A Few Thoughts on the
Ocean of Deep Consciousness
Max Picard
In the Fables of the Golden Age we are told that men
understood the language of animals, trees, flowers, and grasses
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Editorial Note:
The following excerpts
are taken from
the book “The World of Silence”, by
Max Picard
(1888-1965), Gateway / Henry
Regnery,
Chicago, USA, 231 pages, 1964.
The numbers of
pages are indicated in
parenthesis at
the end of each fragment.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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1. An Objective Reality
Silence is a
basic phenomenon. That is to say, it is a primary, objective reality, which
cannot be traced back to anything else. It cannot be replaced by anything else;
it cannot be exchanged with anything else. (p. 21)
2. Language and Silence Belong Together
Silence is not simply what happens when we stop
talking. It is more than the mere negative renunciation of language; it is more
than simply a condition that we can produce at will.
When language ceases, silence begins. But it does not
begin because language ceases. The
absence of language simply makes the presence of Silence more apparent.
Silence is an autonomous phenomenon. It is therefore
not identical with the suspension of language. It is not merely the negative
condition that sets in when the positive is removed; it is rather an
independent whole, subsisting in and through itself. It is creative, as
language is creative; and it is formative of human beings as language is formative,
but not in the same degree.
Silence belongs to the basic structure of man.
It is not the intention of this book, however, that
the reader should be led to a “Philosophy of Silence”, nor that he should be
misled into despising language. It is language and not silence that makes man
truly human. The word has supremacy over silence.
But language becomes emaciated if it loses its
connection with silence. Our task, therefore, is to uncover the world of
silence so obscured today - not for the sake of silence but for the sake of
language.
It may seem surprising that anything can be said about
silence through the medium of language, but only if one thinks of silence as
something completely negative. Silence is, on the contrary, a positive, a
reality, and language has the power to make assertions about all reality.
Language and silence belong together: language has
knowledge of silence as silence has knowledge of language. (Introduction, pp. 15-16)
3. The Background of Silence
In a world in which silence is still an active force,
a thing is related more with silence than with other things. It stands on its
own, belongs to itself more than in the world without silence, where things are
interconnected but no longer in relation to silence. In the world of silence a
thing offers its being to man directly; it stands immediately before him as
though it had just been brought by a special act out of the silence. It stands
out clearly against the background of silence. There is no need to add anything
to it to make it clear. (p. 79)
4. A Hidden Fund of Reality
Every object has a hidden fund of reality that comes
from a deeper source than the word that designates the object. Man can meet
this hidden fund of reality only with silence. The first time he sees an
object, man is silent of his own accord. With his silence, man comes into
relationship with the reality in the object which is there before ever language
gives it a name. Silence is his tribute of honour to the object.
This hidden fund of reality cannot be taken up into
the human language.
Man does not lose anything because he cannot express
this hidden fund of reality in words. Through this literally unspeakable fund
of reality man is brought into relationship with the original state of things
before the advent of language, and that is important. Furthermore, this hidden
fund of reality is a sign that things are not created and not combined by man
himself. If things were due to man’s creation, he would know them absolutely by
language. (pp. 78-79)
5. The Golden Age
In the Fables of the Golden Age we are told that men
understood the language of all animals, trees, flowers, and grasses. That is a
reminder of the fact that in the first
language that had just come from the fullness of silence, there was still the
all-containing fullness.
This language climbed upwards toward the vault of
heaven at the same time.
It formed an arch over all the sound of the earth, and
all the sounds of the whole of nature met together. As everything that rises
from the earth is taken up into the vault of heaven, so all the voices of the
earth were taken up by the one heaven of language. Every single voice entered
in and became a part of it, and therefore every voice was understood. This
heaven of the languages was the homeland of all voices; they all came to
themselves and to each other in this heaven. This language was unobtrusive
despite its powerfulness, as unobtrusive as silence itself.
The ancient languages are constructed radially, always
beginning from and returning to the centre that is silence, like a fountain
with its jets all starting in an arc from the centre, returning to it and
disappearing in it. (pp. 56-57)
6. Beauty in the Absence of Sound
Poetry comes out of silence and yearns for silence.
Like man himself, it travels from one silence to another. It is like a flight,
like a circling over silence.
Just as the floor of a house is inlaid with a mosaic,
so the floor of silence is inlaid with poetry. Great poetry is a mosaic inlaid
in silence. (p. 145)
7. The Perception of the Nameless
Silence reveals itself in a thousand inexpressible
forms: in the quiet of dawn, in the noiseless aspiration of trees towards the
sky, in the stealthy descent of night, in the silent changing of the seasons,
in the falling moonlight, trickling down into the night like a rain of silence,
but above all in the silence of the inward soul, - all these forms of silence
are nameless: all the clearer and surer is the word that arises out of and in
contrast to the nameless silence.
There is no greater natural world than the natural
world of silence; no greater world of spirit than the linguistic world of
spirit formed by the natural world of silence.
Silence is a world in itself, and from this world of
silence speech learns to form itself into a world: the world of silence and the
world of speech confront each other. Speech is therefore opposed to silence,
but not as an enemy: it is only the other side, the reverse of silence. One can
hear silence sounding through speech. Real speech is in fact nothing but the
resonance of silence. (pp. 26-27)
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Some of the above
fragments from Max Picard’s book “The World of Silence” are included in “The
Aquarian Theosophist”, February 2018 edition, pp. 3-4, and March 2018 edition,
pp. 2-3.
See more
paragraphs by Max Picard in the November 2017 edition of “The Aquarian
Theosophist”, pp. 5 to 7.
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The article “The Power of Silence” was published in
our associated websites on 27 January 2019.
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On 14 September 2016, a group of students decided to
found the Independent Lodge of
Theosophists. Two of the priorities adopted by the ILT are learning from the past and building a better
future.
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