  My entire life's motivation might be said to have been one that led to the realization of this condition, yet I could not untangle the roots of its causality any more than a tree could untangle its roots from the soil; moreover, the physical, emotional, intellectual, and sociological influences that imbue me with the specific terms of my individuality are rendered unimportant when compared with this – or any other – experiential condition:  all else is a matter of fable and myth, the story of one's own self which, at the moment of experiential realization, is discarded like an outgrown skin.  Thus I now posit an idealized conception of the condition of detachment and say that I have found it to be a highly valuable, yet when I undergo its experiential realization, I find that it is not a matter to which one may apply any value at all.  Nor would I wish for this state to be correlated to the Buddhist's formulation of enlightenment, except, perhaps, in terms of a peripheral similarity:  enlightenment, like detachment, does not, in its experiencing, adhere to any specific descriptive state.  In the end, such descriptions are valuable only insofar as they erect barriers for the individual to "break through" or otherwise surmount.  To this end I can only state the paradoxical proposition that, when stillness of mind has been achieved, the concentration of purpose which will allow for its attainment is likewise achieved.  But by "stillness of mind" I mean to define both a manner of not resisting one's own emotional and psychological (and even, in some instances, physical) desires and needs, and yet of not responding to them as well.  Rather, one acts according to the requirements of whatever circumstantial, environmental conditions one happens to encounter in one's life:  which is to say, one acts from within the circumstantial conditions of (for lack of a better word) karma.  But to my responses to environmental conditions, I give no response; I become "blank."

One day recently, while sitting under a tree up at the cemetery, I found myself face to face with a groundhog.  The woods have become almost impossible to walk through now that summer has arrived – the mosquitoes are murderous.  Also there are innumerable flies, and spiderwebs everywhere.  The presence of these insects bears testament not only to the fecundity of nature, but to its voraciousness as well.  Death lies ever in wait, even at the heart of life.  For instance, I happened upon a poisonous snake one day recently, a small copperhead that lay stretched, perfectly still, across the path in the woods.  I did not see it until I was actually in the process of stepping over it, and was fortunate not to have stepped on it instead; as it was, I simply moved a few feet down the path and then settled myself on my haunches to watch.  A minute or two later the snake, which by its very stillness demonstrated the probability of its awareness of me, slithered off into the leaves.  The groundhog, on the other hand, came upon me during a moment when I myself had become particularly still; catching a movement out of the corner of my eye I turned my head and found it standing, as if rooted to the spot, no more than two feet away.  It was about the size of a small cat, though of course its legs were much shorter, as was its tail; I could see its side expanding and contracting rapidly with its breath; its moist, rounded snout quivered.  It had turned its head half towards me; for several long moments we eyed each other warily.  My first reaction was to feel a growing sense of alarm in its presence; my fear, of course, was that the animal's own alarm might trigger a sudden attack.  I forced myself to quell this fear:  I used, in other words, a theoretical proposition to achieve a specific experiential condition; I became "blank."  My body relaxed, and shortly afterwards the groundhog trotted calmly away.  As it did so, there swept through me the utter certainty – an experiential certainty – of my having been in the presence of a very real intelligence, an intelligence I am tempted to call "almost human."  Yet that term is not quite right.  Rather, what I felt was the certainty that there existed between the groundhog and myself an intelligence that we both alike shared and took part in.

Slowly, as I sat in a state of continued "blankness," I became aware that I could hear, in the near distance, the sound of children shrieking.  Were they shrieks of pleasure, I wondered, or shrieks of fear?  I could not rightly tell.  The idea came into my head that the children were being slaughtered.  And for all I knew at that moment, they were.  I realized then that to stop being "human" as we normally define that word is to stop knowing what the meaning of things are.  And to stop caring as well.

Turning my back on the world, turning towards blankness – I know now that this is the only means by which I might hope to find my silent brother, my patient sister.  They exist, I now know, just as I am beginning to do, by not existing – not humanly, at any rate.  And who can say other than that that groundhog and that snake constituted my first glimpses of those strange brethren whose appearance I have so often longed for?

Even if someone were to say it was not so, I would not believe them.