The ancients from the East tell us that ‘those who know, do not say; those who say, do not know.’ IT cannot be said; only the opposite can be said. The teacher cannot give you the truth; this type of truth cannot be put into a formula — much less into words. Your teacher can point out your errors. When you drop your errors, you will come to know the truth; you will come to know reality. I remember a scene from a movie where an elderly professional had just pointed out to a younger professional the error of his ways; the younger professional turned and looked at his elder and asked with some energy, ‘Who do you think you are, my teacher?’ And the elder smiled (as all elders smile at these times) and replied, ‘That I am!’
The great mystics show us; model for us. The great Catholic mystic, Thomas Aquinas, toward the end of his life, wouldn’t write or talk; he had ‘seen.’ He kept silent because he had ‘seen’ and what he had ‘seen’ could not be put into words. During my third journey to Singapore I was introduced to Durian. After returning to the States, folks would ask me to describe Durian. ‘What does it taste like?’ ‘What does it smell like?’ Now anyone who has experienced Durian knows that these questions cannot be answered. ‘Durian smells like well-worn sweat socks and tastes so sweet.’ It is illegal in Singapore to bring Durian indoors because of its odor. Most people seize upon the words and assume the words are reality; assume the words are ‘truth.’ Some of us take the words, not the experience, and write our doctoral thesis on them. Some become experts without ever having experienced ‘Durian.’ There is a man who wrote many books during his life time and was considered to be a management guru; he was always puzzled by this for as he said, ‘I have never managed anyone.’ He had observed others with their ‘Durian’ but he never directly experienced it himself.
How about ‘God,’ rather than ‘Durian.’ Our mystic Thomas Aquinas wrote: ‘About God, we cannot say what He is but rather what He is not. And so we cannot speak about how He is but rather how He is not.’ Aquinas tells us that there are three ways of knowing God: (1) in the creation, (2) in God’s actions through history, and (3) in the highest form of the knowledge of God — ‘to know God as the unknown.’ The highest form of talking about God is to know that one does not know. Now, this is no Zen Master speaking to us, this is a mystic of the Catholic Church — To know God as Unknown. Aquinas even stated that God is ‘unknowable.’ Truth, reality, God, love are unknowable; they cannot be comprehended by the thinking mind. If one believes this many questions would be set to rest because the illusion that we know would be set aside — we would ‘see’ the error and we could then set the ‘error’ aside.
Searcher-Seeker 
Leave a Reply