RIGHT COMMUNICATION
Dialogue 28A: Sir, we have been listening to you with all the attention of which we are
capable, with our minds and with all our analytical capacities. We have covered
every inch of the ground, and we no longer accept anything we do not
understand. Between you and us there has been a verbal communication and
there has been also a communication beyond words. By ourselves we have not
been able to penetrate the verbal barrier and reach that understanding which lies
beyond words. When I sit by myself, I find that all communication with myself
remains at the verbal level. I wonder whether we could take up for discussion the
problem of communication.
Tradition has classified communication into four different states: vaikharī,
madhyamā, paśyantī, and parā. Vaikharī is verbal communication apprehended
through the auditory organ. It is subject to distortion of various kinds. It is
dependent on sequence. Madhyamā is apprehended through the internal organ
(the mind), and not by an external sense organ. In madhyamā there is the
sequence of the mentally conceived. In paśyantī there is no sequence, it does not
have the attributes of priority or posteriority; perception and communication are
undivided. In paśyantī there is a transcendence of association with the diverse
objects of the world, and also of time and space; such a state is free of the
distinctions of the cognizer and the cognized. Parā is the power of self-revelation
of the Absolute, which is inseparable from itself. Parā is the true channel of
communication.
P: A is right. In investigating what Krishnaji calls listening and seeing, which are
the operational part of his teaching, it might be possible to explore
communication. I do not think we have gone into the question of whether
communication is a process or whether it is an instantaneous light.
K: Can we start with the verbal level and work it through?
P: The question involves not just a communication between the speaker and
oneself, but it involves the very instrument with which we apprehend.
K: Shall we begin slowly with this? There is a verbal communication in which
both of us understand the meaning of the word. In that communication, the word
is the meaning, and the meaning can be understood by me and by you. Then
communication also means listening, not only to the meaning of the word but
also to the intention of the speaker in using the word. Otherwise communication
breaks off. When we use the word, it must have a quality of directness in which
there is no double meaning, and it must also have the quality of the real urge to
communicate something. In that urge there must be affection, care, consideration
and the feeling that you must understand; not that I am superior and you are