The essential construction of your life is built of contradictory or unifying actions...

..where you put defective material, the defect will grow; where you put solid material, you increase the structure's solidity. You must make no mistake at the moment you find yourself faced with your actions, for if you do you will jeopardize your future and invert the stream of your life—and how then will you end your suffering?

In daily actions difficulties are overcome, small objectives are achieved, little failures reaped.

Whether pleasant or unpleasant, these acts accompany daily life like scaffolding accompanies a great building; it is not the structure itself, but it is necessary if it is to be built. It does not matter what material this scaffolding is made of, as long as it is suitable for its purpose.

Hunger, thirst, sickness, and all bodily injury are pain... ...

Fear, frustration, despair, and all mental hurt are suffering.



Physical pain recedes in the measure that society and science advance. Mental suffering recedes in the measure that faith in life advances, in the measure that life gains meaning.

Between doubt and hope, your life is oriented toward landscapes... ...

...that coincide with something that is within you. This entire world, which you have not chosen but which has been given for you to humanize, is the landscape that most grows as life grows.


Therefore may your heart never say, “Neither the autumn, nor the sea, nor the ice-covered crag have anything to do with me.” Instead may it affirm, “I love the reality that I build!”

I will tell you the meaning of your life here... ...

...It is to humanize the earth. And what does it mean to humanize the earth? It is to surpass pain and suffering; it is to learn without limits; it is to love the reality you build.





I cannot ask you to go further, but neither should it offend if I declare, “Love the reality you build, and not even death will halt your flight!”

Before the same sea one person becomes anguished... ...

...while another, inspired, feels exhilarated. And a thousand more are overawed in contemplation of those frozen crags, while still others gaze in admiration at those crystals carved on such gigantic scale. Some are depressed, others uplifted before the same landscape.


A single landscape, then, may be very different for two people, but wherein does the difference lie?

Here is my question: As life goes by, is it happiness or suffering that grows within you?

Do not ask that I define these words; answer instead according to what you feel…


Though you may be wise and powerful, if happiness and liberty do not grow in you and in those around you, I will reject your example.

Not even the worst of what is criminal is foreign to me... ...

...and if I recognize it in the landscape, I recognize it also in myself.


So it is that I want to surpass what in me as in everyone fights to suppress life: I want to surpass the abyss!

The radiance of a spark or of a star dances for your eye... ...

And though there is no light without the eye, on other eyes this radiance would fall with different effect.


Therefore let your heart affirm, “I love this radiance I see!” But may it never say, “Neither sun, nor spark, nor star have anything to do with me.”

If, perhaps, you imagine yourself to be a fleeting meteorite...

...that has lost its brilliance upon falling to earth, you will accept that pain and suffering are simply the nature of things.


But if you believe you have been thrown into this world to fulfill the mission of humanizing it, you will be thankful to those who have come before you, who have built with great labor the steps that allow you to continue the ascent.

“We have made the pilgrimage to this desolated outpost searching... ...

... for the Force that nurtures our lives, searching for the Joy in doing and searching for the mental Peace necessary to advance in this altered and violent world.”

All worlds you aspire to,...

...all justice you demand, all love you search for, all human beings you would follow or destroy are also within you.

There are forms of violence that are imposed by the Philistine morality...

You wish to impose your way of life upon another; you wish to impose your vocation upon another. But who has told you that you are an example that must be followed? Who has told you that you can impose a way of life because it pleases you? What makes your way of life a model, a pattern that you have the right to impose on others? This, then, is another form of violence.

"Speaking to the stones"

In the state of siege imposed by Argentina’s military government during the latter part of the 1960's, Silo’s first attempt to speak publicly was forbidden. When the authorities were consulted about whether Silo could give the speech at a location far removed from any urban center, they granted permission with the sarcastic remark that there was no ban on “speaking to the stones.” And so on May 4, 1969, high in the Andes at a place known as Punta de Vacas, Silo spoke before a small group that had had to endure interrogation and harassment by armed security forces.

Long ago, the plagues that befell a region were blamed on witches and demons...

...but over time, the advance of science did more for both the persecutors and the persecuted than all the millennia of irresponsible clamor.



To which faction would you have given your support? Whether on the side of the pure or the wicked, you would only have increased your folly.

If day and night, summer and winter...

...are well with you, you have surpassed the contradictions.

If you have need of something new, you must surpass the old that dominates within you...

...and how will you do this?



Begin by realizing that even if you change your location, you carry your internal landscape with you.

If you say, “We have reached other planets,” you must also declare... ...

... ...We have massacred and enslaved entire peoples. We have filled our jails with those who cried out for liberty. We have lied from morning until night. We have falsified our thoughts, our affections, and our actions. We have assaulted life at every turn, for we have created suffering.

“We make the pilgrimage to this desolate outpost searching... ...

... ...for the Force that nurtures our lives, searching for the Joy in doing and searching for the mental Peace necessary to advance in this altered and violent world.”