After a long pause, the second master began speaking. Still he couldn’t understand. Then as he listened he noticed again how the words were altering the hall.
Diamond lights shimmered from the words and spangles of emerald sunlight danced about the place, dwelling briefly and intensely on every person in the hall. And when the sunlight dwelled on him he shouted and nearly burst out of his body for the sheer beatification of his being.
Then a tender aroma of honeysuckle wafted out of the words, charming the air. Then a gentle incense wove its way round the invisible personages. And then an odour of boundless seas, of those spaces between water and sky where all is perpetually purified by the winds of heaven, blew in rhythmic waves through the hall.
And then he realised that he was somewhere else, in an eternal room of meditation, amongst the most magical thoughts and enchanted silences in the world.
The thoughts converged there from all realms. And each thought had infinite possibilities. He could have dwelled in any single one of those magical thoughts for a lifetime and not realised its full potential. Each of the thoughts, simple and clear like a drop of pure water, or a moment in a dream, revolved silently, and filled the room, and co-existed with all the others. The thoughts came from stones and seraphs, from trees and birds, from beings who dwelled in the air and beings who dwelled beyond the air, from human beings all over the world and beings in all the other spheres, from the dreams of the living and the continued meditations of the dead, from sea and cloud, from spirit and star, the thoughts came, and they went through him and left no imprints, and he noticed how small the room was for such crowded infinities.
And the enchanted silences converged there too from all realms. And each of the silences also had infinite possibilities and magnification without end. He could have lived in any of the silences for a millennium and not exhausted its mystery. Each of the silences, vast and serene, like a moment on the highest mountain, or a gentle breeze within a mirror, permeated the room, and dwelled at ease with all the others. The silences came from mountaintops covered with snow and the depths of unfathomed oceans, from the face of the moon and the forests at night, from the stalagmites of green caves and the axis of constellations, from human beings in their lonely places and beings in their higher spaces, from the dreams of a newborn babe and the first moments of emerging flowers, from angels and diamonds, from the heart of Time and the languid countrysides, from the hidden dimensions and the hidden heaven, from all the dead and all whose hearts quicken to the highest love, the silences came, and they passed through him, and they altered no spaces, and he noticed how real the room of meditations was for such dancing eternities.
Then, as he was about to stand up and begin dancing himself in nameless joy, he was stunned by another eruption of applause and exultation. He found himself back in the august hall again. The hall quaked under the rousing reception all the Invisibles were giving the second master. He still hadn’t understood what was said.
Bewildered now, and puzzled by the way in which the words were altering the universe about him, he turned to the empty space where his female guide was, and said:
‘Maybe you can explain.’
But all he got by way of an explanation was a touch of such tenderness that he was amazed by the momentary simplicity of everything.
He didn’t have long to dwell in that moment’s understanding when the third master of the silver table began to speak.