A Word of Glory

Posted on by Alain Joly

Words don’t apply to truth. What we are cannot be described. We may have a lot to say about our preferences, our thoughts, our body, our circumstances and conditionings, but we won’t be able to say anything about who we are. We may try to. We may give a thousand explanations. We may come as close as possible, by saying that we are that which is aware, that we are consciousness, being, and a thousand other expressions. But we won’t get closer to the truth of who we are. Truth is not something that can be made into a concept, or an object. It is before every concept, before every object. It is before even ourself as a body-mind, as a person. It is before every single thought that we may have about ourself. It is the living, throbbing embrace of everything.

We cannot catch truth and put it in a box, or made it into a thought. It is elusive. We won’t find it in the world, no matter how hard we may look. It is within. It is who we are. It is what there is — our very being. We cannot miss our own being, what we are made of, what there is here that we call ‘myself’, or ‘I’. If we do miss it, then we are taking ourself to be what we are not. We have given in to an idea, to a concept. We have given allegiance to everything objective, easy, to stories about ourself, but not to ourself. We have not been ourself yet. Belief doesn’t reveal our true identity. It tramples it. It hides it. Truth requires no thought, no belief, no person or entity, even no world. Truth is only about itself. And to see truth is to see ourself, to be our own self that shines with glory. There is no truth but ourself. We know truth, when we know ourself.

All the words about truth are here to point to the truth without words. For when we know ourself, the reality of who we are, there is no thinking about truth, or about god, for we live and abide where words have melted into the reality they were pointing to. We have given in to our own reality. We have died in our own living presence. We have noticed that we are that which we were looking for, and that there is no looking beyond it. We are settled. We are made real, alive, complete. The relief contained in knowing who we are at last, this falling of ourself into the place of being that we have been and are eternally — that in itself feels like a tremor of peace, joy, and freedom. This place of being is unconditional love, wordless reality, living oneness. All things and all beings find their essence in it, and lose their own, individual reality. They are as if one word — a word whose only function is being its own living, glorious reality.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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A Fabulous Secret

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Poetry of N. Gumilyov’ – Oleh Sokolov, 1973 – WikiArt

I’ve always had the intuition that writing hid a fabulous secret. That there lay a soft power, a beauty to which no other thing compares. That words could express harmony. That a particular form of them could take me into the unformed, into the soft ether of life. That words had the capacity to unravel the meaning of the totality of possible existence. That they were alchemists that could produce in all of us the perfume of their own land of birth — which is ours too. That they could clear all the mist that keeps lingering around this life of ours. This is the promise that words held for me. And I do not mean that they could do all of that through their explanatory power alone. Through their simple, logic, arithmetic value. They could and would comply to do so if you wanted them to. But it’s not quite why I had praised them all along. Words could seduce me through their music alone. Through their soft capacity for intimacy and poetry. Through the intrinsic harmony that they carried, and were a vehicle for. Words could be like Tango dancers. And their arabesque was love itself.

And yet. Yet words had eluded me all my life. I have always been short of them. They were never allowed to run freely in my field. They had been concealed by the majesty of pain. But would I be willing to engage with them, that they would come hastily as a balm on myself. Would I be willing to let them express their all, that they would arrive in bouquets that flowered with all their perfume. Words can act in us as clarifiers. They make clear and clean. And they can be hard workers, if you let them be. If you keep still while they come inviting you into their round. This is where they service you — in the power of their expression. This is where they silence you — in the stillness of their homeland. This is where they present you with the simple gift of being. Listen to them carefully: they will show you how they share the same ground of being than you. I’ve always had the intuition that writing hid a fabulous secret…

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Oleh Sokolov (1919-1990)

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Website:
– Oleh Sokolov (WikiArt)

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