The Center and Circumference of Silence Yoga, Poststructuralism, And the Rhetoric Of

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The center and circumference of silence: Yoga, poststnicturalism, and the rhetoric of paradox

George Kalamaras

[T]he divine eye is cento" everywhere, circumference nowhere.

?Paramahansa Yogananda

THE CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL DEPRIVATION OF POSTSTRUCTURALIST POETICS

In recent decades sacred experience in general, and in particular that of silence, has been interrogated by poststructuralist theory. This critique argues against the

naming of a condition that it perceives as being separate from discursive repre

sentation, casting such a condition as a 'metaphysics' that sees itself as separate from social and cultural conditions (see, for instance, Derrida 1978: Chapter 4). Hindu philosophies of meditative silence, built as they are upon an examination

of nondiscursive realms, quite naturally fall prey to certain of these post structuralist arguments. Jacques Derrida, for one, depicts the condition of the

unsaid as a 'violence of primitive and prelogical silence' (1978: 130). Silence, he maintains, is a condition only of cultural oppression, a 'violence' that the

speaking subject must try to overthrow if one is to have any psychological or

cultural power. For the postmodern sensibility in general, silence is most often a 'death' that

threatens the power to make meaning. Specifically, silence hinders symbolic access to experience; furthermore, in the absence of any 'meaning' it even

prevents the endless 'play' of words?or, as Michel Foucault describes, 'mirrors'

?themselves, a play of discourse that alone contains, as he argues, 'a single

power' that prevents the speaking subject from falling into the abyss of silence:

International Journal of Hindu Studies 1, 1 (April 1997): 3-18.

? 1997 by the World Heritage Press Inc.

4 / George Kalamaras

'Headed toward death, language turns back upon itself; it encounters something like a mirror; and to stop this death which would stop it, it possesses but a

single power: that of giving birth to its own image in a play of mirrors that has

no limits' (1977: 54). In such a depiction, then, language becomes the only means of preventing one from slipping into the void of silence, a nihilistic?or, as Derrida argues, 'primitive'?condition that inhibits one's power to make

meaning. Within such a depiction, the meditative traditions of India become

suspect as either tools of a metaphysical mystification of the rational or philoso

phies of spiritual transcendence which ignore social dimensions of language and,

thus, are grounded in and maintain oppressive systems of discourse.

Both one of the greatest strengths and weaknesses in recent decades of post

structuralist poetics (which take their lead from poststructuralist theory) has been

to pose problems with the nature of the 'sacred.' While Romantic concepts of

sacred experience as a condition lying outside textuality have served in large measure to reinforce hegemonic culture by mystifying discourse and the mean

ings it inscribes, as several poststructuralist critiques rightly argue, the absence

of, and in some cases hostility toward, authentic sacred experience in poetic

theory has left our most radical poetries culturally and spiritually deprived. The

primary culprit in this deprivation seems to lie in postmodern epistemology

itself. Poststnicturalism indeed offers a new liberatory ground from which to

critique oppressive systems of discourse. However, its method of dismantling

hierarchical systems of discourse faces two serious limitations: the inability to

conceive of the condition of paradox as, first of all, a generative experience, and,

furthermore, as a kind of 'center' itself, albeit a reconstituted or 'decentered' one.

Indeed, the concept of paradox as center ought to be examined with the same

scrutiny that accompanies oppressive claims to discursive 'origins.' As Derrida,

among others, has argued, a concept of 'origins* implies a first, originary expe

rience, an 'essence,' that language can never represent. 'Origins,' he argues, or

'the meaning of being represented.. .will never be given us in person, outside the

sign or outside play' (Derrida 1976: 266). Such a concept can lead to a hierar

chical system which carries with it cultural oppression of those subjects who

speak from the margins and not from the cent?* of the privileged discourse.

However, I want to argue that the apprehensiveness of radical poetries in the

last several decades to even approach a reassessment of concepts of a 'center'

suggests itself a kind of oppressive 'center' at the core of poststructuralist poetic

theory. Specifically, poststructuralist theory often posits an epistemological

ground that holds suspect those systems different from 'itself,' that is, those

epistemologies positioned at the circumference of poststructuralism's 'center.'

The very ground of meaningfiilness of poststructuralist critiques is thus plagued

with a binary system of investigation in which deconstructive theory often

The center and circumference of silence / 5

depicts the 'other' of alternative epistemologies as distinct from the 'self,' so to

speak, of its own method of discursive analysis. This dichotomy of 'self and

'other* or 'center' and 'circumference,' ironically, appears to be dissonant with

the intersubjective and dialogical ground poststnicturalism claims as its domain.

As Mikhail Bakhtin describes, language acts shape one another in a kind of

'mutual cause-and-effect and interillumination' (1981: 12). If this is so, then

true intersubjectivity needs to include the 'other* not simply as a measure of

egalitarian responsibility, nor even as a nod toward benign relativism, but rather

as a generative method of refining and even interrogating the ground of

meaningfulness of one's own poststructuralist critique. One method of refining the ground of poststructuralist poetic theory, then,

might be to reopen a dialogue between seemingly 'distinct' epistemologies, that

is, between what lies at both the 'center' and 'circumference' of radical poetic

theory. Such a dialogue could be approached not just through classical rhetorical

strategies, say, as through the process of dialectic hallowed by Aristotle (1932) and other classical rhetoricians. Nor should it be approached only through the

more liberatory analysis of deconstruction, which still often positions competing discourses in a binary way, for instance, as 'others' distinct from the 'self of a

liberatory project. Rather, a new dialogue might occur from within an arena that

foregrounds reciprocity, a system, for example, which holds binary categories? such as 'center' and 'circumference'?suspect. One such arena is Eastern philoso

phy, particularly the Hindu-yogic tradition that has arisen during the past several

centuries in India.

A dialogue between Eastern and Western theory, positioned within an arena

that foregrounds reciprocity, can enrich not only poststructuralist poetics of the

West, but it can also enable Indian philosophy to reconsider itself, as Harold

Coward (1990: 12) (following the lead of his teacher, T. R. V. Murti [1983])

notes, from the perspective of the philosophy of language. Because of space

limitations, I will center my discussion on the form?- rather than on the latter of

these concerns. It is my intention to focus on paradox as sacred experience, to

argue that the reciprocal paradigm of yogic meditative philosophy is a system

capable not only of accommodating paradox and recasting it as a generative condition but also of offering an epistemology compatible with that of radical

poetics, one that can ultimately enrich poststructuralist poetics in ways truer to

their radical intent.

Before I proceed with my discussion of the compatibility of the Hindu-yogic tradition and Western poststructuralist poetic theory, however, let me first claim

as my philosophical ground the Advaita Ved?nta tradition?radical (or absolute) nondualism?the dominant school of Hinduism. Certainly the meditative tradi

tions of Hinduism are diverse; even, for instance, traditions of Advaita (non


dualism) and Ved?nta are themselves comprehensive. For instance, although

Ved?nta chiefly favors a nondualist system, it has manifested in a variety of

ways, the most influential being radical nondualism, and even a form of dualism,

represented by the dualist school, the Dvaita of Madhva. The term yoga is

similarly comprehensive. As Georg Feuerstein notes, yoga 'played a varyingly

prominent role in these schools [of Ved?nta] and was interpreted differently by

their protagonists' (1990: 389). Yoga, comprised of a variety of specific psycho

spiritual practices, has as its goal the joining or 'yoking' of the individual 'self

(?tman) with the larger, more expansive 'Self (brahman),1 an emphasis on

nonduality that it shares with Advaita Ved?nta. (Indeed, the etymology of the

word, yoga, itself means 'to join, to yoke.') Therefore, focusing on certain non

dual yogic aspects of the Advaita Ved?nta tradition can offer us ways to deepen

our understanding of this dominant methodology of Hindu thought and can also

help demonstrate its harmony with a major philosophy of the West, post

structuralist poetics.

Furthermore, within this tradition, I will emphasize yogic philosophies and

practices that enable the practitioner of silence to achieve an awareness of the

nondual nature of experience. Self-realization, the Hindu scriptures repeatedly

describe, is experiential, and the actual practice of yoga (meditation and ?sanas)

is the central method of attaining the enlightenment state that philosophical

discourses describe. In other words, the study and practice of yoga is a site of

metaphysical 'praxis.' By claiming the yogic tradition within Advaita Ved?nta

as my principal citing, then, I also hope to argue implicitly for a further dimen

sion of the nondual aspect of meditative silence, namely, a true praxis in which

theories and practices inform one another in reciprocal, nonhierarchical ways.

Finally, I will also occasionally draw upon elements of other Eastern mystical

philosophies that are closely aligned in purpose with Hinduism, and particularly

yoga?those philosophies that share concepts regarding knowledge, as well as

silence as the ground of such meaningfulness. Specifically, I will sometimes

draw upon Buddhism (especially some of the Mah?y?na schools such as Zen)

and Tantrism (a distinct school of obscure origin within both Hinduism and

Buddhism, emphasizing the concept of ?akti, or the feminine principle of divine

experience, in both outer rituals of devotion and those of a more inner or sym

bolic nature). I have chosen not to limit my discussion to Hindu-yogic philosophy since the

yogic tradition (as is Hinduism) is diverse and varied. Furthermore, and perhaps

more significantly, occasionally drawing on the intersections between yoga and

other meditative traditions will often allow me to illuminate my points with

greater complexity and concreteness. This seems particularly appropriate given

the interest in Western poetics in recent decades in both Zen and Tantric Bud


dhism. An analysis of the fine lines of distinction between Eastern mystical

practices, and even those of the yogic tradition alone, seems more appropriate for an article on comparative religion. Drawing on the commonalties of some

core tenets of various Eastern meditative practices as they relate to the Hindu

yogic tradition, as I will do here, should more properly facilitate my goal: to

demonstrate that yogic meditative philosophy is a system capable not only of

accommodating paradox and recasting it as a generative condition but also of

offering an epistemology compatible with that of radical poetics, one that can

ultimately enrich poststructuralist poetics in ways truer to their radical intent

YOGIC PHILOSOPHY AND THE PARADOX OF BEING AND BECOMING

The meditative traditions of India have always relied upon paradox as a central

method of exploration, as well as a means of describing an experience of 'higher consciousness' itself. Buddhist philosophy (particularly the Zen traditions that

arose in China and Japan after Buddhism's migration from India), for example, and its focus on the k?an have attained recognition to various degrees in American

poetic theory, from experiments of the Beat poets in the 1950s, up through the

introduction of the radical juxtapositions of the Surrealist movement (thanks to

the more lucid translations of the past several decades), particularly of the French

and Hispanic traditions. As I (Kalamaras 1994: 115-17) have argued elsewhere,

the seemingly contradictory phrases of traditional Zen k?ans, such as 'What is

the sound of one hand clapping?' and 'What is your face before your parents were born?,' are designed to short-circuit the discursive capacities of the mind

and open it to an experience of the nondiscursive, where seeming opposites reside in a condition of reciprocity rather than conflict.

Just as significantly, though, paradox permeates the philosophies of yoga,

from methods of attaining 'divine consciousness' to descriptions of the qualities of this experience itself. In the case of the former, for instance, numerous Tantric

and Hathayogic texts, among others, delineate specific techniques for 'neutral

izing' the binary experiences of discursive consciousness. Many of these tech

niques (such as mentally focusing upon the apparent contradictions of inhalation

and exhalation, or even yoking often divergent impulses of 'body' and 'mind'

into a more reciprocal 'mind-body' relationship) themselves work with para

doxical techniques. In the case of the latter, Br?hmanical texts such as the Vedas

?especially the fourth and most philosophical of these, the Upanisads?

repeatedly describe the condition of sam?dhi (the unified experience of medi


tators) as a paradoxical condition, where experiences of 'self and 'other,' 'this'

and 'that,' and 'center' and Circumference' reciprocally reside and are not in

conflict.

That is, paradox constitutes both the practice of yoga and the outcome

(enlightenment). As a generative experience, paradox can lead one to enlight enment and also permeates this supreme consciousness pursued by yogis and

attained by advanced meditators, what Alex Comfort calls 'the oceanic expe rience' (1984: 4). This highly fluid condition in which opposites reciprocally

reside, thus presents an interpretation of paradox as a generative experience which is, indeed, meaningful. One 'paradox' of yogic practice, then, is that the

condition of paradox is not only a method of attaining the supreme, unified

state of awareness but also an outcome of the practice of paradox itself. To put this another way, paradox is not a method of transcending itself but, rather, a

means of investigating itself and of engaging in a more complex and intimate

way with a condition of apparent opposition that is nonconflictive and recip rocal. One might say, then, that it enables an epistemology of true 'praxis,'

where theory and practice?in this case, 'Self-realization' and meditative

technique?are one.

More specifically, the supreme realization of 'divine consciousness' is that

one's own Being is the same as the condition of Being within the entire universe;

furthermore?and perhaps paradoxically?this condition of Being is known by the practitioner to be one that is ever-changing, in short, a condition of Becoming.

This is a concept found throughout many central yogic texts, including the

Upanisads. It is especially articulated in explanations of spanda (the dynamic

quality of 'absolute' consciousness) as described in Kashmir Saivism. As Mark

Dyczkowski argues:

[T]he dynamic (spanda) character of absolute consciousness is its freedom to

assume any form at will through the active diversification of awareness

(vimar?a) in time and space, when it is directed at, and assumes the form of,

the object of awareness. The motion of absolute consciousness is a creative

movement, a transition from the uncreated state of Being to the created state

of Becoming. In this sense Being is in a state of perpetual Becoming

(satatodita); it constantly phenomenalises into finite expression....Rightly

understood, Being and Becoming are the inner and outer faces of universal

consciousness which becomes spontaneously manifest, through its inherent

power, as this polarity (1987: 77).

Supreme consciousness, then, is a condition in which the consciousness of

Being is not static and stable, say, like the nihilistic state that Derrida (1978:


96-97), for one, attributes to metaphysics, but rather ever-changing and dynamic.

In the context of such a nondualist model, in which 'Being is in a state of

perpetual Becoming,' I want to suggest that the endless play of meanings that

poststructuralist theory locates is, thus, not distinct from but similar to that of

meditative awareness of symbolic transaction. Therefore, while poststnicturalism

warily points to paradox as a condition of psychic stasis, the meditative traditions

of Hindu yoga find sustenance in paradox. Paramahansa Yogananda has described this experience of cosmic consciousness

in paradoxical terms, namely, that 'the divine eye is center everywhere, circum

ference nowhere' (1981 [19461: 208). Paradoxically, the yogi, through various

meditative practices, withdraws consciousness from the periphery of the body in

ways which heighten the inner sensorium; in total intimacy with a 'center' of

awareness, then, the advanced meditator's consciousness expands to embrace the

immensity of the universe, moving beyond all awareness of limitation, psycho

logical borders, or psychic 'circumference.'

Since the sacred unified experience embraces all things, it cannot include a

condition hostile to itself. That is, when perceived from the perspective of thfe

meditative, nonbifurcated consciousness, one immersed in a condition of non

discursive psychic expansion or fluidity between 'subject' and 'object,' even

apparent contradictions inform one another in significant nondialectical ways. In

other words, in meditative consciousness, the 'profane' of discursive awareness

is reconceived as reciprocally connected to the 'sacred' of the nondiscursive?to

borrow terms from Mircea Eliade (1959). The 'sacr?d' experience of cosmic

consciousness, consequently, is sacred only because it no longer excludes the

'profane.'

One of the great paradoxes of the 'sacred' experience of meditation, therefore,

is that nondiscursiveness (or silence) contains symbolic experience. One might

say, then, that language culminates in silence, and one locates in silence an

emptiness that is 'full.' It is full in large part due to its expanded perception of

the interanimation of all things. Silence is also full in that it carries with it, according to the yogic tradition, a

profound experience of sound that permeates all things, what yogis refer to as

Om, the sound of the molecular vibration of the universe one hears when one's

consciousness is free of discursive separation between subject and object. As Sir

John Woodroffe has noted, Om is the 'Maha?akti,' or 'Radical Vital Potential,'

of the universe. '[T]he letters A, U, M, which coalesce into Om,* he argues,

represent the continuous dissolution and rejuvenation of the 'molecular activity'

of 'matter' (1985 [1922]: 296). Numerous yogic texts, then, refer to the state of

meditative sam?dhi as an unbroken attentiveness to Om, or to the underlying

sound of an undifferentiated universe that exists as unmanifested potential, that


is, as a 'radical vital potential.' This full-emptiness, what W. T. Stace has described as the 'vacuum-plenum

paradox' (1960: 162), is a dynamic state of awareness where silence and sound

reciprocate, self and other merge, and distinctions between this and that dissolve.

A central paradox, then, exists in Hindu-yogic philosophy in that language and

silence are reciprocal rather than conflictive. As poet Octavio Paz, himself a

practitioner of Tantric yoga, has noted:

If language is the most perfect form of communication, the perfection of

language cannot help but be erotic, and it includes death and silence: the

failure of language....Failure? Silence is not a failure, but the end result, the

culmination of language. Why do we keep saying that death is absurd? What

do we know about death? (1982 [1974]: 14).

Western language theory often positions language against silence, emphasizing

logos or the Word. This emphasis on logos, though, is often based upon a false

understanding that meditation strives for a transcendent ground separate from the

Word, and that it seeks stable meanings which lie outside linguistic referents.

However, in the Hindu-yogic tradition, meditative silence is a symbolic form

itself, and the perception the yogi has within silence is a complete absorption within the layers of this symbolic form, most notably the dimensions of Om,

the most sacred of all Hindu mantras.

The relationship between silence and symbolic form is a subtle yet pervasive one in Hindu philosophy. To begin with, language has held a central role in

Indian philosophy for thousands of years, placing language at the center of all

activity?even that of meditative silence. As Coward notes:

In contrast to the relatively recent stress on linguistics and the philosophy of

language in the West, linguistic speculations were begun by the Hindus before

the advent of recorded history. Beginning with the Vedic hymns, which are at

least 3,000 years old, the Indian study of language has continued in an unbro

ken tradition upto [sic] the present day. The Indian approach to language was

never narrow or restrictive. Language was examined in relation to conscious

ness?consciousness not constricted even to human consciousness. All aspects of the world and human experience were thought of as illuminated by lan

guage (1980: 3).

This emphasis on language has not foregrounded the methodologies of logos

over those of silence, as has Western analysis. In fact, at the center of this specu

lation has been a continuous examination of the integration of language, sound,


and silence?specifically, that of Vedic mantras. In meditation, for instance, the

repetition (either oral or mental) of a mantra is said to affect material and psychic conditions, as C. Mackenzie Brown (1986: 73), among others, has argued.

Mantras, therefore, are said to actually activate the dissolution of dualistic

perceptions, helping the meditator attain nondualistic realization. In the Hindu

tradition, as Woodroffe (1985 [1922]: 113, 165-74) describes, one such mantra,

hamsa, is said to have the capacity to unite both masculine and feminine

tendencies, ham referring to ?iva, or the masculine principle of the universe, and

sa referring to Sakti, or the feminine tendency. Hamsa means *I am He/She,' and is also a mantra often used to unite one's consciousness with that of

brahman ('He/She'). When one attains the consciousness of unification with the

Creator of all things, then, one attains a unified Self in which all opposites? even those of masculine and feminine aspects?are dissolved.

There are numerous mantras, each used for different purposes or to effect

particular material and psychic occurrences, the most important being, Om, the

root sound and source of all other mantras. Om, specifically, is described by

yogis as one of the most predominant manifestations (along with light) of deep, meditative attention. The Upanisads, for instance, abound with descriptions of

Om as the source of all things. The M?ndukya Upanisad (1.1) is particularly

explicit in its depiction of Om as the eternal source: 'The syllable Om [which is

the imperishable brahman] is the universe.' Becoming one with O m?the

imperishable brahman?yogis tell us, enables one to realize the supreme Self.

As the M?ndukya Upanisad (1.12) continues: 'The Fourth, the Self, is Om, the

indivisible syllable. This syllable is unutterable and beyond mind. In it the

manifold universe disappears. It is the supreme good?One without a second.

Whosoever knows Om, the Self, becomes the Self/

A full description of the complexities of this most sacred of all Hindu mantras

is beyond the scope of this present analysis. However, I want to emphasize that

central to nearly all Hindu traditions?particularly those rooted in Vedic,

Ved?ntic, and Yogic schools?is a focus on the primacy of silence as the Word

(not as a condition separate from it), and the concept that the realm of non

conceptualization (meditative sam?dhi) is permeated with the all-encompassing sound, Om. Because the condition of nonconceptualization is itself nondualistic, its primary experience, Om, is likewise nondualistic?'One without a second,' as the M?ndukya Upanisad describes?containing within its manifestation the

ability to resolve all contraries and recast paradox as reciprocal rather than

dichotomous. At the core of nonconceptualization, therefore, lies the condition

of paradox?a sound-filled silence. It is within the realm of this paradox in

which other paradoxes (such as subject and object, or symbol user and symbol) become resolved.


A THEORY OF THE SACRED IN POSTSTRUCTURALIST POETICS: 'CENTER EVERYWHERE, CIRCUMFERENCE NOWHERE'

This reciprocal paradigm of yogic meditative philosophy, a system capable of

accommodating paradox as a generative experience, can offer to the poststruc turalist perspective an epistemology that is compatible with it, one that can

enrich poststructuralist poetics in ways truer to their radical intent. That is, the

silences or discursive gaps demonstrated and at times even evoked in radical

poetry such as that of the 'language' poetry movement, can be recast in light of

yogic meditative philosophy as conditions of 'emptiness' which are, paradoxi cally, 'full' of meaning. One such meaning might be the reconstitution, say, of

the significance of 'center' and 'circumference' and a more complex rendering of

their reciprocity. As Yogananda has described the sam?dhi experience, 'the

divine eye is center everywhere, circumference nowhere.'

Such an argument for a reading of poststnicturalism through the lens of

Eastern meditative texts is not widely accepted in radical poetics. Poststruc

turalist poetic movements often focus on the nonreferential aspect of textual

symbols. One example is 'language' poetry, a radical poetics that has exerted

much influence in American poetry since the early 1970s. The work of Charles

Bernstein, Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, and Rae Armantrout, among others, is

typical of this radical school. Although writers connected to this 'movement'

hesitate to define the poetics of language poetry?especially because language

poetry is by no means monolithic?we can make some observations about the

poetic ideas that language poets share. As Joel Lewis describes, language poetry,

following the lead of poststructuralist theorists such as Roland Barthes, Julia

Kristeva, Foucault, and others,

developed a stance that treats the poem as a text that is a part of a larger inter

textual discourse. Rejected is the idea of the isolated iconic poem (that New

Critic ideal) or the notion that language is purely representational?the idea of

language as being a carrier for meaning that melts away as a story or anecdote

unfolds. This emphasis is on textuality. The notion of the poem as a well

wrought urn, a perfect unity with an absolute meaning beyond paraphrase,

gives way to the notion of the poem as a linguistic complex, a field of

meaning, and the poet as a sort of air-traffic controller for the numerous

cultural and ideological codes that make up the poem (1990: 23-24).

Emphasizing textuality and ideology, then, language poetry (as well as other

poststructuralist poetic theories and practices which share a common interest in


'language' as a culturally-grounded nonreferential symbol) sees its project as

foregrounding social critique and demystifying oppressive forms of discourse

(see, for instance, Bernstein's edited collection [1990]). One such form is the discourse of 'mysticism,' which from the perspective of

this critique is often perceived as a romanticized 'transcendental' philosophy which privileges individual experience and the transcendence of symbolic expres sion over social and historical factors which shape and are shaped by symbolic form. However, as I have argued in my discussion of Om, the arena of mysti cism does not ever 'transcend' symbolic form but actually enables the meditator to enter a deeper, more complex relationship with symbolic expression, that is,

with the textures of sound and silence. This may require one further point of

elaboration, one more explicit to Western poetics.

Specifically, similar to Gaston Bachelard's concept of 'intimate immensity' (1969 [1964]: 183-210), where the image user achieves psychic vastness from

concentrated attention upon a poetic image, the meditator likewise achieves

psychic 'immensity' (the yogic sam?dhi experience) from an 'intimate' attention to various yogic techniques, those grounded chiefly in paradox. For example, by

concentrating upon the symbolic form of a mantra (the paradox being sound and

silence), or even, say, upon one's own breathing (the paradox being inhalation and exhalation), yogis can become so intimate with the symbol that they psychi cally merge with it. To put this another way, yogis, by interiorizing conscious ness through deep attention to and concentration upon various symbolic experi ences, become 'intimate' with these experiences and with their 'individual'

consciousness. Through such intimacy, they attain the psychic vastness of cosmic

consciousness, a fluid, paradoxical, and nondiscursive condition where opposites

reciprocate, and such concepts as 'individual' are lost in the more 'public' expe rience of being interconnected with the consciousness in all things (for a more

detailed discussion of the nontranscendental quality of yogic meditation, see

Kalamaras 1994: 186-96). I want to turn now to a recent interview in Lingo with the French writer

Claude Royet-Journoud (1995: 160-67). While Royet-Jouraoud would probably resist my attempt to connect concepts in his work to those of Hindu philosophy

?in light of the poststructuralist critique of mysticism above?his discussion of concepts of 'center' nonetheless can provide insight into some of the similari

ties between poststructuralist and Indian mystical concepts of 'center,' as well as

begin pointing to a reconsideration of the meaningfuiness of a concept of 'center'

in radical poetics. I have chosen Royet-Journoud as my principal citing not only because he has

been instrumental in beginning a conversation between contemporary French and

American poetry, but also because his articulation of the concept of 'center' illus


trates the kind of paradox at work in both poststructuralist poetic theory and

philosophies of meditative silence. Such an examination of similarities, I want

to argue, can help demonstrate that the reciprocal paradigm of yogic meditative

philosophy can indeed offer an epistemology compatible with that of radical

poetics, one that can ultimately enrich poststructuralist poetics in ways truer to

their radical intent. In particular, examining similarities can help reintroduce into

poststructuralist poetics a concept of the 'sacred' without sacrificing a critique of

'transcendent' (and implicitly hierarchical) forms of discourse that are oppressive.

Royet-Journoud describes the concept of a 'center' in terms of his writing this

way:

I've always seen my books as it were in suspension along the fluid periphery

and at the same time linked by a shared center. Something of a fiction, of

course, since I don't believe in a center any more than in origins....

But the center that unites all four [books] is always something in process of

dissolving, of coming undone (1995: 161).

Royet-Journoud thus argues for the postmodern sensibility prevalent in move

ments such as language poetics: a concept of text as decentered language-body,

elliptical yet social, neither pointing outside of itself for meaning nor inward

toward 'deeper' signification. While Royet-Journoud posits the existence of a

'cento,' he simultaneously deconstructs this concept, reconceiving it as unstable,

and existing, if you will, 'in a process of dissolving, of coming undone.' He

points to a key paradox, therefore, at the core of poetics which take poststnic

turalism as their epistemol?gica! ground: the relationship between Being and

Becoming.

Furthermore, true to poststructuralist theory, Royet-Journoud questions the

concept of 'Being,' arguing that a text's 'meaning' has no stable point of origins,

but that 'meaning' lies (if at all) in the enactment of confronting a text's opacity.

Here, then, he echoes Derrida's description of 'origins' (1976: 266), as well as

theories of nonreferential symbols espoused by other French poststructuralists.

His argument also corresponds to that of American language poet Bruce Andrews,

who notes, for instance, that '[w]hat we face first is the language seen in formal

terms: the sign. There is no "direct treatment" of the thing possible, except of

the "things" of language. Crystalline poetry?or transparency?will not be found

in words' (1990: 104; emphasis in original). The 'center' of Being, that is, ultimately cannot exist, for such existence

implies meaning outside of Being, outside of the text. Furthermore, to even

attempt to name this condition implies textual stability, an illusion and phantom.

Like many poststructuralist thinkers, then, Royet-Journoud's theory of textu


ality approaches the limitation of its epistemological method.

Many poststructuralist critiques of paradox therefore conceive of it as stasis, a

condition that language cannot ever penetrate, much less get beyond. A mystify

ing and binding form, paradox deepens the opacity of textual meaning. The best

that can be hoped for is to keep talking in the midst of such textual suspension, what Paul Christensen has described as 'The language merely drift[ing] forward,

advancing in medium-width columns down the page, beginning arbitrarily and

ending arbitrarily' (1986: 22). But what if this 'something' that Royet-Journoud

points to were reconceived not as a condition of merely static origins? What if

this 'something' were reconceived?in the context of Hindu-yogic philosophy? as a condition of origins that was 'original,' but it was original only because by its fluid, continuous nature it posed problems with a static worldview, even,

paradoxically, with the very idea of its own 'original' existence? In other words, what if the point of origins was 'original' only because it was continuously in

flux? Furthermore, what if poststructuralist poetry took up the charge of its own

implication, finding in the ground of its syntactic slippages and paradoxical

meanderings a stable instability, so to speak, a condition of Being that is always

Becoming? If we were to read Royet-Journoud through the more reciprocal paradigm

depicted in philosophies of yoga, we would see that he begins to take up the

challenge of paradox (albeit by implication), pointing to it as a possible way to

reconstitute textual stasis in terms of something more fluid yet persistent, dis

solving yet present. As he has argued, even though 'the center.. .is always some

thing in process of dissolving, of coming undone,' it is nonetheless present. That is, the 'center,' as he notes, is '[sjomething of a fiction' (emphasis added). If it is '[sjomething of a fiction,' then it might also simultaneously be some

thing that is not a fiction. Here, then, Royet-Journoud approaches the language of the mystic, who holds paradox as central to a description of the experience of

meditative silence. More precisely, the yogi turns to paradox as the only means

of expressing in an unfettered way a perception of experience of simultaneity, one of psychic fluidity between subject and object. Such consciousness is often

referred to by yogis in paradoxical terms as 'neti, neu," as in the Brhad?ranyaka

Upanisad (4.5.15), where '[T]he Self is described as not this, not this.'

Paradox, therefore, permeates the consciousness and discourse of the yogi. The

'center' of meditative awareness, like Royet-Journoud's center, is only a center

because it is dynamic and not static, that is, because it is 'in the process of

dissolving, of coming undone' and not in the process of solidifying. One might

perceive this 'center' in meditation and poetry, consequently, as a liminal space, one which looks neither forward nor backward toward meaning but is itself

entirely because its condition of Being is a state of perpetual Becoming. Here, it


is worth repeating Dyczkowski's point that, 'The motion of absolute conscious ness is a creative movement, a transition from the uncreated state of Being to

the created state of Becoming. In this sense Being is in a state of perpetual

Becoming.' C. H. Knoblauch (1988: 138) argues that a dialogical ideology (one that takes

up the charge of the Marxist argument for a rhetoric of intersubjectivity)?if it is

to be truly dialogical?must present opportunities for critique of its own posi tion. I have been arguing that one limitation of poststructuralist analysis has been

its very method of investigation, one that positions the 'other' of alternative

epistemologies as distinct from the 'self of its own method of discursive

analysis. Reading poststnicturalism through the less binary, more reciprocal lens

of yogic philosophy offers an opportunity for the kind of critique Knoblauch

suggests. Recently, Andrew Joron has taken up a critique of poststructuralist

poetics. He tells us:

If metapoetics is an owl's flight, in that critical theory can never fully

anticipate, much less produce, the object of criticism, then an untheorized?

perhaps untheorizable?moment exists at the inception of the poetic object. Renewed interest in Surrealism attests to a desire to resituate poetry at exactly this point where practice exceeds its theoretical measure?a point of Utopian

discontinuity (Joron 1995: 12).

The philosophies of the East and, in particular, the experiences of yogic medi

tation offer just such a 'utopian discontinuity' that can inform our radical poetries in ways which reintroduce the quality of the sacred back into poetic theory with

out succumbing to hierarchies and oppression. What is 'utopian' is the perma nence of Being, of a 'center everywhere'; what is 'discontinuous' is the shifting of this point of reference, the continual 'process of dissolving' of which Royet Journoud speaks. It is a condition of Being that is always Becoming, or in the

words of the great yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, it is a condition where 'the

divine eye' of mystical union 'is center everywhere, circumference nowhere.'

Notes

1. Central to Hindu mystical practice is the assumption of one's own yet-to-bc-real

ized divinity, that is, undifferentiated, nondualistic consciousness?what the Hindu

refers to as an identification of the individual divine principle (?tman or self) with the

broader, ultimate principle (?tman or Self). The former is the divine principle manifest

ing within the confines of ego-personality, while the latter is the unrestricted divine


principle manifesting as the expansive Self. Such an awareness of Self is paramount to

an identification with brahman, the originary principle that underlies all creation. Thus, ?tman and ?tman are really the same; it is only for spiritual aspirants to perceive and

experience this nondualism for themselves. I have capitalized the word Self in those

places where the concept is meant to denote the condition of the expansive, 'realized'

awareness to which Hindu-yogic philosophy attests, while I have used the small case to

denote the more limited awareness that is restricted by ego-personality.

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GEORGE KALAMARAS is Associate Professor of English and Director of

Creative Writing at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

The Center and Circumference of Silence Yoga, Poststructuralism, And the Rhetoric Of

Documents

circumference of silence

abyss of silence

prelogical silence

void of silence

cultural power

single power

cultural conditions

ones power