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What Jesus hears is not heard at all, for what the Father says and Jesus speaks merges out of the Unity of Love. Jesus dilutes the word of the Word by merely indicating it in words, by mind-ing what is in the Silence. So, the language Jesus hears is not wordable, yet he must speak it - word it - into form. The Word, by nature, seeks to express Itself; the Truth cannot remain silent, though its first word, and unspeakable, is Silence.
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Hence, when centering down to enter the Silence, the Word we listen to is equivalent to Presence, or Spirit. The first language, the fount of all others, is Truth Itself. Hence, to encounter the Word, before being prepared to live in unity with It, we do the opposite of what many say. While many speak of quieting the mind, we are, instead, relaxing into awareness of, attention to, and presence with Presence, our words slowly dissipating back into the Nothing that speaks the first language, speaking Itself into Creation. Hence, the mind dissolves back into the Light, not through our efforts to quiet it, but from releasing it back into Spirit. Even more accurate would be to say Spirit draws the mind back into Itself. Then, we are resting, spirit-with-Spirit. Through this process, the mind slowly loses its power to veil the Word of Life over and over. We live more and more, over time and entering daily times of centering down, in the Luminosity that Buddhists speak of, or the Contemplative Awareness that Christians speak of - both are the same, for in the Unity all converge in the nexus of Oneness.
Story of the First Langauge
Now, how do we lose this feeling-communion with the Word? Knowing how we lost sensitivity to the first language, we might know better the means to go forward beyond our words, so back to the Word.
Three days after I was born, I lay in my silken cradle, gazing with an astonishing alarm on the new world around me. My mother spoke to the wet-nurse, "How's my child doing?" The wet-nurse said, "He's doing well, Madame, I have fed him three times, and never before have I seen a baby this young so happy." I was incensed, and I cried, "It's not true, mother! My bed is hard, the milk I have sucked is bitter to my mouth, and the odor of the breast is foul in my nostrils, and I'm most miserable!" But my mother did not understand, nor did the nurse, for the language I spoke was that of the world from which I came.
On the twenty-first day of my life, while being christened, the priest said to my mother, "You should indeed be happy, Madame, that your son was born a Christian." I was surprised, and I spoke to the priest, "Then your mother in Heaven should be unhappy, for you weren't born a Christian." But the priest did not understand my language.
At age seven, a soothsayer looked at me, and he said to my mother, "Your son will be a statesman and a great leader." But I cried out, "That's a false prophet! I shall be a musician, and nothing but a musician shall I be!" But even at that age, my language was not understood - and great was my astonishment.
And when age thirty-three - my mother, the nurse, and the priest have all died (the shadow of God be upon their spirits) -, the soothsayer still lives. Yesterday, I met him near the temple gates. While we talked, he said, "I've always known you would become a great musician. Even in your infancy, I prophesied, foretelling your future." And I believed him, for I, too, have now forgotten the language of that other world.
A Time to be Quiet in the Quiet ~ A Musing
Amid words, ideas, what others fill our heads with, the language of that other world is lost. Do we ever think or speak anything fresh and native, from the unborn? Do we do anything but repeat, without acknowledging we say or sing nothing original, for we have forgotten the unborn voice?
The language of another world is in our hearts - we could say this. Yet, could it be this language is closest to silence spanning the before and after of our brief lives? Or is it some subtle feeling we feel but deserves to be called something other than a feeling - maybe a sense?
Possibly, the most eloquent and truthful thing we can say about the secret language is nothing. And as we sit and question, can we let that we cannot fathom remain unanswered but known? If so, we can become that we meet in silence, as the Word reaches out and touches us anew and breathes within us again.
Continued... |
