A Reflection on the Secret (from the series “Vain Words”)

You must have a secret to be able to carry on with your life. If you do not find your secret, you have lost yourself. If you abandon your secret, you are dead, even if you pretend to live. But if you come to terms with your secret, you are alive, even if you are struggling with your own death.

The secret is not life; it is a dying that you are occupied with. The secret is not the manifestation of God before you; it is the absence of His presence within you. The secret is not the wonder of the world, but its futility and emptiness. The secret is not light and clarity, but the darkness and gloom of your nocturnal, sorrowful interior. The secret is not the beauty of the world; it is the secret of the ugliness of your soul. The secret is not the reward for your deeds; it is the sin of your being. The secret is not the fullness of the mind; it is its heaviness and burden. The secret is not born of the spirit; it is an appendage of the spirit. The secret is a fissure in your depths.

The secret does not carry you beyond; the secret does not carry you across at all. The secret is a void on this side; it is a black hole that swallows you into itself. The secret does not return you to any primordial memory or evoke any original bond. The secret only reminds you of your eternal oblivion and everlasting deprivation.

The secret is not utterable, for the secret is not "being." "Language" expresses being that emanates from the mind, but the secret is "non-being" that mocks the spirit. The secret is not utterable; the secret remains within you and at every moment turns you inside out.

The secret is not a "mystery" to be dispelled by reason or unlocked by experience. The secret is not a "secret" to be cast into the sunlight or revealed upon the gallows. The secret remains forever concealed and sealed in the hidden chamber of the heart. The secret never dies. The secret does not even die with you. The secret remains in your breast and after you is transformed into a melody and lament on the lips of nightingales and becomes the song and strain of Siyavashan.

Love is not the physician and remedy for the secret; it is the nurse and solace of the secret. Love is not beautiful; it is a salve for uglinesses. Love is not fullness; it is the embrace of the emptiness of two spirits. Love is the bowing down of two secrets.

Love is not the sharing of secrets and the secretlessness of companions; it is their companionship and empathy in the concealment of secrets. The solitude of lovers is not the overflowing of their secrets; it is a mutual meditation to safeguard each other's secrets.

It is a lie that lovers hide nothing from each other and express and reveal every secret between them. "Silence" is the art of lovers. Silence is the eloquent language of hidden secrets. Amorous silence is the thing most akin to the secret.

"Art" is not the expression of secrets; it is the expression of the inexpressibility of secrets. The "art of language" is revelation and demystification, but the "language of art" is silence and concealment. Every work of art is a silence to pay homage to the nameless, eternally unspoken secrets.

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A Reflection on the Secret (from the series “Vain Words”)

Author: Masoud Zanjani

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