Why do I need to hear the things that I already know?
In a clean and tidy neighbourhood, in a house looking over Lake Zurich, we sat to eat breakfast - the landlady of the house, her tenant, Fisad (pseudonym), and his girlfriend, myself and my partner.
The table was a riot of enticing smells - cheeses, jams, breads, fresh and cooked fruits, tea, coffee - and Fisad made a perfect fried egg for each one of us.
Five feasters at the table from the four corners of the Earth. Fisad and I struck up a conversation on spiritual matters, and for one who grew up in Iran, this kind of subject was right up his alley. The conversation had two doors, the back door being the one Fisad held closed between the spiritual understandings I shared and the spiritual dogmas he was brought up on, as he expressed it. I might just add, for the sake of the collective babble in the background - Fisad and I didn't stop for a moment just because I am Israeli and he is Iranian. Move on, as it were.
And then..... Then Fisad split the air between us with his clear voice, asking one of the deepest and most honest questions I have ever been asked....
"Why do I need to hear the things I already know?"
It was a question, not a statement.
It was an authentic inquiry.
It was a question that hijacked me to the depths of the oceans.
And in the depths of my own memories.... The deep echoes of this question bounced on a memory of how I once was.
A little offended when hearing things I already knew, feeling they don't "get it", that "I already know".
Not understanding why I am being told things that "I already know".
I used to get bored hearing things that "I already know".
I used to block from the inside things that "I already know".
But no. This was not the knowing Fisad meant. And this is why the question was handed to me as a gift. He, he knew that knowing is a mysterious multi-faceted truth and doesn't dwell only in a stock of scientific magazines.
Why do I need to hear the things that I already know?
Because the knowing of the head is just a barrier broken down by the knowing of the heart, without apologies.
Because a true knowing always resides in the heart. And the heart never gets bored to hear the hymns of its home, the echo of divinity's words. Like the signing of morning birds, like the rumblings of the sea waves, like the sound of falling leaves in the Autumn, the words of truth caress absolute knowing.
Absolute knowing is a knowing you can hear again and again, but we confuse familiar with knowing. The familiar dances around the knowing. Its smell reminds us of the known, its taste reminds us of the known, its touch, its sound - but like a spice mixed into a casserole so that you wouldn't be a able to say any more what gives the dish its familiar taste, the familiar hides the known.
The universe is a huge resonance-box vibrating the chords of the soul. And the soul sings to us the sounds that dwell in our hearts, and we call them home. Yearning for home. Yearning for something familiar. Yearning to be consoled by the depth of understanding of the known.
And why do we rush to say with an imperious tone "I know"?
Why do we raise walls with these two simple words?
Why do we tell our children - "ha, there's nothing new in what you did"?
Why do we seal ourselves to the repeated reminders to come back home?
Why do I need to hear the things that I already know?
Because the fundamental search in life is after remembering. Who am I? What am I? The yearning to know who we are underneath knowledgeable views and agendas. The yearning to know who we are underneath the weight of educational and religious opinions. The yearning to know who we are underneath fears and maybe even hopes.
Because knowing is not an ageing pile of proofs. The absolute knowing remains hidden, latent, concealed.
Because this kind of knowing doesn't move us to the new creation or change what life asks of us. Because the natural knowing is intuitive. But if we don't believe our intuition, how can we believe the things that we already know?!
We have a closet full of knowings and knowers organised by types and colours. But we have no use for those. We need each other to remind ourselves that we have inside us All, that you and I are All. That we are never alone.
When my knowing and your knowing are synchronised - we are still. All that is left is to rest. To be cradled in a gentle rocking under the shade of relaxed knowing. We can reside together in the celebration of knowing.
Because nothing is ever the same. Each breath has a different rhythm, a different depth, a different message. Like breath, the divine knowing always grows. Moves up in the magical spiral of an acorn. My voice will hang on the pine needles like the voice of a Goddess. A visitor at the threshold - never entering your home, never leaving you alone.
"I will stay here, as air, as oxygen, as an awakened reminder to the tall knowing within you," said Knowing.
"But I am merely a messenger. Speaking out loud the calls of your soul. Hinting where to go next. I pass by like the breath. I live amongst the labyrinth of life. At times we meet. At others we brush shoulders on a crowded street. Sometimes we call to each other without knowing the name".
Sometimes all is needed is one word, that has been said, that has been heard, that is known, to flambè a magnificent poem in you.
*
You.
You whose bones echo
in loud voice
the wild that resides
under the mantle
of skin that dried;
By thirst, and cut
by desert like dry talk
but knew the light
of a wasteland forever washed
by sun.
You
whose dizziness
wrapped your head
like a sheltering scarf
from marks of state and religion;
You
who's searching the accurate
not knowing
it
is looking for you
in the same way;
Lost from creepy birth
under neon lights
opened like a sunflower
in a greenhouse;
You
who dreamt all possible ways
to your lover
the beloved
of your heart.
You
who kicked broken walls
who scratched wallpapers
with broken claws
who grew white hair
when only 6 years old.
You
whose soul's roar
thunders
through the sentries of your skin.
You
who cast your image
from the shadows,
your tears
a cloud of dust
lost in the mist of knowing.
You
whose doubt and shame
calcified your vocal cords
shivered your heart's strings
from the weight of the burden.
You
who haven't uttered for years
the growling of she-wolf
the roaring of lioness
the call of abandoned
mother.
The screech
of old
owl
whose feathers
dropped
and transformed to
a nest.
You.
Speak up your voice.