In the light of silence, all problems are dissolved. This light is not born of the ancient movement of thought. It is not born, either, out of self-revealing knowledge. It is not lit by time nor by any action of will. It comes about in meditation. Meditation is not a private affair; it is not a personal search for pleasure; pleasure is always separative and dividing. In meditation the dividing line between you and me disappears; in it the light of silence destroys the knowledge of the me. The me can be studied indefinitely, for it varies from day to day, but its reach is always limited, however extensive it is thought to be. Silence is freedom, and freedom comes with the finality of complete order.
It was a wood by the sea. The constant wind had misshapen the pine trees, keeping them short, and the branches were bare of needles. It was spring, but spring would never come to these pine trees. It was there, but far away from them, far away from the constant wind and the salt air. It was there, flowering, and every blade of grass and every leaf was shouting, every chestnut tree was in bloom, its candles lit by the sun. The ducks with their chicks were there, the tulips and the narcissi. But here it was bare, without shadow, and every tree was in agony, twisted, stunted, bare. It was too near the sea. This place had its own quality of beauty but it looked at those faraway woods with silent anguish, for that day the cold wind was very strong; there were high waves and the strong winds drove the spring further inland. It was foggy over the sea, and the racing clouds covered the land, carrying with them the canals, the woods and the flat earth. Even the low tulips, so close to the earth, were shaken and their brilliant colour was a wave of bright light over the field. The birds were in the woods, but not among the pines. There were one or two blackbirds, with their bright yellow beaks, and a pigeon or two. It was a marvellous thing to see the light on the water.
He was a big man, heavily built, with large hands. He must have been a very rich man. He collected modern pictures and was rather proud of his collection which the critics had said was very good. As he told you this you could see the light of pride in his eyes. He had a dog, big, active and full of play; it was more alive than its master. It wanted to be out in the grass among the dunes, racing against the wind, but it sat obediently where its master had told it to sit, and soon it went to sleep from boredom.
He was a big man, heavily built, with large hands. He must have been a very rich man. He collected modern pictures and was rather proud of his collection which the critics had said was very good. As he told you this you could see the light of pride in his eyes. He had a dog, big, active and full of play; it was more alive than its master. It wanted to be out in the grass among the dunes, racing against the wind, but it sat obediently where its master had told it to sit, and soon it went to sleep from boredom.
Possessions possess us more than we possess them. The castle, the house, the pictures, the books, the knowledge, they become far more vital, far more important, than the human being.
He said he had read a great deal, and you could see from the books in the library that he had all the latest authors. He spoke about spiritual mysticism and the craze for drugs that was seeping over the land. He was a rich, successful man, and behind him was emptiness and the shallowness that can never be filled by books, by pictures, or by the knowledge of the trade.
The sadness of Life is this - the emptiness that we try to fill with every conceivable trick of the mind. But that emptiness remains. Its sadness is the vain effort to possess. From this attempt comes domination and the assertion of the me, with its empty words and rich memories of things that are gone and never will come back. It is this emptiness and loneliness that isolating thought breeds and keeps nourished by the knowledge it has created.
It is this sadness of vain effort that is destroying man. His thought is not so good as the computer, and he has only the instrument of thought with which to meet the problems of life, so he is destroyed by them. It is this sadness of wasted life which probably he will be aware of only at the moment of his death - and then it will be too late. So the possessions, the character, the achievements, the domesticated wife, become terribly important, and this sadness drives away love. Either you have one or the other; you cannot have both. One breeds cynicism and bitterness which are the only fruit of man; the other lies beyond all woods and hills.