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the ever-creating Word

RAIMUNDO PANIKKAR

THE SILENCE OF THE WORD:

Non-dualistic Polarities

Present-day ecumenism and gatherings like this run the risk of becoming superficial. The first commonplace, perhaps, is to assume that there is already a common place. All ways may lead to Rome, but this statement entails two conditions: that we march on those ways, without stopping short of the endi.e., that the ways be really waysand that we do not jump transversally from one way to another, but follow one particular way with patience and the hope that we shall meet at least at the end of our journey if our ways do not cross earlier. In other words, we should beware of the danger of shallowness inherent in any search for universality. We have to recognize at the very outset that we do not (yet?) have a universal language. True ecumemism could, perhaps, be defined as a searching for onecertainly not for one tongue or idiom, but for one language as a universe of discourse. Even in a gathering like this, where we are seriously concerned with spiritual life, I am too much of a Buddhist to assume that language discloses reality univocally and that we could use, if not the word, at least the reality of "God" as a common assumption and starting point. Silence is our first and perhaps our only common ground. We could not proceed much furtherat least while utilizing human languageunless we assume that language is not the whole of human reality, that reality is not exhausted in language, and that the human access to realityand truthis not only by means of words. Furthermore, I would like to show that even language is precisely such because it words the silence. Can I, today, transcend language along with you? Can I proceed along one concrete pathand reach that placewhich is no-where and "where" we all meet? Help me now in this venture, and let us pray:
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AMyself listening aloud, You listening in quietness, All trying to hear: s'ruti (that which is heard). Word out of Silence is the over-all motto of our Symposiumand righdy so, for this is understandable to everybody. Only a word coming out of silence is a real word and says something. The Word of Silence can also be taken as the summary of my contributionand this is appropriate, since I cannot believe that there is Silence on the one side and Word on the other. Word of Silence does not mean Word about Silence (objective genitive), but the Silence that is in every Word (subjective). It does not mean the silent word, but the silence's word, the silence that is in every word, the word made of silence. Let me word that silence: the silence of the word. We can certainly speak about silence as we can speak about what happened to me yesterday, or about x, or any subject-matter. But the silence about which we speak is not a real silence, for silence is not an object (about which you can think, speak). We cannot speak about real silence, just as we cannot search for darkness with a torch in our hands. Silence cannot be spoken of without being destroyed, since it is incompatible with speech. We can speak around silencecircumscribing silence, i.e., we can speak about that which is around silence, but which silence is not. We can describe the neighbors of silence, and point out what leads to, comes from, and surrounds silencejust as we can surmise that darkness surRAIMUNDO PANIKKAR

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rounds us when our flickering lamp does not illumine the entire horizon of our sight. But we can do more: we can speak silenceletting silence burst into word, allowing it to explode into speech, simply and really speaking. Any real word is word because it comes out of silence; but it is more; it is precisely authentic word because it is (spoken) silence. And the Silence was made Wordand began to Speak! T h e word is the sacrifice of silence. T h e self immolation of silence brings about the word. Silence no longer exists when the word appears but the word is there, and carries all that silence can express; the word is all that silence isbut silence is then no more; there is only word. But we mortals cannot speak that Word. Who can be the Word of Silence? Vac, "the Word is the Firstborn of Truth," says the Indian Revelation. 1 T h r o u g h the Word everything has been produced; vac was at the side of God, repeats a Brahmana: "All this, in the beginning, was only the Lord of the universe. His Word was with him. This word was his second. H e contemplated. H e said, will deliver this Word so that she will produce and bring into being all this world.' " 2 3 Vac is Brahman, echoes an Upanishad. It is the first offspring of 4 the absolute. It is nity vc, the "eternal word," according to a famous mantra of the Rg Veda.5 Or, in the inimitable language of the Atharva Veda: That Sacred Word which was first born in the East T h e Seer has revealed from the shining horizon. H e disclosed its varied aspects, high and low. T h e womb of both the Existent and Non-existent. 6 Vc is truly "the womb of the universe". 7 For "by that Word of his, by that Soul, he created all this (universe), whatever there is." 8 Nobody can say that the Word is not held in the highest esteem: T h e Word is infinite, immense, beyond all this. All the gods, the celestial spirits, men and animals Live in the Word. In the Word men find their support. 9 T h e sacrifice of the vedic Prajpati, the total immolation of the trinitarian Father, is the explosion of silence producing the three worlds, uttering the Logos. 10 In our age, still dominated by the myth of science, one hears constantly the methodological advice (to students, executives, and people who want to succeed, or have to in order to survive): "Whatever you want to say, say it," followed by the second part of this golden rule: "and as clearly and briefly as possible." T h e latter phrase betrays a shallow, utilitarian (and, I would add, colonialistic) attitude toward time, which is here considered as something you can manipulate, something you can shorten 156 CROSS CURRENTS SUMMER/FALL 1974

and lengthen at your will. Apparently one can "say it," and even "briefly," independently of its content. People do notyetaffirm that you can make a plant grow quicker by pulling the leaves, but many assume that you can train a young student to say in few words even things that need more words and more time to be said. Time is considered to be a factor intrinsic to the (temporal) thing, something you can shorten or lengthen without changing the "thing" said. In other words, it is possible to reduce time, just as we can simplify mathematical equations. This advice presupposes, further, that all things can be expressed clearly. Because truth is supposed to be clear, the human mind is also expected to be clear, and obscurity is taken to be "black," bad, untrue. The Cartesian dogma of "clarity and distinction" is here patent and is, I suggest, also the white man's bias. Are we so sure that we are the lords of time and the masters of intelligibility that we should be allowed to formulate such a methodological rule? Are time and words only instruments which we can use according to our will? We should keep in mind that most human traditions, not excluding the sruti and the Bible, say that God loves obscurity. But I would like to linger a little more on the first part of the advice: "Say whatever you want to say." We may consider here two assumptions: a) that you can say everything that you want to say, and b) that you can say everything, i.e. that everything can be said. a): One phrase that we often and unconsciously use in a wide range of situations is, "I mean to say . . . " To which one could retort, "Then say it!" But the fact is that we feel it is necessary to intercalate in our discourse: "Do you know what I mean?" and "I mean to say. . ." because, ultimately, we cannot say what we mean and I have to know what you mean in spite of the fact that you have not said it. You only meant to say it. There is a constitutive gap between meaning and saying. You have to jump from the meaning to the saying and I have to jump back from your saying to the meaning if the saying is really to be a saying of somethingi.e., conveying something which will dawn upon me as having a meaning also for me. A word conceals as much as it reveals. Even more, it reveals only in so far as it conceals, and it is only making you aware that it conceals something in how it reveals what it "says." You cannot say all that you mean. You can only say what you are capable of saying. You can only trans-late (in space: trans, and in time: fate)11 what you mean. You can clothe the meaning in words, but this clothing is all that you can say, for a wordless meaning cannot be said. On the other hand, you cannot mean all that you say. You mean only a part of what you say. You mean much more and much less than
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what you say. And you cannot control this plus or minus by yourself. It has to be the other, the partner in dialogue, who tells you what you really have said. The word is never a monologue; the saying is only such if it says it to someone. What you say has meaning only within a context, but you cannot control your context, much less the context of your listeners, who will inscribe the text of what you say in their context and understand you according to their forms of apperception. What you say is not (or no longer) your private property. It is certainly not as if there were a wordless meaning that you afterwards translate. To speak is not just to translate, but to express, and the expressionthe pressing it outside yourselfbelongs to the thing you express. There are no wordless meanings. This is why they cannot be said. I am coming to the point: Someone who keeps silent when she has many things to say is either a hypocrite or has a repressive nature on the fringe of pathology. Silence is not a technique, nor another device, nor the repression of the word. The word is symbol of what there isand here we come already to our second point. b): Not everything can be said: No "thing" can be said. Only that which can be said, can be said. But this can does not depend upon your will. What you want to say is already a lie, an inauthentic word. The word you want to speak is not the real word. The real word is simply spoken. It speaks. And woe if you do not speak it out! The real word does not break the silence, does not trans-late the silence, either. The word is not an instrument or a technique. There is no-thing beyond or behind the word. The silence out of which the word comes and which it manifests is not another "thing," another "being," which then, because already in some way thinkable, expressible, would be in its turn the manifestation of a still more primordial being et sic in infinitum. The word is the very silence in word, made word. It is the symbol of Silence. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was at the beginningbut there is no beginning when there is no word. The "Unbeginning" has no word. The word is coextensive with being: Non-being has no word, it is "unword," it does not word. Let us pause a moment to listen in this connection to an astonishing Mayan creation hymn: Then he descended While the heavens rubbed against the earth. They moved among the four lights, Among the four layers of the stars. The world was not lighted; There was neither day nor night nor moon. Then they perceived that the world was being created. Then creation dawned upon the world. 12 158 CROSS CURRENTS SUMMER/FALL 1974

If we want to speak of Being and Non-being, then we have to realize that Being and Non-being are neither opposite nor contradictory. These two words are not reducible to the abstract formula "A and Non-A," because the Non of the Non-being is not the negation of being as non-A is the negation of A. If all Being is on the side of Being, even negation is on that side, so that the "negation" implied in Non-being is not a negation (which already belongs to Being). If the Word is the organ of Being and Non-being cannot be conceived as a negation of Being (which is a contradiction in terms if the negation has to be real, i.e. carrying being with it), if Non-being is an unword, if Being and its expression are coextensive, is there any way out of this manifest aporia} It is here that any dualistic scheme appears insufficient and a trinitarian approach seems imperative. Now the real trinitarian approach is ineffable and non-dialectical (otherwise we would have subordination of the Spirit to the Logos). Perhaps a cultural digression may provide some illumination. We are dealing with one of the basic assumptions of mankind, one of the few alternatives man has chosen, or been chosen to follow: the way of the Logos or the way of the Spirit. There is a significant passage in the Satapatha Brahmana. It describes the struggle about the primacy of vac or that of manas. The former rests on the ultimate value of the image, the formulation, the expression, the word. The latter assumes the ultimate value of the inspiration, the experience, the thrust. 8. Now a dispute once took place between the Spirit (manas) and the Logos (vc) as to which was the better of the two. Both Spirit and Logos said: am excellent!' 9. Spirit said, 'Surely I am better than thou for thou dost not speak anything that is not understood by me; and since thou art only an imitator of what is done by me and a follower in my wake, I am surely better than thou! 10. Logos said, 'Surely I am better than thou for what thou knowest I make known, I communicate.' IL They went to appeal to Prajapati for his decision. He, Prajapati, decided in favor of the Spirit, saying (to Logos), 'Spirit is indeed better than thou, for thou art an imitator of its deeds and a follower in its wake; and inferior, surely, is he who imitates his better's deeds and follows in his wake/ 12. Then Logos (vac) being thus gainsaid was dismayed and miscarried. She, Logos, then said to Prajapati, 'May I never be thy oblationbearer, I whom thou has^ gainsaid!' Hence whatever at the sacrifice is performed for Prajapati, it is performed in a low voice; for Logos would not act as oblationbearer for Prajapati.13 This text could represent the inherent polarity of the IndoEuropean civilization and the emphasis put by the "West" on the Word and by the "East" on the Spirit. For, undoubtedly, the Logos has become stronger RAIMUNDO PANIKKAR 159

in the West and the Spirit has been considered better in the East allowing for the oversimplification of such a statement. Centuries of historical experience corroborate that the Word without the Spirit is certainly powerful but barren, and that the Spirit without the Word is certainly insightful but impotent. T h e possibility of an authentic and balanced trinitarian approach is a subject for another occasion. 1 4 We may now offer a translation and brief commentary (concerning our subject only) rendering a basic intuition of the Indian tradition as formulated in the Brhadaranyaha Upanishad.15 1. In the beginning this was the self alone, in the form of a Man. Looking around, he saw nothing whatever except himself. H e said in the beginning: am.' So, even, today, when a man is addressed, h e says in the beginning 'it is and then adds any other name he may have. Furthermore, since before the world came to be he had burned u p all evils, he is called a 'man'.

T h e text invites us to look in and out until both visions merge into one reality encompassing subject and object, i.e. until the 'i am' coalesces with the AM' at the priceobviouslyof burning u p the individualistic ego. A Man: purusa; person, the primordial Man, the theandric principle, as in RV X:90. We have here one of the most powerful accounts of the rise of h u m a n selfconsciousness: the birth of reflection. T h e I is both the aham, unique without a second, and also the I still to be liberated, which in spite of everything has also no other name than . ' I am: aham asmi. This is one of the highest revelations of reality and should not be hypostasized u p o n a 'He.' T h a t is to say that am is not changeable with 'He is or am He,' the first being only a mental projection and the second sheer blasphemy. Cf. Kaus U I: 6, for the right place of the He: "What you are that am I" (vas Warn asi so'ham asmi). T h e Sanskrit p u n is untranslatable: parva, before; and us, to burn, give purusa, the Man. 2. H e was afraid; so, even today, one who is all alone is afraid. He thought to himself: 'Since nothing exists except me, of what am I afraid?' T h e r e u p o n his fear vanished, for of what should he have been afraid? It is of a second that fear arises.

You are alone only when you discover that you are alone. This discovery is the beginning of finite consciousness. You discover your limits and feel alone. But only thinking it out can help once consciousness of solitude has arisen. Real anxiety is only fear of fear and thus dread of utter nothingness. Our own image is frightening when it reflects its hollowness (Cf. CU V i l i : 7, 1 sq.) A process of "conscientisation" can rid us of dread, 160 CROSS CURRENTS SUMMER/FALL 1974

for confidence in the power of the mind tells us that, if there is nothing to frighten us, we have no reason to be fearful. 3. He found no joy; so, even today, one who is all alone finds no joy. He yearned for a second. He became as large as a man ana a woman locked in close embrace. This self he split into two; hence arose husband and wife. Therefore, as Yajnavalkya used to observe: 'Oneself is like half of a split pea.' That is why this void is filled by woman. He was united with her and thence were born human beings.

Again a play with words: the Self split (pat-) into husband (pati) and wife (pati). The ardhanrisvara character of man is here symbolized. Man is androgynous as an anthropological reality. The desire for a second is only cathartic when it is a holistic movement toward integration, i.e., when it is not concupiscence but love. Joy is here the criterion of reality as joy is the fullness of being. 4. And she then bethought herself: 'How now does he copulate with me after he has produced me just from himself? Come, let me hide himself.' She became a cow. He became a bull. With her he did indeed copulate. Then cattle were born. She became a mare, he a stallion. She became a female ass, he a male ass; with her he copulated, of a truth. Thence were born solid-hoofed animals. She became a she-goat, he a he-goat; she a ewe, he a ram. With her he did verily copulate. Therefrom were born goats and sheep. Thus, indeed, he created all, whatever pairs there are, even down to the ants.

The theme of divine incest as the only possible way to redeem creation is here expressed by way of describing that all creatures need a second intervention, a descent of God in order to reach their destination, to continue creation (be fertile) and bring the universe to its fulfillment.16 Cf. the biblical theme of Yahweh and Israel and the Christian dogma of the Incarnation. 5. He realized: indeed am this creation, for I produced all this' for he had become the creation. And he who has this knowledge becomes (a creator) in that same creation.

To "become the creator" does not necessarily mean to be so substantially but to create along with him, i.e. to be, in the functional sense, creator, i.e. creatingbecause such a man really creates. No mystic would deny this experience, whatever wording one may use in order to describe it.

7.

Verily, at that time the world was undifferentiated. It became differentiated just by name and form, as the saying is: 'He has 161

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such a name, such a form.' Even today this word is differentiated just by name and form, as the saying is: 'He has such a name, such a form.' He entered in here, even to the fingernailtips, as a razor would be hidden in a razorcase, or fire in a fireholder. Him they see not, for (as seen) he is incomplete. When breathing, he becomes breath (prana) by name; when speaking, voice; when seeing, the eye; wnen hearing, the ear; when thinking, the mind: these are merely the names of his acts. Whoever worships one or another of thesehe knows not: for he is incomplete with one or another of these. One should worship with the thought that he is just one's self (atman), for therein all these become one. That same thing, namely, this self, is the trace (padaniva) of this All, for by it one knows this All. Just as, verily, one might find by a footprint (pada), thus. He finds fame and praise who knows this. ama, rpa, name and form. At variance here with the Greek morphe, form does not stand for the permanent 'essence' but for the ephemeral shape or clothing of reality. T o consider the form accidental or essential is, again, one of the fundamental human options. The question is here not only one of immanence (logically as well as ontologically) and vice versa, nor can there be a part without the whole and vice versa. He who discovers this is, by this very fact, complete. 9. Here people say: 'Since men think that by the knowledge of Brahma tnev become the All, what pray, was it that Brahma knew whereoy he became the All?'

The question is whether the epistemological order has ontological repercussions and again whether consciousness and self-consciousness can be identical. 10. In the beginning this was only Brahman. That Brahman knew only himself as am Brahman.' Therefore he became the All. Whoever among the gods became aware of this also became that; thus also among the seers, thus also among men.

Real knowledge cannot mirror reality only: it produces it. We have the following equations: idam (this) = aham; aham (I) = brahman; tat (that) = brahman; brahman = (all) sarvam. 16. Now this is the Self, the world of all beings. If a man offers and sacrifices, he will attain the world of the gods. If he recites (the Vedas), he will attain the world of the seers. If he offers libations to the forefathers and desires offspring, he will attain the world of the forefathers.

The whole universe is linked into a unity by the sacrament of the word and the sacrifice of action. 162 CROSS CURRENTS SUMMER/FALL 1974

Known and investigated: viditam mimamsitam, i.e. known both by experience or intuition and by reflection. The polarities we speak about are not independent positions governed by the dialectical laws of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. They are not independent, nor even interdependent, but intradependent. They are not mutually exclusive so that they must be aufgehoben, but mutually inclusive. They need one another and they cannot be without each other. They are not parts of a whole, but rather they are the whole in a part, the whole partially (seen). The polarities we are speaking about are the character of reality. They need one another and are only in confrontation with, dialogue with, and dependence on each other. In point of fact, they are not two (anything) nor are they one. The "one and the many" is the great fallacy of our mind. It is something which the mind cannot apply to itself. Man would not be man if there were no woman, and vice versa. God would be no God if there were no creatures, and vice versa. Goodness would not be such if evil were not its possibility, and vice versa. Freedom would be an empty concept if there were not necessity, and vice versa. Salvation would be meaningless if the opposite possibility were not a real one. But this makes sense only if we restrain from substantivizing one of the poles or considering their relation as secondary and subsidiary to their (independent) being. An unrelated being, like an unworded word, is a sheer contradiction. This means that only a holistic point of view will do justice to reality and that any analysis is methodologically inadequate for this kind of apprehension of reality, since the whole is more than just the sum of its parts (so that the integral of the analyzed parts would never yield the real). Coming back to our starting point, we could say that the relationship between silence and word is a non-dualistic one, and neither monism nor dualism will do justice to their intra-penetration. Perhaps the consequences of this for spiritual life can be explored together during these days. There is an intrinsic and constitutive polarity between silence and word. There is not the one without the other, and it is the one which makes possible the other. They are neither enemies nor incompatible. Of course, there are escapist silences and repressed silences, as well as empty words and nonsensical chattering; it is only such non-authentic words or silences that are at variance. Any authentic silence is pregnant with words which will be born at the right time. Any authentic word is full of silence which gives to the word its life. May our words be always words of silence and our silence always the virgin womb that does not speak, just because it has nothing to say.
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FOOTNOTES II: 8, 8, 5. TMB XX: 14, 2. 3 BU I: 3, 21. 4 Cf. BU IV: 1, 2. 5 RV VIII: 75, 6. 6 AV IV: I, 1. The "Sacred Word" is here brahman. 7 AB II: 38. 8 SB X: 6, 5, 5. Cf. BU I: 2, 5. 9 TB II: 8, 8, 4. 10 Cf. my book, El silencio del Dios, Madrid (Guadiana), 1970, which will exonerate us from further quotations. u With apologies to semantics. 12 Cf. J. Bierhorst, In the Trial of the Wind, American Indian Poems and Ritual Orations. New York (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 1971, p. 3. 13 SB I: 4, 5, 812. 14 Cf. R. Panikkar, The Trinity and World Religions: IconPersonMystery. Madras (The Christian Literature Society), 1970; (Darton, Longman and Todd), London, 1973; (Orbis), Maryknoll, N.Y., 1974. 15 I: 4, lsq. Paragraphs 1,2,3,10,16 are my own translation. The others are from Hume's Standard Version. 16 Cf. my study, 'The Myth of Incest as Symbol for Redemption in Vedic India," in Contributions to the Theme of the StudyConference held at Jerusalem, July 1419,1968. Jerusalem, Hebrew University. Edited by R. J. Zwi Werblowsky and C. Jouco Bleeker, Leiden, E. J. Brill (1970), pp. 130143.
2

Discussion
Dr. Alan Watts: This was one of the most interesting lectures I have ever heard. One thing it brought out was the fact that to practice real interior silence you do not have to stop words. Great Buddhist scholars I have known would meditate while they were doing their scholarly work; the two things are not mutually exclusive. It's sort of counterpoint to what Brother David was just saying, that you can't meditate if you can't meditate in a boiler factory. Swami Venkatesananda: That brings us on to the yogi's view of the Word. It's m o r e T a n t r a t h a n even Yoga: where they trace the Word to its something beyond the root para. Before the Word got its body, there was an intermediary stage which is madhyama; beyond that is the pasyanti, the vision, and we are left with the silence again. I'm not trying to either contradict or fragment this spirit body oneness, the silence word c o m m u n i o n , but it is good to realize that there are these stages. For instance, even in our body we may have the same problem. We have some organs called vital organs, then the non vital organs, then the mass of flesh made of bread and butter, and then the skin (more butter and bread). You see, we do differentiate one from the other. It's just like saying my body is covered by skin, though the skin is part of the body. I think it is very important for us to remember we can reach out to the silence, which is p r e g n a n t with t h e Word. But the Word didn't come out;

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in fact and truth it is a reincarnation of the silence. Also, for those of us who practice what is called meditation (and don't ask me to define that, please) it may be an excellent idea to use what Dr. Panikkar very beautifully explained this morning: What is this? Paper. How do I know it is paper? Where did this word "paper" get formed? It's an object, subject, something, nothingI don't know. (Rubs a piece of paper between fingers.) Ah, that's righteven before that I know: it's not that; it's not even this. It is not the experience of a child, but the experience of enlightenment. Childlike, but enlightened. When I look at something, certainly there are some vibrations, something entersenters what? I don't know. But where does it formulate itself, where does it get the body? This might be one of the most effective ways of entering the inner silenceas they often phrase itin order to meditate upon it. And that is the beautiful mantra from the Upanishads that Professor Panikkar quoted in part: yato vaco nivartante aprapya manasa saha. T h e Upanishads are a bit dangerous to quote, for the simple reason that for the most part they are dialogues where the master and his student sat facing each other and the whole thing was born then, and the context is terribly important. T h e one was afraid, and then came the answer to this fear. But how does one who is alone shake off fear? I am alone; how do I shake off that fear? Anandam brahmano vidvan na hibhetu kadacana. When one goes into that interior oneness, there is this bliss of Brahmanit is the bliss of what is beyond the self, beyond this personal self, the mask, the veil, beyond the personal selfmaybe there your mind, your description of the word, gains admission. Pir Vilayat: Dr. Panikkar, it seems RAIMUNDO PANIKKAR

to me that the paranoia from which most of us who are called upon to talk suffer, is probably because we feel that we are betraying by the word that which should be committed to silence, since t h e words deal with created things. When we say "silence," I think we mean the silence of all created things, a plane or level of consciousness where thoughts have subsided altogether. We are all trying to speak from that level, and it seems that when we do try to do this, we find that the only possible language is silence. Panikkar: T o draw u p a response is almost a contradiction. I think I understand, and to that extent share, your opinions. And yet, we may have symbolized two world-views in a rather c o n c r e t e a n d fascinating way. I wanted, rightly or wronglynot to go a step beyond, because then it would not be dealing really with t h e ultimateto present silence not as a language, the language of silence, but as the authentic source of every real word. That's why we are in a paradoxical situation. Silence dawns the moment we are situated there, at the very source of being, which is at the same time the source of the Word. That's why Word is Brahman, and why there are authentic and inauthentic words. And that's why the lie, untruthfulness, is perhaps the capital sin. As the Sathapatha Brahmana (II: 2 , 2 , 20) says: satyam eva upacara, "Worship first of all is truthfulness." On another level sorry, I shouldn't perhaps think of levelstruth is worship. I was trying to overcome the dichotomy between silence and word without falling into monism. I was trying to overcome the dilemma between monism which blurs everything and makes distinctions impossible, eliminating any tension (I spoke of the constitutive polarity of reality), and the dualism which splits, without any possible natural

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bridgethere can only be artificial effortswhere the important thing is to bridge the gap. In fact, there is another experience, which overcomes monism and dualism. I do not need now to call it advaita, or non-dualistic, but we may try to discover that source of any word on that ultimate level. By "word" I understand any expression, manifestation, icon, revelation, or being, as precisely what we try to symbolize as silence. But I was also trying to say that we cannot keep silence and word in a dialectical form of apprehension. It is only by allowing our word, our manifestation, our life, the revelation of being which we ourselves are, spirit and matter, it is only by allowing an authentic flow from that very source that the silence as source will dawn upon us. I should immediately add that the source of being is not being, but the source of beingbeing is already on this side of the curtain. Entering into silence is not an escape from the world, a dichotomy between the ultimate and the relative. It is to discover that the ultimate is only ultimate because I am speaking from the relative; and the relative is only relative because I discover that there is that relation which allows me to be silent from the ultimate point of view. This tension, which I emphasize here, cannot be grasped dialectically nor is it of a dialectical nature. Let me call it dialogical now without having to explain it further. Watts: I think a comment may be helpful. There's a saying in the Buddhist Scriptures that that which is void, that precisely is form; that which is form, that precisely is void. It sounds completely illogical to a Western mode of thinking, but if you think what you mean by the word "clarity," you can see it at once. It's a clear day, let us say, the sky is quite empty. Clarity also

means "articulate detail," which means the same thing. Both form and void are the one word "clear." It's a clear day; you are clear to me. Panikkar: And so it's transparent invisible. It means "I see through." Watts: I think you made a most important point when you distinguished non-dualism from monism; Christian theologians never got this clear, though they may be beginning to. For they always confused tat-tvanasi, or the Atman is Brahman, with monism. "Well, if we're all one glob," they say, "there can't be any love, because love implies relationship." But then what are you going to do with three persons in one God? If you believe in the Trinity, you can also stretch your mind or your imagination to the position of the Vedanta. Nondualism is a funny word, because it's used instead of oneness; but the opposite of oneness is either none or many. We need a word that expresses something which has no opposite, and that nevertheless doesn't oppose opposition. Now we can't express three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface, but we can employ a convention, which is a line with a slant to a vanishing point. This is all on a flat surface and is understood to represent the unrepresentable dimension of depth; we all see it, once we've discovered and experienced that convention. In exactly this way, all language is dualistic, for the simple reason that words are labels on boxesbecause you can't have an inside without an outside, with the peculiar exception of the Mbius strip, which is still another dimension. Since all language is like that, we invent this conventional word advaita, which is understood by everybody to represent the dimension beyond, transcending the opposites; we can't talk any sense about that in ordinary language, but we can know what it is.

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Professor Berry: One of the problems that emerges from this, which perhaps deserves some comment, is that a person may assume silence is one, whereas it's many. The key difficulty in the meeting of traditions is that silence has given rise to many words. Once we have gotten this far with relating silence and the Word, we might inquire how this helps in the reconciliation of opposed words. Panikkar: This is a real problem, and it would be preposterous to attempt an satisfactory answer now. Nevertheless, let me say that, for me, silence is neither one nor many. The unicity or multiplicity of silence is outside the question. You understand what I mean: I think 'he' is trying to drag me to that dialectical field, and I'm trying to defend myself, to keep myself from entering that field where 'he' is going to beat me. But that's the greatness and fragility of our enterprise. We are not in a polemical discussion. We are trying to explore an insight, and however right 'he' is in the field of dialectics, that is not my point. I would say two things: one, silence is neither one nor many; two, the Word is one. If I were to speak now (and I neither put labels on anybody nor like people to label me in any way) of Christian theology, I would say that for a Christian theologian it would not make a very great difficulty to say, "The Word, the Logos, is one." Creation, speaking in Christian terms, is a splitting of that Word into thousands of different voices, melodies, cacaphonies, etc. God speaks only once, but we hear it twice: the Logos and the world; again and again Christian liturgy and theology differentiate. And it is the business of creatures, first of all, to listen to that rhythm, and to reconstruct the Word. The Word that comes out of this reconstruction would be RAIMUNDO PANIKKAR

different (to speak again in categorical terms) from the Word which was at the beginning. That's why my comment to John 1:1 is, "at the end, the Word shall be." And in this between, this moment of silence, is an orchestra! Indeed, 'he' is absolutely right: our words are still many, too many, here in this in-between. (That's why I stop now.) Watts: According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it is the silent pause which gives sweetness to the chant . . . Nur (S. Durkee): . . . and the expression in Arabic, fihi-ma-fihi: in it is what is in it; with also the understanding of: not in it what is in it. In it what is not in it and not in it what is not in it. If we need time to discover the timeless, then we need words to discover the silence. There is no polarity between these two things, unless one is caught in the duality of East and West. It is a question of re-orientation rather than of trying to understand the ambiguity; we must try to perceive that which gives rise to it in the person. Sister Patrice O'Connor: We should entrust ourselves to the dynamism of whatever is happening. I find a real key in what you just said: that in the process the truth can be within meor within a person, in whatever proportion it may beand that process is just keeping it open. Nur: There is this thing of allowing "it" to fall into "that," and falling into that, failing to perceive what it is that is actually occurring each moment it occurs, which s creation. Watts: You know, Shkara says in his commentary on the Kena Upanishad that the Brahman or the Atman, which is the knower in all, is never itself an object of knowledge. So we can never put our finger on it. But we could demonstrate it with mudra, which is a Sanskrit word for gestures that people make. I have a Western mudra 167

sion, revelation. T o speak about silence is indeed a contradiction. Dr. J. Bruce Long: T h e root question, is: Why can we not let silence Here's the church and here's the speak for itself? steeple. Panikkar: We can. And to me that Open the door and there are the people. is the only real word. T h e rest is lies, Now here's the parson going up- banalities. T h e rest is just noise. stairs. Watts: It should be pointed out And here he is saying his prayers: Catch-'im, catch-'im, catch-'im, that Dr. Panikkar was silence speaking catch-'im, catch-'im . . . for itself. Nur: This is what I was trying to (When the right thumb is grasped by understand before: the questioning the left hand, the right hand pulls that exists between silence and what is away s u d d e n l y to grasp its own being said. Now I understand that it thumbin vain.) is all silence and that it is all being That's the history of religion. said, not in any way unclearlywhat Panikkar: And also the religion of is before you, is it. There is nothing historyotherwise we don't feel the else; this is it. This discrimination need to catch them. shows the need for re-orientation, for I have some written questions, and if there is not a re-orientation here, we a warning that my answers should be are left with endless discrimination beshort! One question (I shall take them tween: is it silence, or is it word? There as they have been given to me, without is nothing else that it is. This is it. any discrimination): Q.: "Is it not selfPanikkar: That's the reason why I contradictory to speak about silence at allowed myself to change the general such length?" Yes, it is. I have tried tide from "Word out of Silence" into to let silence speak, and I made a triple the "Silence of the Word." distinction for those who are interested Pir Vilayat: I'm thinking of a story in distinctions, of speaking about siof a murshid of my father (murshid lence, speaking around silence, and means guru). My father, who was a speaking silence. Only the third and very scholarly person, was initiated by latter is what I have tried to do all the a dervish in Hyderabad who was really time. T h e authentic word is not a unable to express himself in words. My cancer, an excretion of some confather was absolutely full of questions cocted material on the mental level, and found it very frustrating to come but the expression of real, lived exto his teacher and ask for an explanaperience, which has been fed by readtion of these things and not get a satisings a n d visits a n d failures a n d factory explanation. One day, as my prayers, and kneeling down and going father was repeating the zikkha, which out and being in all kinds of moods; it is a practice of the Sufis at night time, is an unveiling of that mystery which the teacher came in the room and said, reveals and conceals at the same time "I am the answer to your question." in the Wordunderstanding by Word And at the moment, he was the annot only Sabda-Brahman* but mainly swer. vac, not only the sound, the articuPanikkar: Another question here lated language, but any type of expresreads, "My occidental 'Latin' difficulty: *Sabda, pure sound, the Word identified How can I keep silence without words filling it?" My first quick answer is: with the Supreme Brahman. Ed.) which demonstrates it perfectly. All children know the beginning of it [demonstrates with his two hands]:

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don't! Don't keep such a silence! An elaboration of that could only be what I tried to say before, that any artificial effort at keeping silence remains barren, and shouldn't be made. The process, the ontogenesis I have tried to describe, culminates precisely in the moment: by entering into the Word, not denying or repressing the Word, I may discover the source out of which the Word speaks. T h en I will find that perhaps ninety percent of my words are absolutely unnecessary; after which I may enter into a silence which will make a powerful thing of any of my words, and all the rest will simply fall into silence. But we cannot keep silence without words filling it. T h e Western Latin difficulty is quite in order, because it is not a question of keeping silence, it's a question of discovering the Silence of the Word. A t h i r d question: " W h a t is the relationship of Word and Silence to d e t a c h m e n t ? " If it is a JewishChristian-Islamic background out of which this question appears, I would give one answer; if Hindu, a second one; if Buddhist, a third; and sophisticated as I fortunately or unfortunately am, if it comes from a secular background, I would elaborate a fourth type of answer. But let me assume it comes from a Jewish-Christian-Islamic background. All these three great Semitic religions, if you allow me this word, belong to the same family, and my immediate reaction is this: Nonattachment is that which prevents idolatry. Any type of idolatry, and the three main religions are fully in agreement, is the fundamental sin. T h e moment that I lose non-attachment both from any word and from this peculiar sui generis generalization b e t w e e n words and silence, I become an idolater, because I freeze the meaning of the word, I freeze my conception, my icon, my expression, my word, and this RAIMUNDO PANIKKAR

becomes a lethal relationship. I will refrain from quoting the Bhagavad Gita (111:19) but must remind you that asakta means un-attachment or non-attachment, not detachment, which is wrong because it is inhuman. Detachment: I'm not concerned, you can go to the dogsI don't care. This is not what the Gita counsels when it speaks of asakta. Were I to speak from the Buddhist point of view, I would just quote a Chinese Buddhist (I have gone to the sources time and again, and the first traceable source is a Chinese successor of the sixth Grand Patriarch who has uttered, in my opinion, one of the greatest possible religious utterances): "If you happen to see the Buddha, kill him." This is because the idea, the image, or the perception of Uve saviour is the greatest obstacle to realization at the moment that you really meet him. Watts: "It is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away . . ." Panikkar: Another question: "We do not possess a universal language, yet whence arises the need for such does that mean that we must die to Christ in order to be really Christian?" We do not possess a universal language, certainly. "Whence arises the need for such?" I can only say that this need arises when you feel such a need, not before. Let me quote a Father of the C h u r c h , Evagrius Ponticus: "Blessed are those who have reached infinite ignorance." T h e need for universal language only arises for those who feel that they do not yet speak a universal language. When you come to a man who is simplewe call them illiterateand he speaks to you so clearly in his language and cannot understand how you do not understand him, he is speaking a universal language. Not oryou, unfortunately, and that's why you need a translator, a betrayer of all that he wants to say, and 169

unfortunately in our Western civilization we have scores of such first-class blunderers. Let me give one example: fortunately or unfortunately, most of the learned books scholars write on the polytheistic attitude of Africans and some of the Indian sampradayas are not read by the people about whom scholars speak. Yet these academicians most commonly write without realizing that hardly anybody steeped in that socalled polytheistic world imagined or said what they imagine. These bookish observers, for example, consider the African's concrete act of worship as polytheistic because they see it only from the outside and fail to grasp that for him it is unique in each act. He speaks a universal language of which we don't have the key. We have lost the sense of that total attitude in which that very mode is exhausted in the existential act of worshipping that concrete form (idol, iconcall it what you like), and he doesn't have the kind of critical distance by which one can repeat that actand thereby make it inauthentic. T o use a Christian vocabulary, to feel the need for universal language is part of the sinful human condition. Had I to speak as a Hindu, it belongs to the reconstruction of the body of Prajapati. But once the need arises, I cannot bypass the question and pretend that I am speaking a universal language. Then I become very aware of my own limitations, and the other question immediately arises, "Does that mean that we must die to Christ in order to be really Christian?" It is a dear friend who has written that to me, and he will not take it amiss if I say that on this level I do not see the need to be Christian. But as I think I understand him, when he underscores the really Christian, I would say: 170

yes, provided this is done as a real dying to Christin real death and to Christ. T h e moment that you die with the second-hand knowledge that you're going to rise a g a i n , that is not a deathyou are already manipulating your Christian tradition. "Eli, eli lama sabbactani" is not the cry of a comedian who already has so much faith in his God that it could save him. And so you encounter the risk of not rising again, and that's the real death. All the rest is dialectical juggling. So the answer is, yes, but not in order to be a real Christian. Die to Christ, yes, because have you not discovered that it is the only way to live? Now comes another question which is not a question, but a whole mandala, followed by a question. T h e mandala speaks of the Father in interrogation: Neither being nor non-being, silence, 'en Arche; arrow to the icon-logos, to the smaller icon-myself, to the rest by a penchoresis, by a circumincessio, by a total cosmic movement which the author, also a friend of mine, calls the dance. It is a very good mandafa which I can only try to incorporate, and which I myself have drawn several times. "The question oitheosis, the divinization of man of which you speak is it in the realm of icon, of being? Or is it in the silence, neither being nor non-being?" May I assume that the question is clear? Let me give an answer which by its imperfection may qualify the question. It is in the realm of icon, in the realm of being; it is not in the realm of the Father. "You shall be gods," and Scripture cannot be put aside and minimized. "And he who eats me, etc., will be one with me." T h e divinization is to be one with the Icon, with the Logos: God of gods, light of lights, but the scar of our temporality remains even in the timeless. We shall become, using the Semitic tradition, God. God does

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not become God/ have become God. That is religious, because such dynamism is real. Incidentally, as you know, in the whole Vedic tradition maya doesn't mean illusion; it means precisely the power of the skti, of the whole dynamism of the world. So that the theosis is in the realm of the icon, in the realm of the Word, in the realm of the Son. That's why the Trinity is more than just a small mental device for distinguishing Christians from Muslims and Jews. Second question: "The homo-ousian quality of all things, especially of Word with Silence, seems to imply a complex paradox of this circumincessio of being/non-being plus neither being nor non-being." In capital letters: PLEASE EXPLAIN." Ex-plain: un-fold. Explain can come from explanare or from explicare. Explicareis not to make it plain, banal. Let us not reduce the complexity of reality to a few nice slogans, but unfold it. But I can only unfold if at the same time I try to keep both ends together in order to fold it again, nicely, so that it may be presented as a gift again, in full respect to you. Otherwise I will destroy the whole thing for my intellectual curiosity and then the explanation is making it plain and is simply destroying the mystery. "The homo-ousian quality of all things implies the complex paradox of this circumincessio of being/non-being plus neither being nor non-being." Yes, with the qualification that non-being is not a negative being, that with non-being we cannot manipulate, that non-being is not a kind of mathematical zero which helps in calculations with the mathematical infinite, that non-being is not another type of being on the negative side; that non-being is not the limit of being, as if being were limited by non-being; that non-being, on the level of which we are speaking, does RAIMUNDO PANIKKAR

not enter into the dialectical process of being/non-being so that you can play with being on the one side and nonbeing on the other; that this non-being is that Silence and that the relationship between being and non-being is not a dialectical relationship of opposition, but of origination. The Father begets the Sonwho is a real-begotten from the non-being, if you want to make this equation. So they are not on the same level. The circumincessio (and here I am uttering something which may be debatable to people who see tradition only as guarding the past, not trying to discover that tradition is to take and to pass on, thus looking towards the future)is not well represented by a circle, for it is not going back to the origins, it is a new creation. The spiral may perhaps be more appropriate but the spiral on three-dimensional levels where the point is still being created by the very fact that you go another circleso the paradox is this circumincessio in its spiral mode between being and non-being, not that one just goes back to the origins. We do not go back to the origins. We take the origins with us in order to proceed ahead, and this is the moment I discover that this pilgrimage is filled with them, that I cannot be satisfied by repeating words, or by just going back to the silence, but I am entering into that dance in which silence and non-silence, being and non-being, are a part in a way of which I am only aware once I have done itand committed the mistakesnot before. Meanwhile, I am just an ecstatic wave, maybe full of myself, and emptying myself with the dance. And others are going to give me a hand and tell me, "Brother, come here." And by this effortboth my committing the mistake and the others who excuse me the dance proceeds. Any other possible procedure is inconsistent here.

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