Why do we speak to one another?
Apart from the birds, who have the luxury of flight and of being able to remain at a safe distance from earthbound predators, most animals are very quiet. They only seem to make sounds when they are under threat or otherwise disturbed. Our domestic pets, especially dogs, are slightly different perhaps because they have taken on some of the characteristics of their human hosts and can relax into their environment with an elevated sense of physical security. Human beings, however, seem to delight in filling the world with noise. The result is that today across the civilised world it is very rare to ever find oneself in a place that is truly silent, free from the sound of human activity; unless one is very fortunate, it takes a deliberate amount of energy and effort to find such a place. Even inside our great cathedrals, their ancient stillness is more often than not covered over by music, by chanting, by casual chattering or by the clip-clop of shoes over the tombstones. There are very few manmade places where silence is built into the fabric of a building.
The human mouth is capable of making so many different sounds - crying, laughing, shouting, screaming, talking, whispering - that we tend to forget that all these sounds have their origin in the brain. Therefore, most of what we hear coming from the lips of another person has a very ancient history, just as old as the stones in those impenetrable cathedral walls.
Silence has no history because silence is not just an absence of noise. A silent mind has absolutely no relationship to what has come before and what comes after; it is not something that exists in a space between two sounds. This silent mind is in an altogether different dimension from the brain. The brain has a past and a future; the brain views and interacts with the world from this limited perspective; and the brain is totally reliant on thought.
Now, although I am speaking personally, as most people are inclined to do, what I am saying about the brain is not really all that personal because we have the same kind of brain. We have all been conditioned by our social environment and we are affected by and suffer from its deep-rooted influences. These are not personal opinions; these are impersonal descriptions of what is actually happening to us.
Personal comments about the silent mind, the one that appears to exist in another dimension of consciousness, may or may not have their place. But what seems to be rather obvious is that it is possible to continue to approach all of this quite impersonally once the distorting factor of our personal opinions is allowed to flower and die away. And the noises we make are often reflections of our personal opinions.
Clearly, there is no such thing as a humble opinion. Any opinion in the field of our psychological relationships has its roots in a very old form of arrogance. This too we can see for ourselves quite dispassionately and impersonally. It is not about falling into the logical absurdity of having an opinion about the danger of opinions. This is something that you and I can see together in a flash and be done with forever, if we put our minds to it. But if we are merely playing around with all this for our own amusement, weāll get diverted very quickly ā and it will inevitably be a diversion from and into the past.
Why do we speak to one another at all in a serious dialogue? Whatās the game we are playing? Obviously we must ask one another questions based on what we see happening both in the world around us and within ourselves ā there is no doubt about that ā but once a serious question has been put, are we giving it time to grow? Are we aware of the place from which even our smallest and most insignificant responses and utterances come? We are not talking of everyday, commonplace conversations where the need to speak is determined by surrounding circumstances. We are talking of all these times when we come together with others to look for just a little while at the complexity and the pain of our daily lives. Why do we offer opinions in a place like this on a forum like this or in any other form of serious dialogue? Why do we allow confusion to have any voice at all? What happens when there is only confusion and not a single word about it? Can confusion survive without the word?
Letās begin to find out.
