Ken Knight
"What is truth?"
In this article Ken moves from well
known verses in St John’s Gospel to introduce a personal
enquiry into the nature of ‘truth’ as understood through
non-dualistic teachings. He takes references from within
the Christian mystical tradition as well as the theo-philosophy
of language from South Asia.
Part One
"Silent waiting on the truth, pure sitting
and breathing in the presence of the question mark."
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.
«What is truth?»
That was Pilate’s question to Jesus, John 18.38,
and we may ask the same question today as the world’s
religions once more seek our attention in a world that
may be becoming a global village but one too frequently
battered by tribalism and nationalism. With this question
there is a natural companion question, ‘How may we realise
truth?’ There is a well-known story of the blind men
brought to ‘see’ an elephant for the first time. Each
man touches a different part of the elephant and so
there are conflicts in their accounts. This is a story
which appeals to those who wish to show that truth is
not absolute but relative to the context of the individual
experience. Each person is correct in his or her own
context. However, even if we gathered all the descriptions
of the elephant together we could not produce a composite
picture that is accurate. Nevertheless, this failure
does not deny that there is an absolute ‘elephant truth’
and it is that absolute truth which we seek. Let us
return to Pilate’s question: Pilate said unto him, “What
is truth?” “And when he had said this, he went out again
unto the Jews, and said unto them, “I find in him no
fault.” Now we note that no spoken reply is attributed
to Jesus so would we be correct to imagine this scene:
Pilate asks his question and Jesus’ reply is a silence,
just a silence? But this silence is fullness and perfection
itself, truth itself, which is why when Pilate turns
away to face the people he can now tell them, “I find
in him no fault”. However, the people do not want, or
cannot ‘hear’ this silence through the words of Pilate
and so they choose to have let loose among them Barabbas,
whose name has been given to mean ‘son of confusion’.
This silence is ineffable, a silence which can only
be limited by words which are only pointers towards
the transcendent. Some people simply want to play in
the world of words and ideas for it is in that world
where their egos exist but truth-seekers aim beyond
words and thoughts. What is meant by saying that truth
is beyond the reach of words and thought? The answer
is that just as the sweetness of sugar is not expressible
in words nor conceivable by the mind, and has to be
understood by actually tasting it, so can truth be known
only by realisation and no amount of talking or imagining
can tell us what it is like. Like the Prodigal Son,
we can but turn our attention 180 degrees, repentance,
μετάνοια, to experience for ourselves
once more, maybe, what Pilate knew through Jesus’ silence.
St John of the Cross describes this action: ‘ If a soul
is seeking God, its Beloved is seeking it still more.
The soul must be attached to nothing, whether of sense
or spirit, which would introduce noise into the deep
silence. There the voice of God speaks to the heart
in this secret place, in utmost peace and tranquility.’
We may also receive instruction by the words of one
of the great teachers of the 20th. Century, Ramana Maharshi:
‘The inner silence is self-surrender. And that is living
without the sense of ego. Solitude is in the mind of
humanity. Silence is ever speaking; it is the perennial
flow of "language." It is interrupted by speaking;
for words obstruct this mute language. Silence is permanent
and benefits the whole of humanity. . . . By silence,
eloquence is meant. It is the best language. There is
a state when words cease and silence prevails.’ Or,
in the words of St Thomas Aquinas who suddenly stopped
his writing on theology: ‘All that I have written seems
to me nothing but straw....compared to what I have seen
and what has been revealed to me’ The last word of St
Thomas then was silence. But it was not death that took
the pen out of his hand. His tongue was stilled by the
superabundance of life in the mystery of God. He is
silent, not because he has nothing further to say; he
is silent because he has been allowed a glimpse into
the inexpressible depths of that mystery which is not
reached by any human thought or speech. Father Bede
Griffiths had sought to understand the non-dual, advaitin,
philosophy of India as taught by Shankara and it is
with Shankara’s hymn to Dakshinamurti, Shiva in the
form of a young man, that this section ends: ‘I praise
Dakshinamurti, the handsome youth who has transmitted
the truth of non-duality in Parabrahman through the
eloquence of silent speech; who is surrounded by a host
of venerable sages as disciples, all absorbed and established
in meditation upon Brahman; who is the Supreme Teacher;
who displays the joining of forefinger and thumb, the
sacred sign of union of the individual soul with the
Supreme Self which is the paragon of bliss; who has
a resplendent face full of the beauty which charms.
Part Two
We can now turn to another quotation from John, 14.6,
‘Jesus said unto him, “I am the way the truth and the
life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.”’ In
both this and the Pilate verse, the Greek word used
for ‘truth’ in St. John’s gospel is from ἀληθής,
alethes, and this is very important for us to consider
carefully. Beyond having the usual meaning from which
the problems of relative truth arise, there is something
here for our spiritual reflection. Lethe, in Greek mythology,
is the river of forgetfulness from which we drink at
our peril. This may remind some of us of the Indian
tale of Rama and Lakshmana. While with Rama, Lakshmana
knows who he really is but when he dives into a river
of worldliness he imagines himself as a child, a young
man, a husband and father, businessman etc and forgets
his brotherhood with Rama. His memory returns only after
he emerges from the river. So a-lethe means ‘not forgetting’
or ‘not covering’. Could it be that the teaching on
‘truth’ in St John’s Gospel is telling us not ‘to forget’
and thence ‘to uncover’ some hidden knowledge? (It may
be of interest to people that the etymology of the English
word ‘hell’ gives us the meaning of a ‘shelter’ or ‘covering’.)
If so, what is it that we must not forget or cover?
Did Jesus reveal that fulness of true knowledge through
his silence in reply to Pilate’s question, and is that
why Pilate could find ‘no fault in him’? Not only is
Jesus said to be the ‘Light of the World’ but each one
of us is also so named. Is it that fulness in Light
that should not be covered: ‘You are the light of the
world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither
do men light a candle and put it under a bowl but on
a candlestick; and it gives light to all that are in
the house.’ Matthew 5.14-15 And is there a
connection here when Thomas enquired, ‘How can we know
the way?’ to the Father’s house of many mansions when
he was given what may have been the mantra ‘I am the
way’, or could that simply be shortened to ‘I am’? This
I would like to explore. But first we must remember
the blind men and the elephant for the following is
but my own blind fumbling and is not given here to contradict
those who have an exclusivist approach in their religious
practice. My own path to the ‘I am’ which leads to the
Father has taken me through the scriptures of many traditions
and to their common teachings rather than their differences.
I apologise for any ignorance in the following.
The English ‘I am’, Greek
ἐγώ εἰμί,
ego eimi, may be related to the Sanskrit ‘ahum’,
‘I am’, which is a most important mantra. We
know that mantras have a long history in many religious
traditions and may be used to approach God with form,
saguna brahman in the Sanskrit, and ‘absolute’ beyond
name and form, nirguna brahman. I do not want to go
too far into these traditions here but rather to consider
how the tradition of the mantras developed in the Vedic
culture.
Part Three
To understand a little more on mantra we need to go
back to a time when people were in more immediate contact
with the physical elements and before the Vedic hymns
were written down in about 1500BCE. This is when the
Rgvedic poets, through their spiritual practice and
concentration upon questions such as, ‘How does the
One become many?’, spoke the hymns which were to become
the well-spring of Vedic teaching. As with John, they
understood the ‘divinity’ of the Logos, Word, which
is known as Vak in Sanskrit. These poets are said to
have ‘seen’ the mantras burning brightly…..the true
light that lights everyone coming into the world…………
and they spoke these ‘sounds’ or ‘mantras’ which, because
of their direct, immediate experience, were full of,
and identical with, their meaning. This is very important
for us to understand the connection between sound and
meaning in relation to the use of mantra in meditation.
Over time, sound and meaning become divorced. There
is a simple example in English. The word-sound ‘gay’
to me means ‘happy’, to my son it means ‘homosexual’,
to my grandson it means ‘pathetic, feeble’. All these
meanings come from the same sound but the original meaning
of that sound has become lost in the realms of linguistic
change. Here is a story that helps to explain this understanding
of the connection or disconnection of sound and meaning:
‘In the Vedic Vision the Word-faculty was even superior
to the Mind-faculty. Brihaspati, the Lord of the Word,
was a teacher of Indra, the Lord of Divine Mind. Indra,
who is considered to be the first grammarian, the creator
of Language, was a student of Brihaspati, learning from
him the original Sanskrit. The flow of the Brihaspati’s
speech was infinite, for the meaning and the sound were
identical, the sound itself was the meaning, as it were,
so whatever was sounding was true at that particular
moment of time in the Infinite; there was no gap in
the flow. Indra understood that he could never accomplish
his studies, for there was no end to it. So, he stopped
the flow of Brihaspati’s speech and cut it into pieces,
and created Grammar. He filled the sound-meaning with
the mental categories of subject, object, etc., creating
Language, separating the meaning and the sound. From
now the word, though having its own meaning, could be
applied in any context, relevant or irrelevant, indicating
the creation of time and space. This act of Indra was
seen as the act of creation, the separation of artha,
meaning and vak, sound, and connecting them with the
Grammar, the space in-between.’
This story suggests that we need to find in our spiritual
practices a way for the sounds and the meanings in the
‘revealed word’ to be experienced as one so that their
fullness can be uncovered. We can again find some guidance
in South Asian understanding of ‘The Word’ for this
is central to the ritual and the philosophy. Throughout
the long history of Vedic teaching there has been a
thread describing ‘four levels of speech’:
RgVeda I.164.45 "Speech hath been measured
out in four divisions, the brahmanas who have understanding
know them. Three kept in close concealment cause no
motion; of speech, men speak only the fourth division."
Again, this is too big a subject for now but briefly
we may note that in our everyday speech ‘on the tongue’
there is little understanding imparted and misunderstandings
dominate. That is the ‘fourth division’. Although our
words originate in a state of undifferentiated unity,
known as para, we first experience a movement in the
heart, a deep understanding, which we cannot manifest
fully in our speech. At the next level, intention begins
the process of division into the words that will emerge
from our lips, but who is it that can use these words
to fully share in our individual insight into truth?
We can only share our experience of the sweetness of
sugar by each one of us tasting sugar. And what then
is the purpose of a mantra? Having been revealed in
the mind-heart of the rishi, the mantra is offered to
us as a way back to the well-spring of silence where
absolute truth abides. We need to ‘taste’ the mantra
directly ourselves in the mind-heart so that the truth
held in the mantra can be realised. If we let go of
our blind convictions as to the partial truths about
the ‘elephant’, we will also have the vision of that
original rishi. Here is a late hymn from the Rgveda
where the poet describes this moment perfectly. He begins
by referring to the experience of the ancient wise seers
and then in the third verse states that he too has known
that eternal, ever-present truth:
"1. The wise with their heart and their mind
behold the Bird (the sun) adorned with all an Asura's
magic might. Sages observe him in the ocean's inmost
depth (the heart-mind): the wise disposers seek the
station of his rays (the manifestation of truth in name
and form) .
2 The flying Bird bears Speech within his spirit: first
the Gandharva in the womb pronounced it:
And at the seat of sacrifice ( the ritual or place of
meditation) the sages cherish this radiant, heavenly-bright
invention.
3 I saw the Herdsman (the sun), him who never resteth,
approaching and departing on his pathways.
He, clothed in gathered and diffusive splendour, within
the worlds continually travels."
(RgVeda X.177)
Again, there is much more that can come from this amazing
hymn than we have space for here. It is used here to
illustrate what may be some new ideas for people to
reflect upon.
Part Four
Our immediate point is that through concentration on
a mantra, the original sound and meaning may once again
be experienced, awakened, in their totality and the
sweetness of that mantra realised by each of us now,
in our own lives.
St John of the Cross understood this and wrote of it
when he described such awakening in the ‘The Living
Flame of Love’. He wrote: ‘How gently and lovingly you
wake in my heart where in secret you dwell alone’ He
then expands on this and writes: ‘For this awakening
is a movement of the Word in the substance of the soul,
containing such grandeur, dominion and glory, and intimate
sweetness……..’ He also describes the words heard there,
naming them as ‘Substantial Words’: ‘These issue from
that deep centre of the soul where the ‘human’ mingles
with the ‘divine’ and where no impurity is possible.
In this deep centre no demonic force can penetrate;
it is an area of the soul normally hidden from ourselves.
The word arising in this place ‘does more good for a
person than a whole lifetime of deeds.’ This is because
the word is fully and immediately experienced in that
moment so that: ‘If Our Lord should say to the soul
“Be good,” it would immediately be substantially good.’
In these words of St John of the Cross we may find a
link with the teaching on mantra. This may also give
us some insight into what Jesus unveiled in Pilate through
his silence before Pilate’s question. That is for you
to consider.
Now let us return to Thomas’ question to Jesus about
how we can find the way to the ‘Father’s house’. I am
proposing here that maybe Jesus gives him the ‘I
am’ mantra as the way and it matters not whether
we take that ‘I am’ to be an image of the incarnated
form of God or the essential Light that ‘lights everyone
that comes into the world’. If we allow the saying to
abide in silence in our mind-heart then it will reveal
its truth in all its glory. We just have to learn how
to listen in this way. For the Vedic rishis ‘I am’ is
the name of the atman-brahman, the drop of water identical
to the ocean within which it resides, the ocean of the
fullness of truth. There is a famous image given in
the Upanishads, (Mundaka 3.1.1, and Svetasvatara
3.20, 4.6-7) that presents two birds in the same
tree, one silently watching and the other tasting of
the fruit. There are different interpretations which
people may wish to discover for themselves but here
I would like to offer the source of that image which
is a Rgvedic hymn that includes a word omitted by the
later Upanishads: Rgveda I.164.22 ‘The tree
whereon the fine Birds eat the sweetness, where they
all rest and procreate their offspring, Upon its top
they say the fig is luscious, none gains it who knows
not the Father.’ This hymn, together with St John’s
verses we have considered above (*),
will help those who seek to understand the great spiritual
teachings granted to us, and end the forgetfulness that
covers the eternal reality that is beyond our normal
speech, so that the unity of which Jesus speaks may
be realised as we unite in his prayer to the Father:
‘I pray not that you should take them out of the world,
but that you should keep them from the evil. They are
not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify
them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As you have
sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them
into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself,
that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which
shall believe on me through their word; That they all
may be one; as thou, Father, [are] in me, and I in thee,
that they also may be one in us: that the world may
believe that you have sent me. And the glory which you
gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even
as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they
may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know
that you have sent me, and have loved them, as you have
loved me.’ St. John 17.15-23
In summary then, truth is beyond the powers of our
usual speech patterns and so there are teachings in
the world’s religions that point to the transmission
of truth through silent awareness. Those who have, through
their spiritual practice and insight, known this level
of consciousness have also given us mantras which embody
aspects of that vision. These mantras, one being ‘I
am,’ are the way to the Father who reveals the sweetest
of all fruits, a unity without ‘any fault’. We can stay
facing the Lord who reveals this or we can turn again
to the confusion of partiality.
I end by repeating the quotation with which I began:
"Silent waiting on the truth, pure sitting
and breathing in the presence of the question mark."
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.
(*) Pilate said
unto him, “What is truth?” “And when he had said this,
he went out again unto the Jews, and said unto them,
“I find in him no fault.”
‘Jesus said unto him, “I am the way the truth, and the
life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.”’
©Ken Knight
hilken_98@yahoo.com
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