In writing this column, I sometimes clash with a part of my brain which offers advice. "Read other columns, write in the first person, tell instructional stories: entertain and inform. Above all", suggests my brain's advisory bulletin, "be practical and relevant." In a word, be reasonable.
Fortunately, something else arises within me. It is a wordless, implacable force, impatient, even furious. After a few minutes of this counsel, I become quite clear that I do not particularly want to entertain or instruct you. I do not want to inform you. I most certainly do not want to be reasonable. I see that I want to give what is not mine to give. Nonetheless, it can be given through me, as it can through you. I want to give the gift of Spirit in its eternal pose of silence and love.
I truly love inspiring collisions with Spirit, these great serendipities of dangerous perceptions and wild abandon that create huge disturbances in our reason. I would like to be that cosmic sax player whose riffs are the wordless, furious Silence that blows life into all things and exists before "conventional" knowing.
In this silence we shall come to know our own Self. In this Self knowing, we enter the bodies of the ancients, the seers, the sages. We become the distillation of all religions, all paths, all that is sacred and holy. We become the essence of being, the Self. It is right there, within us, eager to be known and heard.
One does not come to insight and wisdom through reason and information: one is only persuaded or convinced. But even in that persuasion we are like a clock tick-tocking towards yet another "epiphany" of reason. These epiphanies of reason are endless. They do not reach silence, they do not touch our soul. They only grease the gears and pulleys of the mind.
The soul needs another lubricant; the soul needs to feed-no, to feast-on inspiration. Gorging on inspiration, the soul explodes in love. To know what must be known about ourselves, we must catapult from all that is reasonable.
So, let the relevance of this column be found not in reason but in inspiration. May we be taken by it into the vital part of ourself, perhaps forgotten, perhaps ignored, but compelling beyond reason. This vital part is our wholeness. It does not need to be put together piecemeal like a puzzle. It is not an idea or false hope. It is a fact. The living wholeness of our Self is found in silence.
Let me assert something without reservation: inspiration is practical, Self knowledge is relevant, love is essential. Let this silence and this love of the Self affect us, takes us, overwhelm us. Let us give ourselves to this as to music, to reverie, to beauty. Let the silence that we are create a cataclysm of clarity in our lives!
Let our doubts and confusion meet this living wholeness. Let our rage and torment meet this living wholeness. Let our unquenchable cravings meet this living wholeness. Let our efforts to bring peace into our lives and into the world meet this living wholeness, the sacred Self of all whose name is love, creator of the universe.
I have named this column Echoes of Silence. This supreme silence, this primordial essence, this breathing spirit is crawling at warp speed through every tree's sap-channel and through every lovely child's mystery; it shapes the calls of wild dogs, and blesses the collapse of stars as they sip their own mortality. Let us celebrate and remember that we are that silence.
May everyone be at peace, in love, and know their most perfect Self.
Robert Rabbin is an author, speaker, and advisor. He can be reached via e-mail at robrabbin@infoasis.com, or by writing: 2629 Manhattan Ave., Ste. 192, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254. His new book, The Sacred Hub (The Crossing Press, ISBN: 0-89594-837-0), is available in bookstores or from the publisher at (800) 777-1048.
"Echoes in Silence" is a bi-weekly column by Robert Rabbin--author, speaker, and advisor--who has spend thirty years using self-inquiry as a means to explore the true nature of self, mind, reality, and consciousness.
His new book, The Sacred Hub (The Crossing Press, ISBN: 0-89594-837-0), is available through the bookstores nationwide.