BOOK I — THE PREPARATION OF MIND
Thoth, to André
I
André: When every thought ceases, what remains?
Thoth: The one who knows that thought has ceased.
André: But if no thought is present, how can I know anything?
Thoth: Is silence itself a thought?
André: No.
Thoth: Yet you know it. Therefore the knowledge of silence does not depend upon a thought about silence.
André: Then thought and the one who knows thought are not the same.
Thoth: If they were the same, you would vanish whenever a thought passed.
II
André: What is this one who remains?
Thoth: A centre of awareness.
André: Is the centre made by the thoughts that gather around it?
Thoth: If your thoughts made the centre, who would know that one had ended and another begun? The centre is already there for both. Thoughts disclose what occupies you. They do not create the place they occupy.
III
André: What makes this centre human when no human thought is present?
Thoth: Its particularity.
André: Explain this.
Thoth: You do not awaken from silence as every human being. You awaken here.
André: With my own thoughts, memories and senses.
Thoth: These return to the centre because it is yours. They are signs of its particular life, not the cause of its being a centre.
André: Then even in silence I do not become an indeterminate awareness.
Thoth: No. Thought has disappeared; your point of awareness has not.
IV
André: Does this point exist outside Divine Mind?
Thoth: Where would that outside be?
André: If there is no outside, it must exist within Divine Mind.
Thoth: It does.
André: Does its particularity divide Divine Mind?
Thoth: Does a point divide the space in which it is found?
André: It marks a place without cutting the space apart.
Thoth: So your centre distinguishes a place of awareness within Mind without separating itself from Mind.
V
André: Do I, then, look from this point into Divine Mind?
Thoth: You still place yourself on one side and Divine Mind on the other.
André: How should I speak of it?
Thoth: Divine Mind knows through the point that you are.
André: As I see through an eye?
Thoth: The eye sees what appears outside the body. Nothing appears outside Divine Mind. Through you, Mind does not look beyond itself. It knows from a particular place within itself.
André: I am not merely looking into Divine Mind.
Thoth: You are one of the places from which it looks.
VI
André: If Divine Mind knows through me, why do I not know everything?
Thoth: Because a particular point is not every point.
André: But is Divine Mind not whole within itself?
Thoth: It is whole, but through you it knows from here, not from every here.
André: Is my human mind, then, a position?
Thoth: A living position: the power to receive, distinguish and give human form.
VII
André: Does every thought that appears in me come from Divine Mind?
Thoth: Everything that appears does so within Mind. It does not follow that every thought understands what has appeared.
André: Where does error enter?
Thoth: A thought may remember, combine, expect or fear. It may receive something and alter it while giving it form. Error enters when the form is taken for the whole of what was known.
André: Then the centre may remain true while its thought is false.
Thoth: The centre is a place of knowing. It is not a guarantee that every form made there is knowledge.
VIII
André: Would it be better to remain without thought?
Thoth: Better for what?
André: For knowing without error.
Thoth: In silence you discover that the knower is not its thoughts. But without thought, how will you distinguish one thing from another after you return?
André: Thought gives form to what is known.
Thoth: And because it gives form, it can reveal or deform. Silence does not solve this. It only shows you where the forming begins.
IX
André: If I remain within Divine Mind when thought is silent, is silence already union?
Thoth: You were within Divine Mind before becoming silent.
André: Then what has silence changed?
Thoth: It has allowed you to find the centre without confusing it with what passes through it.
André: And in union?
Thoth: In silence, the particular point remains. At the summit of union, the distinction by which you call it particular disappears.
André: Yet it can return.
Thoth: Otherwise you would neither remember nor ask.
X
André: Tell me plainly what the human mind is.
Thoth: Divine Mind knowing from a particular centre and giving that knowledge a human form.
André: Is the centre itself human, or only the form it gives?
Thoth: Its particularity is human; its ground is Mind.
André: Then I am neither a mind enclosed within myself nor Divine Mind without distinction.
Thoth: You are asking again as if only separation or identity were possible.
André: What have I omitted?
Thoth: Participation.
XI
André: What must I understand next?
Thoth: How a particular centre gives form to what it receives.
André: Through thought?
Thoth: Before a thought is stated, something has already appeared, whether as image, movement, feeling or meaning.
André: And I may mistake what I have formed for what Divine Mind has shown.
Thoth: You may also mistake what has been shown for something you merely formed.
André: How shall I distinguish them?
Thoth: Ask imagination what it does when it reveals, and what it does when it invents.
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