Omkaradatta's quotes

Silence is never-ending speech. Vocal speech obstructs the other speech of silence.

In silence one is in intimate contact with the surroundings.

The silence of Dakshinamurti removed the doubts of the four sages.

Mouna vyakhya prakatita tatvam, (Truth expounded by silence). Silence is said to be exposition.

Silence is so potent.

For vocal speech, organs of speech are necessary and they precede speech.

But the other speech lies even beyond thought.

Mean dreams
Of a sea of light
Glittering and glinting harshly
At the edge of my sight

I try to rise,
Only to find
I'm stuck here in a glinting place
Too much sun
On the sea of my Being.

Suntan oil,
Must needs be called for,
Or maybe
Just a swim in the sea.

Fishes nearby,
Too bright to swim
So they sink.

Poised on a diving board,
I plunge to the depths,
There to find the gloom I sought.

The Fall
By Thomas Merton
(1915 - 1968)

There is no where in you a paradise that is no place and there You do not enter except without a story.

To enter there is to become unnameable.

Whoever is nowhere is nobody, and therefore cannot exist except as unborn: No disguise will avail him anything.

Such a one is neither lost nor found.

But he who has an address is lost.

They fall, they fall into apartments and are securely established!

They find themselves in streets. They are licensed
To proceed from place to place.

They now know their own names.
They can name several friends and know
Their own telephones must some time ring.

If all telephones ring at once, if all names are shouted at once and all cars crash at one crossing:
If all cities explode and fly away in dust,
Yet identities refuse to be lost. There is a name and a number for everyone.

There is a definite place for bodies, there are pigeon holes for ashes:
Such security can business buy!

Who would dare to go nameless in so secure a universe?
Yet, to tell the truth, only the nameless are at home in it.

They bear with them in the center of nowhere the unborn flower of nothing:

This is the paradise tree. It must remain unseen until words end and arguments are silent.