The Silence of the Vagabond

 

The Nightingale, by Henry Justice Ford (1860-1940)

 

Out of silence look and listen.

Silence is not the ending of noise; the incessant clamour of the mind and heart does not end in silence; it is not a product, a result of desire, nor is it put together by will.

Out of this silence, look and touch.

The whole of consciousness is a restless, noisy movement within the borders of its own making. Within this border silence or stillness is but the momentary ending of the chatter; it is the silence touched by time.

Leave everything behind.

Time is memory and to it silence is short or long; it can measure. Give to it space and continuity, and then it becomes another toy.

But this is not silence. Everything put together by thought is within the area of noise, and thought in no way can make itself still. It can build an image of silence and conform to it, worshipping it, as it does with so many other images it has made, but its formula of silence is the very negation of it; its symbols are the very denial of reality.

Let it go.

Thought itself must be still for silence to be. Silence is always now, as thought is not.

Out of this silence, look and taste.

Thought, always being old, cannot possibly enter into that silence which is always new.

The new becomes the old when thought touches it.

The true anonymity is out of this silence and there is no other humility.

Out of this silence, look and smell.

The vain are always vain, though they put on the garment of humility, which makes them harsh and brittle. But out of this silence the word ‘love’ has a wholly different meaning.

This silence is not out there but it is where the noise of the total observer is not.

Out of this silence, look and walk.