The Truth cannot be spoken; that which can be spoken is not the Truth.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Truth is that which can never be spoken in words and that which can be spoken in words is not the Truth. The ocean is the ocean; the ocean is not a few drops of water that one puts in a bottle. Just so Truth cannot be limited by words: Truth must be experienced…
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume IX – The Unity of Religious Ideals: Part VI, The Ideal of the Sufi )
…the Truth cannot be put into words; all we can do is make an effort to render the mystery of life intelligible to our minds.
Very often people ask, “What is the nature of Truth, is it a theory, a principle, a philosophy, or a doctrine?” All theories, philosophies, principles, and doctrines are only a cover over the Truth. The ultimate Truth is that which cannot spoken, for words are too inadequate to express it.
( from “Supplementary papers (aka Dutch Papers), Philosophy V” [unpublished] )
There is a well known Eastern legend giving the idea of a soul who had found Truth. There was a wall of laughter and of smiles. This wall existed for ages and many tried to climb it, but few succeeded. Those who had climbed upon it saw something beyond, and so interested were they that they smiled, climbed over the wall and never returned. The people of the town began to wonder what magic could there be and what attraction, that whoever climbed the wall never returned. So they called it the wall of mystery. Then they said, ‘We must make an enquiry and send someone who can reach the top, but we must tie him with a rope to hold him back.’ When the man they had thus sent reached the top of the wall, he smiled and tried to jump over it, but they pulled him back. Still he smiled, and when the people eagerly asked, ‘what did you see there?’ he did not answer, he only smiled.
This is the condition of the seers. Those who in the shrine of their heart have seen the vision of God, those who have the realization of Truth, can only smile, for words can never really explain what Truth means.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Truth is an Absolute, Transcendent Unity. Sounds are created out of Sound by the Universal Sound (called Logos by the Christians) which penetrates the mind-mesh giving rise to all particular sounds. Particular sounds show the existence of Universal Sound but do not explain it.
This Universal Truth is Universal Sound and not Silence. It is active, it is Life, yet in a certain sense it is changeless above and including all change. Human speech comes into existence by the grasping of the rays of Universal Sound by the mind-mesh, but none of such utterances can either be or describe the Universal Sound which is Truth. A chicken cannot be described by the eggs she hatches, yet it is natural for the chicken to lay eggs. Yet human speech, through the praising of God, causes a turning back to God. This is through the process of renunciation (not abolition) of thought and speech. Through such a process one becomes one with Truth, and Truth is reflected in speech and is the cause of speech but of itself it is not speech.