...the healer walked into the room.
They were sick or dying... lots of them.
The air was thick with their pain and suffering. Many of them had no real hope in their eyes. They'd been down this avenue before. They'd tried many alternatives but none of the so called miracles had worked. Now you could smell the rank stale scepticism in the air.
The healer looked kind of frail... like there was no way he could shoulder the burden and lift these fading souls back into their bodies. He didn't even look like he cared. Insouciant or indifferent might be better words to describe him. Far removed from what you'd have expected a virtuous, loving healer to be.
"Hi guys... er, I've been told that you're all pretty sick. Many of you are terminal cases..."
His manner of speech sent a shudder through the crowd. Their sickness demanded respect. How could he talk in that tone - as if it was just some kind of routine Monday morning meeting about the week ahead's sales targets.
A murmur... and a few unhushed voices, betraying signs of poorly suppressed indignation.
"Yeah... well obviously there's not much I can do for you lot. I mean - it looks like half of you have lost the will to live, and I certainly don't feel like trying to give it back to you."
No. This was going way too far. He had to be stopped. Voices of protest - but he seemed impervious to them.
"I mean... It's not like death's the end anyway, is it? Let's face it, you'd have to be really stupid to think that life ends when your physical body packs it in, so why this absurd attachment to the present incarnation."
Was he doing this deliberately? Had he just come to abuse them? Was he intent on goading them from self-pity or resignation into anger, because if that's the case he seemed to be succeeding.
"I don't think I'd bother if I were in your shoes. You're obviously all hopelessly out of tune with your life's true purpose and direction. It's hardly surprising you're all falling to pieces."
The scream - that painting by Edvard Munch - describes best the collective outrage. How dare he! How dare this self-proclaimed healer so insult such undeserving, vulnerable people. How could he desecrate the little they had remaining - their self-respect?
The cries of anger, disgust, hurt in the hall had completely charged the atmosphere. It was pulsating. Electric. Alive.
"I don't know why I bothered to come," he continued, and no one knew how but they all heard his quiet voice over the angry shouts, "but as I'm here I may as well play a little. It can't do any more harm than has already been done."
Play a little? Harm? What was he on about? The only harm that had been done was his own - that much was certain.
"Dear friends... Try not to take it all so much to heart. Remember the simple truth, though you may not like hearing it: that I mean nothing to you whatsoever, and you mean nothing to me. We are just indifferent strangers, briefly passing on the interminable road of life's dull progression."
And what? What could they do to express the violence of their wounded sensibilities? To protest his reptilian, callous insensitivity, his cold, calculating mockery of...
At that moment every one of them realised the strange terrible truth that he had enunciated - that he meant absolutely nothing to them, and they to him. It was like an infinite silence had opened in each of them simultaneously, and within that silence there was nowhere for their inner dialogue, their tale of wounded pride, of trials or tribulations... there was just the velvety silence that knew no bounds, lapping like black waves of night on the over-exposed paper of their minds, restoring them to a state of deep, deep stillness.
He waited a good minute while the entire hall held its breath, then took out his wooden flute.
What did he play? you're asking. I've no idea. It matters not in the least. God, just a few repetitive notes. Nothing special. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing to write home about. Nothing that could possibly have achieved anything whatsoever, were it not for the silence that lurked and prowled and wove its way through and around the flute's sounds.
And if there's a place within each one of us where our deep inner harmony is stowed, then that might explain how the pathetic-little that he played, the three of four minutes of gently searching, probing notes were able to release an impossible force of healing within that dingy hall, for what had he done? What had he accomplished? By sleight of hand and lèse-majesté he had evaded all the defences disease erects, he'd simply marched into the now unguarded citadel of body and mind, and done nothing whatsoever to help. "I have no intention of helping you, nor do you need my help, nor would you in fact accept it if I had offered. But now that I'm here - I'm going to enjoy a moment or two of silence with you, whether you like it or not, just because..."
And they'd been powerless to resist.
The silence had been compelling, beyond anything he'd said.
It wasn't hypnosis.
It wasn't a trick.
It was simply silence.
Infinite, pure, unadulterated, embryonic, umbilical silence. Connecting them with... whatever it was they'd not been hearing in themselves. Their inner song. The sound of I am. The soul's fluttering wings... I've no idea what.
"Ah! And I thought I was sick..." you could almost here the returning inner-dialogue.
And I believed I was going to die...
And I had no hope...
And I was miserable because...
And I...
From the infinite silence of all that is came the complete disintegration of whatever had been the basis for their dis-ease. From the infinite silence within it had never had standing or even right of admission, and it now dissolved back into the surrounding inconsequentiality from whence it had arisen.
The hall took several minutes to recover their senses and to realise the extent of their rehabilitation, by which time the healer they'd hated and cursed a few moments before was far removed from their sight.
But the silence, once heard, remained with them always
They were sick or dying... lots of them.
The air was thick with their pain and suffering. Many of them had no real hope in their eyes. They'd been down this avenue before. They'd tried many alternatives but none of the so called miracles had worked. Now you could smell the rank stale scepticism in the air.
The healer looked kind of frail... like there was no way he could shoulder the burden and lift these fading souls back into their bodies. He didn't even look like he cared. Insouciant or indifferent might be better words to describe him. Far removed from what you'd have expected a virtuous, loving healer to be.
"Hi guys... er, I've been told that you're all pretty sick. Many of you are terminal cases..."
His manner of speech sent a shudder through the crowd. Their sickness demanded respect. How could he talk in that tone - as if it was just some kind of routine Monday morning meeting about the week ahead's sales targets.
A murmur... and a few unhushed voices, betraying signs of poorly suppressed indignation.
"Yeah... well obviously there's not much I can do for you lot. I mean - it looks like half of you have lost the will to live, and I certainly don't feel like trying to give it back to you."
No. This was going way too far. He had to be stopped. Voices of protest - but he seemed impervious to them.
"I mean... It's not like death's the end anyway, is it? Let's face it, you'd have to be really stupid to think that life ends when your physical body packs it in, so why this absurd attachment to the present incarnation."
Was he doing this deliberately? Had he just come to abuse them? Was he intent on goading them from self-pity or resignation into anger, because if that's the case he seemed to be succeeding.
"I don't think I'd bother if I were in your shoes. You're obviously all hopelessly out of tune with your life's true purpose and direction. It's hardly surprising you're all falling to pieces."
The scream - that painting by Edvard Munch - describes best the collective outrage. How dare he! How dare this self-proclaimed healer so insult such undeserving, vulnerable people. How could he desecrate the little they had remaining - their self-respect?
The cries of anger, disgust, hurt in the hall had completely charged the atmosphere. It was pulsating. Electric. Alive.
"I don't know why I bothered to come," he continued, and no one knew how but they all heard his quiet voice over the angry shouts, "but as I'm here I may as well play a little. It can't do any more harm than has already been done."
Play a little? Harm? What was he on about? The only harm that had been done was his own - that much was certain.
"Dear friends... Try not to take it all so much to heart. Remember the simple truth, though you may not like hearing it: that I mean nothing to you whatsoever, and you mean nothing to me. We are just indifferent strangers, briefly passing on the interminable road of life's dull progression."
And what? What could they do to express the violence of their wounded sensibilities? To protest his reptilian, callous insensitivity, his cold, calculating mockery of...
Every mind in that hall suddenly went blank.
At that moment every one of them realised the strange terrible truth that he had enunciated - that he meant absolutely nothing to them, and they to him. It was like an infinite silence had opened in each of them simultaneously, and within that silence there was nowhere for their inner dialogue, their tale of wounded pride, of trials or tribulations... there was just the velvety silence that knew no bounds, lapping like black waves of night on the over-exposed paper of their minds, restoring them to a state of deep, deep stillness.
He waited a good minute while the entire hall held its breath, then took out his wooden flute.
What did he play? you're asking. I've no idea. It matters not in the least. God, just a few repetitive notes. Nothing special. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing to write home about. Nothing that could possibly have achieved anything whatsoever, were it not for the silence that lurked and prowled and wove its way through and around the flute's sounds.
And if there's a place within each one of us where our deep inner harmony is stowed, then that might explain how the pathetic-little that he played, the three of four minutes of gently searching, probing notes were able to release an impossible force of healing within that dingy hall, for what had he done? What had he accomplished? By sleight of hand and lèse-majesté he had evaded all the defences disease erects, he'd simply marched into the now unguarded citadel of body and mind, and done nothing whatsoever to help. "I have no intention of helping you, nor do you need my help, nor would you in fact accept it if I had offered. But now that I'm here - I'm going to enjoy a moment or two of silence with you, whether you like it or not, just because..."
And they'd been powerless to resist.
The silence had been compelling, beyond anything he'd said.
It wasn't hypnosis.
It wasn't a trick.
It was simply silence.
Infinite, pure, unadulterated, embryonic, umbilical silence. Connecting them with... whatever it was they'd not been hearing in themselves. Their inner song. The sound of I am. The soul's fluttering wings... I've no idea what.
"Ah! And I thought I was sick..." you could almost here the returning inner-dialogue.
And I believed I was going to die...
And I had no hope...
And I was miserable because...
And I...
From the infinite silence of all that is came the complete disintegration of whatever had been the basis for their dis-ease. From the infinite silence within it had never had standing or even right of admission, and it now dissolved back into the surrounding inconsequentiality from whence it had arisen.
The hall took several minutes to recover their senses and to realise the extent of their rehabilitation, by which time the healer they'd hated and cursed a few moments before was far removed from their sight.
But the silence, once heard, remained with them always
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