The Silence behind Life

There is a silence behind life as well as within it and it is only
in this more secret, sustaining silence that we can hear clearly
the voice of God. In the noise of the world we hear only altered
& disturbed echoes of it; for the Voice comes always-
who else speaks to us on our journey?- but the gods of the
heart, the gods of the mind, the gods of desire, the gods of
sense take up the divine cry, intercept it and alter it for their
purposes. Krishna calls to us, but the first note, even the opening
power or sweetness, awakes a very brouhaha of these echoes.
It is not the fault of these poor gods. The accent of power is
so desirable, the note of sweetness is so captivating that they
must seize it, they would be dull & soulless, there would be
no hope of their redemption if they did not at once leap at it
and make it their own. But in becoming their own, it ceases
to be entirely his. How many who have the religious faith and
the religious temperament, are following the impulses of their
heart, the cravings of their desire, the urgency of their senses,
the dictates of their opinion when they fully imagine that their
God is leading them! And they do well, for God is leading
them. It is the way He has chosen for them, & since He has
chosen it, it is the best & wisest & most fruitful way for them.
Still it is their God- not one they have made in their own
image as the Atheist believes, but One who makes Himself in
the image that they prefer, the image that best suits with their
nature or their development. ªIn whatever way men come to
me, in that way I love & cleave to them.º It is a saying of
fathomless depth which contains the seed of the whole truth
about God & religion. After all it is only in this way that the
conditioned can meet the Absolute, that which has a nature or
dharma of its own with that which is beyond all limit of nature
or dharma. After the meeting of the soul with God- well, that
is a different matter. The secrets of His nuptial chamber cannot
all be spoken.
Nevertheless, there is a higher way of meeting him than that
which leads us through subjection to the Gods. By perfect Love,
by perfect Joy, by perfect Satisfaction, by perfected mind one can
hear what the Voice truly says if not the Voice itself- catch the
kernel of the message with a sort of ecstatic perfection, even if
afterwards the Gods dilate on it & by attempting to amplify &
complete, load it with false corollaries or prevent some greater
fullness of truth from arriving to us. Therefore this way also,
though it is high, cannot be the highest.