To Seek the Ineffable Conversation
In a world dying for deeper dialogue, let us address the inner dimension directly
Nothing inspires me more than the longing between human and divine. The invisible nature of this conversation weaves through literature, philosophy, and sacrifice that knows no end in history. It encompasses not just prayer, the highest poetry, but also extraordinary and quiet deeds – parents taking care of their ill children for decades, a soldier giving his life so others may live, or an astrophysicist spellbound by the harmony of a fine-tuned universe.
Through the veil of unseen realms we search with hope and awe.
Meaningful conversations require long pauses. Distance. And sometimes estrangement. Till contact draws closer. A friendly chat is full of warmth but often includes unnecessary details. What we really mean becomes clearer to others and ourselves over time, against the backdrop of our actions, decisions, mistakes and discoveries. Connection is a sky that comes into view only slowly. For people of different cultures, religions, and schools of thought, there is always room for respectful debate and disagreement. We listen, hoping to admire some golden grains that others may have found, and share ours in return. But the exchange only makes sense if we join humankind in seeking the Source of all golden grains of meaning. We wonder if this direct conversation is possible at all, whether we are worthy of it. After all, our time is limited and sooner or later life ends. At the sound of the last trumpet, when the veil falls that Omar Khayyam evoked in one of his most enigmatic quatrains, invisible things become the only existing reality.
In Edward FitzGerald’s adaptation:
There was the Door to which I found no Key;
There was the Veil through which I might not see:
Some little talk awhile of ME AND THEE
There was – and then no more of THEE AND ME.
In literal translation:
Neither you nor I know the secrets of eternity
Neither you nor I know how to solve the riddle.
The dialogue between you and me is behind the veil,
When the veil falls, neither you nor I will remain.
In Andrey Tarkovsky’s film The Sacrifice (1986), a Swedish intellectual named Alexander faces the shock of World War III beginning right in the middle of his birthday party. Deafening fighter jets stream overhead and shake the house. He prays to God for an unthinkable reversal, vowing to sacrifice everything he holds dear, spiraling to the most archaic forms of despair. This offer of total sacrifice to save the world is one of the most powerful moments in Tarkovsky’s own conversation through the veil. Andrey Tarkovsky junior made a documentary about his father in 2019 – Cinema as Prayer – a title that tells the backstory of the famous director’s symbolic process. The imagery and set of The Sacrifice are personal and universal at the same time. In a fit of renunciation, Alexander lights his house on fire and the crackling flames represent something deeply spiritual for Tarkovsky, summoning the poetry of his own father Arseniy Tarkovsky:
Предчувствиям не верю, и примет
Я не боюсь. Ни клеветы, ни яда
Я не бегу. На свете смерти нет:
Бессмертны все. Бессмертно всё. Не надо
Бояться смерти ни в семнадцать лет,
Ни в семьдесят. Есть только явь и свет,
Ни тьмы, ни смерти нет на этом свете.
Мы все уже на берегу морском,
И я из тех, кто выбирает сети,
Когда идёт бессмертье косяком.
Живите в доме — и не рухнет дом.
Я вызову любое из столетий,
Войду в него и дом построю в нём.
Вот почему со мною ваши дети
И жёны ваши за одним столом, —
А стол один и прадеду и внуку…
In premonitions I don’t believe, nor
Do I fear omens, nor fly from poison, nor
Calumny. There is no death on earth.
Immortal are we all, immortal everything.
No need to fear one’s death at seventeen,
Nor yet at seventy. There’s but reality
And light; there is no death, nor darkness in this world.
Already we are all on the sea-shore,
And I am one of those who pull a net,
When immortality comes like a shoal.
Live in a house — and the house will not fall.
I shall summon any one of the centuries,
I shall enter it and build my house in it.
That is why your children will sit with me
And your wives at one table, —
There’s but one table for both forbears and grandsons…1
Nothing made of hands can last. The protagonist Alexander is in constant conversation. We see him talking to his son, his wife, his friends, but also to himself and, as we gradually realize, to something behind the veil of the material landscape. World War III is soon averted and in this sacrifice of all he finds mystical union with life and the universe.
The earth knows how to lure our affections, but also points beyond itself. In John Steinbeck’s underappreciated novel To a God Unknown, we behold a vivid portrayal of mental and spiritual participation in nature. The book tells a tragic story of Joseph Wayne, who embarks on a journey of self-sacrifice to revive the land in honor of his ancestors. The quest reflects a desire to commune not only with his earthly father, but also the proverbial Father of all. Through the soil and the trees, a higher power speaks to him. His instinctual, somewhat shamanic spirituality reaches for meaning beyond the tangible and allows him to experience hidden reality directly, outside logic and reason. When cultivated, this aspiration toward transcendence becomes a universal human capability. We all have both logical and extra-logical modes of being, idealizing and participating at the same time. The poetry accompanying this process reverberates the invisible space within us.
Things belonging to the realm of silent conversations can never be fully clear to our minds. But do not downplay the significance of the unseen. Elevating the matter to the highest spiritual level, paradoxically, helps us understand it better. Apostle Paul, having noticed an altar in Athens with the inscription “to an unknown God,” expanded our encounter with divinity:
“What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things. He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:22-28).
This revelation strikes at the boundaries of culture and tradition. The transcendent God remains near, in many forms and guises, so close there is “barely enough room to kneel,”2 as the Russian scholar, poet, and believer Sergey Averintsev said:
Всуе мудрецы
об адамантовых учили гранях,
о стенах из огня, о кривизне
пространства: тот незнаемый предел,
что отделяет ум земной от Бога,
есть наше невнимание. Когда б
нам захотеть всей волею – тотчас
открылось бы, как близок Бог. Едва
достанет места преклонить колена.
[in my literal translation:]
In vain the wise men
taught about adamantine edges,
about walls of fire, and the curvature
of space: that unknown veil
that separates the earthly mind from God,
is our inattention. Whenever
we want with all our will – immediately
it would be revealed how close God is.
Barely enough room to kneel.
I imagine at least some listeners of Paul on Areopagus were familiar with Plato’s Parmenides. In the second part of the dialogue, Parmenides explores the consequences of assuming either the existence or non-existence of "the One" (an abstract notion that could be interpreted as the ultimate form of forms, unity itself, or the concept of oneness). The main ideas of this dialogue can be regarded as a grandiose attempt to reach the natural limits of a purely rational metaphysical inquiry. The text does not provide clear-cut answers but rather exposes the reader to the same bewilderment before Omar Khayyam’s veil separating the world of divine oneness from this world of change and fleeting individual impressions.
Attempting unity in human affairs is messier than theoretical reflection, but no less beautiful for the striving. In his novel The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky expresses the profound philosophical and ethical idea that “each one of us is guilty for all.” This concept is extremely hard to accept unless you believe, like Dostoevsky, that all human beings are linked on the deepest level. Understood mechanically, interconnectedness means that the actions of each individual impact the systems of society. But the novelist’s vision shows we are all morally and spiritually responsible for each other, even if we are not aware of it. Such ideas do not come to one’s mind during afternoon tea or a stroll in the park. Dostoevsky’s worldview was profoundly changed after being sentenced to death by firing squad, receiving a last-minute pardon, and doing a term of hard labor in Siberia, where he realized it takes suffering to know how blessed life can be.
Conversing with the One, the boundless, the infinite is impossible without sacrificing one’s pride. To constantly seek answers at the click of a button, simply in order to enjoy wisdom, erodes our patience. Pausing, preparing, cleansing the inner space, waiting the necessary minutes, years, even lifetime, become part of the quest to uncover truth. Ultimate reality remains hidden unless we humbly participate in its holiness. The answer to Pontius Pilate’s question – “What is truth?” – is to heed the silence that ensues … and see.
Anton Ivanov is a writer, thinker, literary enthusiast, and practitioner of the Russian Orthodox faith
Poems by Arseniy Tarkovsky, translated by Peter Norman, Poets and Painters Press, London, 1998.
From Sergey Averintsev’s poem “Annunciation” («Благовещение»).
Rumi says, "I am a mirror. I am not a man of words. You will know me only when your ears become eyes."
This literal translation of Omar's poem is wrong:
"Neither you nor I will read this letter of the riddle."
The correct words are: "Neither you nor I know how to solve the riddle."
These are Omar's literal words. I wonder what we do when we simply read a riddle, even not study it.