Writings

Dialogue weaves its own pattern in the flow of insight, beyond the mere exchange of opinions and argumentation. True dialogue is the expression of Unitary Perception, beyond all forms of fragmentation and division.

Dialogue, like music, needs silence in its nature and its flow.

True dialogue sharpens intelligence and beyond mere thinking there is alert perception of all the sounds that get to our ears and all feelings that flow within during the dialogue itself.

Impersonal insights emerge from such a dialogue with a quiet mind.

No dialogue is possible without basic good will, freedom of communication, and a spirit of friendship.

Dialogue may be defined provisionally as: “One or more people gathering together in seriousness to ask one question and explore the simplest answer.”

If a few illumined or liberated men discovered something inexpressible in words all along man’s history, we should be able to explore that liberation in dialogue, trying to re-discover the “unknown or inexpressible” in the crystallized words they have left for us.

If we could ask a question while we feel it deeply, while we feel our weight and listen to all sounds at the same time, that question would have a different quality in itself.

Higher and higher leaps into insight may only emerge from deeply felt questions.

True dialogue is not debate, but leads to a sudden form of learning that we may call “insight.”

The teacher is the deeply felt question itself. The question may emerge from oneself, from a child or from a historical sage, but what matters in terms of getting an insight from a question is simply whether it was deeply felt or not. Was the question ardent and passionate?

A passionate question unites the questioner with the collective consciousness of mankind independent of time. From that Unitary Perception of consciousness emerges insight. A dialogue in Unitary Perception is audible meditation.

History claims that the quest for truth and insight can be carried out either through a sage or teacher, through a teaching or doctrine, or by oneself.

If one is able to ask deeply felt questions with intelligence, then truth and insight will emerge in the serious dialogue with oneself and others equally serious.

Teachers and teachings are of no value if there is no one left to ask deeply felt passionate and burning questions.

In true listening to a question and the many answers to it, there is true learning. It doesn’t matter where the many different answers come from.

Learning occurs even in good natured teasing and witty joking, because bantering is one of the many answers a question may get.

Good will in dialogue means listening to the sound of words without the word, which is only total unbiased listening in unitary, global perception of space without time.

If you state what is happening, you can’t go beyond, but if you see and perceive “what is,” then you immediately go beyond. In Unitary Perception you go beyond.

If you start a dialogue without being in Unitary Perception, in total unfocused attention, you only start a monologue.

Monologues occur constantly both with oneself and with others whenever you stop listening to all sounds at the same time.

If you ask someone else whether he or she is asking a deeply felt question, then you fall into monologue and away from true dialogue. You have to ask yourself which is your most burning question right now in order to start a true dialogue.

You may believe you do not even have a burning question to ask.

Having dialogues about dialogue is an intellectual sterile conversation. True dialogue starts with a burning question and a simple answer, even when the answer is silence.

Silence is more meaningful than an intellectual exchange of opinions or a debate, if one is truly listening to silence.

In true listening both the one who “knows” and the one who “doesn’t know” disappear.

In true dialogue we may ask whether we are in Unitary Perception and if we are not… why not?

If you are not at peace… why not?

In finding out “why not,” peace comes.

But if you believe you are at comfortable peace and pose the question “Why am I not at peace?” then you are just an intellectual, only good for metaphysics or epistemology, but not good for true dialogue.

True dialogue is based upon burning, raw, real questions, of a sincere person living a true life.

“Why Am I not at peace?” is a raw and burning question only for those who have been at peace at least once and know the meaning of not being at peace now.

A true dialogue may not be possible among those who know no peace.

A true dialogue may not be possible among those that are not interested in leading a true and whole life.

Waiting for your turn to speak is not true dialogue.

Great space, distance, and silence between words and sentences are necessary for true dialogue. Silence then pervades true dialogue and is part of every sentence. Silence is not only at the end of a sentence.

In every dialogue there has to be logic, rationality, and continuity but also the insight, which is a deeper and sudden understanding. Insight emerges from intelligent and living silence.

Sudden insight in true dialogue is not arbitrary rejection or whimsical acceptance of anything. Acceptance and rejection are intellectual forms of indulgence, or emotional resistance to truth, but not true dialogue.

Any escape into irrelevant subjects may transform true dialogue into a desultory and superficial conversation and so both indulgence and resistance recur.

A different form of intellectual indulgence, or laziness, is to answer from previous knowledge or previous analysis, formulas or conclusions.

In true dialogue only present discovery (or seeing together right now) occurs, in this way insights and discoveries have tremendous vitality.

A sage or a seer discovers fresh answers in a dialogue but a scholar simply lays down a story or a previously respected conclusion.

A sage starts with a burning, real question; a scholar will tell you a story and the story may be real or imaginary, interesting, or boring.

A seer has no direction: he will avoid pitfalls, but a scholar will lead his followers in the way with a pre-conceived direction, even if it is into the pit itself.

A clarification of meaning is only a theoretical fragment of an answer.

A clarified theory or concept is only an opinion but not a true answer.

Sometimes we have to get to the ultimate reasoning, or paradox, to have a direct perception or insight. But insight is not the result of sequential thinking, nor is it the result of a very bright speech or definition.

Insight is not a contingency of the logic of reason but rather of the logic of truth and the life for truth.

Communication in true dialogue comes out without any effort. This absence of effort is the hallmark of the supreme energy evoked or liberated in Unitary Perception.

In Unitary Perception discourse and dialogue are not separate.

After the emergence of a burning and real question, the difference between discourse and dialogue is never relevant. What matters is the burning question.

A burning question will not be answered by Socrates, Buddha, Jesus or Krishnamurti; it will be answered only by the questioner himself in the very silence of a mind engaged in true dialogue.

A mind in the silence of Unitary Perception will not separate between the one who knows the answer to the burning question and the one who doesn’t. The answer emerges only to the listening silence of the mind.

THE LISTENING SILENCE OF THE MIND ENCOMPASSES EVERY WORD AND, OF COURSE, GOES BEYOND ALL WORDS, ARGUMENTS, OPINIONS, PREJUDICE, DEFINITIONS, IMAGES, SYMBOLS, AND THOUGHT.

No doubt will be necessary for a mind which is burning with the intensity of a really agonizing question.

The burning question will make “the vessel of the mind open, free or empty, stable and whole” to be able to receive the answer from the unknown, no matter whether the listener likes the answer or not.

The burning question cannot be taught, suggested, hinted or imposed; otherwise it would not be truly burning the questioner himself.

Using a metaphor we can say the question is the ocean and the answer is the rain. Peace of mind is seeing the unity of water.

Man doesn’t live by bread alone and the need for the introduction of true dialogue in human life becomes more obvious every day.

The main thing to give in true dialogue is listening.

If any emotional reaction occurs in dialogue it has to be perceived fully and quickly before one starts to talk. Talking from an emotional reaction is the end of true dialogue.

When one listens fully, there is vast silence and the body is very quiet. So a still mind and a still body are the hallmark of true dialogue.

Listening fully implies being aware of the depth of sound when one listens to the sound within sound.

Can we listen to a burning question in total stillness without contriving a response, but simply energetically listen like a seed bursting with life under the ground ?

If you only think about the question, you may not be receiving it; you may not be listening to it.

Awareness of all the physical, emotional or intellectual responses to a question is part of the answer to the question.

Total awareness of the question, and the many responses to it, is necessary before any answer is given in true dialogue.

See what happens if we ask ourselves: Are we afraid to love without defense?

Are we afraid of being alone?

Am I related to anyone?

Am I at peace?

Do I think a lot about money and prestige and respect?

Am I afraid of acting?

Is mankind degenerating?

Am I using philosophical or superficial questions to avoid true dialogue and my own real regeneration in true action?

Do I have any burning question to start dialogue?