The Silence Before Inspiration

The arrival of inspiration can also be perceived, yes. The states of silence before inspiration, often continuing with certain intuitions that last for days. However, this is not yet the intuition of what will happen; it is merely the intuition that something will happen, without knowing what it will be.

In fact, at first, there is a period of stillness. Routine tasks performed during these still times… A calm mind, a stable emotional state… Neither peaks nor troughs nor whirlpools... It’s as if the self has retreated to rest. For the next wave in the cycle, for the next surge; to withstand those surges with equal strength.

You either run from it, ignore it, or you face it, rise against it, but ultimately surrender to it. This stems from the essence of inspiration; it comes to take hold of you, but first, it stirs you up with whispers of intuition. You collapse during that surge if you don’t escape. That’s exactly why: to stand against it is collapsing in another way, surrendering to it. Because it does not want you to reluctant surrender; that's why it will come harshly and throw you to the ground. That’s why it stirs you up so beautifully, as harsh as itself, and you collapse just as beautifully with that hardened grandeur. What remains? A self that needs to retreat to rest.

There is always something tangible that happens. A word, an image, an event… That explosion has a concrete starting point.

And then, imagine you’re in an arena of death. You didn’t escape and you stepped into that arena. Let me tell you what happens before collapsing. A mind rearing up and emotions moving from a bottomless pit to infinity and back to the bottomless pit. That rearing mind burns you in its races between concepts. And those emotions, plunging you into and pulling you out of the pit, flinging you into infinity… The emotions stirring in the pit have meaning. You can’t tell which directs which. Your emotions direct your mind or your mind direct your emotions? In that arena, there seems to be an endless war between the two.

You cannot stop. Neither your mind nor your emotions can stop, forcing you to become another version of yourself; to rise from your ashes; and, of course, to scatter your ashes first…

To an outsider, it seems as if everything is calm, as if you’re still in the previous silence. Yet you’ve been subjected to a fierce battle in the arena, scattering your ashes from the bottomless pit to infinity; you’re waiting for them to return and awaken you as a new self. But sometimes, the struggle for life is invisible; it happens in the realm of the mind, in the ocean of thought. And then there’s the desire to be understood. Everyone has a burden to bear.

So, the arena is also filled with spectators who see but do not perceive.

So, it turns out that while on Earth, one can wander in other realms.

So, it turns out that while dying, it can seem as though you’re alive. Or perhaps you think you’re alive—who knows!?

The time of beginnings and then the doors that quickly opened to the depths… Times when everything seems still, yet your cells are stirred enough to scatter your ashes, towards their new cells…

You regenerate. You renew yourself, but only for a while. Time resumes its normal course. It, too, is like you, retreating to rest like you. It will flow for a while, but then it will stop. It will stop so that you can move. It will stop just for you. And who knows how many more arenas you will shatter yourself in again. And you will strengthen your character enough to turn the arrows toward yourself. And in the end, at the end of every battle, you will emerge from that arena stronger. You will turn the arrows toward yourself and fire them; already battered and bruised, you will completely collapse. And now, you have surrendered. You have respected those waves within you and the time that stopped for you. Times of endings and doors that quickly open to tranquility afterward…

Now, all you need to do is retreat. Accept this defeat, which is essentially surrender, and retreat to gather strength. And wait, wait for what will emerge from you and return to you, to awaken you.

Understand this now!

All the times you’ve lived or thought you’ve lived are a cycle chasing one another. From calm seas to storms, from storms to a new harbor… If you want experience, you will dive into and rise from the waves that suddenly surge. By challenging the surges, hardening yourself, becoming even more prone to breaking, you will enter those battles, those arenas, always with a Don Quixote-like spirit. And then you will love the version of yourself you’ve become. You will love it, no matter what. To be “nothing” is better than thinking you are “everything.” Thinking you are “everything” and have always existed!..

Time; now and again, actually most of the time, when it returns from stillness to its normal course, it will feel as if you’ve never wrestled with those waves, as if you’ve always been in the harbor; your mind always calm, your emotions always stable. Despite having become so “nothing,” it will feel as if you’ve never changed; as if you’ve never compromised your “everything-ness.” The mean of this is, clearly you haven’t understood!

(The Silence Before Inspirations)