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Pearls of Wisdom : Teaching through Silence |
We hear that Lord Daksinamurti revealed through silence, the truth of oneself being Brahman, the limitless, to the four disciples, Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumara and Sanatsujata. This story is often cited to prove that silence is the means of communicating the ultimate truth, not words. This notion has turned many a person away from the sastra. It is important, therefore, to understand the truth of this concept.
What does silence convey? If it is a response to a question, silence can be construed differently by the people waiting for a verbal answer. Ignorance, difficulty, reluctance to answer, inexplicability, definition (laksana) of the subject in question or even hostility can be the construed meaning of silence. In other words, the person who wants to know, who is ignorant of the subject, is placed to interpret the silence! Suppose the question is "What is God?" or "Who am I?", the person asking the question has no knowledge of the subject to interpret the response that is silence. Don't we see here not only an absence of communication but also an opening for error?
If the knowledge of the Self is beyond the pale of perception and inference, it has got to be gained by a means of knowledge entirely different from the ones that a human being is endowed with. In other words, it has got to be from a source which is eternally knowing. Like even the uncaused cause of the world, the source of knowledge should not have a source. If the Lord, Isvara is looked upon as the uncauses cause of the world, then the source-free source of knowledge is the same Isvara who is looked upon as the teacher of all teachers. That source is presented in the form of Daksinamurti.
Various rituals, devatas etc., have got to be revealed, inasmuch as they are not available for the means of knowledge a human being has.
Similarly, this knowledge also is revealed. The rsis who received the knowledge of rituals etc. were not taught by any person external to them. And that is why, they are called sears, mantradrastarah. In other words, that body of knowledge is revealed to the rsis and they, in turn, reveal the knowledge through words. So too, the Lord revealed himself to the sanakadi-rsis as non-separate from them and they, inturn, taught the same through words. In fact, in the Chandogya Upanisad we see a dialogue between Sanatkumara, one of the four rsis, who received the knowledge from the Lord and narada. We also see the teaching of Sanatsujata through words presented in Mahabharata. So the teaching tradition has always been through words. And the tradition knows the limitation of words.
Since the tradition knows the limitation of words, it has employed with great care paradoxes to reveal the truth. The sampradaya has always looked upon the words revealing the truth as laksana which reveals by implication. In fact, the Upanisad does not leave us in any ambiguity about his twofold fact that words have to be employed to reveal the truth, that is not the immediate meaning of the words. That it is not the immediate meaning of the words is also the reason why we say that it is beyond words. In fact, where the immediate meaning of the word ends, the implied meaning begins. So the implied meaning is conveyed in silence. That does not mean the word has no role to play. Even to imply, the word is a must. Neither silence is the svarupa of the Lord nor is any given sound. But both silence and sound are nonseparate from God, he being both the efficient and the material cause.