Inspiration and Destruction

“We must learn the science of self-expression … if we cannot say something useful, there is no need to become involved in the conversation. If we cannot say something that inspires, at least say nothing that destroys.”

– Manly P. Hall

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This message was posted with more text in a group on Facebook. This message has many interpretations depending on one’s perceptual lens. I want to clarify a possible misinterpretation of Truth within this message.

 “if we cannot say something useful, there is no need to become involved in the conversation”- Hall

This can get into pseudo-spiritual nonsense like that promoted by New Agers, about “don’t say anything if you can’t say something nice”, but that is not what Hall is saying.

Indeed, if we have nothing useful to say, why bother to say anything at all? I only speak when I have some thing useful to say, that has been how I have lived since I have been a teenager.

People have an aversion to silence. There are even some people who think “Silence is identity erosion” and hence “psychopathic”.

 “Silence is identity erosion. It’s covert punishment, intended to manipulate a change in behavior without actually appearing to be overtly manipulative. When empathetic people are given the silent treatment, we often self-destruct and think of everything we might have done wrong. As a result, we start to whittle down our entire personalities in order to avoid repeating any of those potential wrongdoings. If you find yourself trying to “outlast” someone’s silence so you don’t appear needy or crazy, this is not someone worth your time or energy. Healthy individuals cultivate open communication and discussion. They don’t make you feel that you should deconstruct your whole identity in order to meet their unspoken demands.”

 Silence is about making the other person deconstruct their identity? Huh?  Maybe the focus should be on your weak self-esteem and immediate desire to deconstruct yourself in the presence of silence… Grow up. Am I misunderstanding?  Yes, I am misunderstanding their failed intent, but not the words they used. They used the words to describe their issue as “Silence is identity erosion”, and not “The silence treatment is identity erosion”. It says two completely different things. Beware how you read things. What they intended to say was not said, and they misrepresented themselves.

“If we cannot say something that inspires, at least say nothing that destroys.”- Hall

That last sentence is the issue. This requires one particular description/definition for qualities of Truth and Enlightenment.

 “That which can be destroyed by the Truth should be.”

– P.C. Hodgell

 “Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”

– Adyashanti

 For Truth to inspire, one must be able to accept and embrace it with eyes to see and ears to hear. For those who remain attached to falsity, lies, deception, illusion or bullshit, they cannot yet rise from the inspiration of Truth, for they cannot even detect it. Those who are attached to lies, must fall, burn and learn to let go of their delusions so that they can rise from their ashes and truly be inspired by the light of Truth that they formerly rejected. Much destruction is requires in speech and communication if we are to get out of our collective co-created self-inflicted suffering. Hall was not correct in what he stated, explicitly, but you have to decode what is True. Sure, saying pointlessly hurtful things destroys in the negative way, like Hall says, but people will interpret any message delivered to them that they perceive as an attack upon themselves as “destructive”, which it is if it is True and they cannot handle it. But they say this as a deflective/dismissive technique to avoid facing the Truth, due to their attachment to false beliefs used as a basis for their ego-personality-identity construct. The Truth is destroying their false ego, it is destructive, but for the good, to help them rise above falsity they are attached to, yet they take this as a negative, hurtful, unkind, unhelpful, non-compassionate, unloving, etc. and more delusional projections from their inability to face the Truth. It is part of alchemical healing.

I will let Mark Passio and Michael Tsarion lend their weight and influence to clarify this issue.

In becoming an authentic individual, you must face the illusion/delusion of false reality and engage in a deconstructive alchemical process.

 “Everything that is not the truth is removed from your life. This requires a lot of alienation.”

– Michael Tsarion, The Posthuman World

 When you speak Truth to people to help them destroy their attachment to bullshit, you end up being attacked for being the messenger of this destructive — yet helpful and necessary — process, and are alienated as a result.

We can only create True Freedom and Peace when we have destroyed all the bullshit we believe in that has us creating destruction.

 “Apophis is a good name to use when we think of the opposite side of the God, apophasis. Isis and Apophis. The concept that truth is a destructive process. Truth breaks down everything. It does not create anything new, it just shows you what is already there by chipping away at all of the nonsense that covers the truth up and prevents the ability to see it. All of the grime that’s covering the ability for us to perceive the truth has to be destroyed, wiped away.”

– Mark Passio, #111

 

“Truth is a destructive process, not an additive process. Truth strips away the lies. It is an acidic process that eats away at what is false. It is an apophatic process, it works through the negative as a dissolving process. It chips away at the stone like a statue that is inside the stone. We are the vehicles by which the truth operates in the world, we are there to break down the lie, the line needs to be broken down, people’s egos need to be broken down, they need to understand this they are doing something that is immoral.

 We need to create a bullshit free zone where we do not apologize for any convenience that is created by speaking the truth. People who do not understand the truth are the ones who need to apologize and admit that they were wrong.”

– Mark Passio, #143