Chapter 28: The Secret Doctrine of Hermes

Tat, the son of Hermes, asked his father: "What is the secret doctrine you have never revealed? I have studied all your other teachings. I know the principles, the correspondences, the paths of ascent. But I sense there is something more — something you have held back."

Hermes was silent for a long time. Then he spoke: "There is indeed a teaching I have never spoken. It is not that I wished to withhold it. It is that it cannot be told — only experienced. But perhaps you are ready to hear what can be said."

"But how can both be true?" asked Tat. "How can your teachings be both true and not the truth?"

"A ladder is true," said Hermes. "It truly raises you from the ground to the roof. But when you stand on the roof, you do not call the ladder 'roof.' You set it aside. All teachings are ladders. They are true in their function, but they are not the destination."

"Then why teach at all?" Tat asked. "If all teachings are inadequate, why not remain silent?"

"Because silence itself becomes a teaching," Hermes replied. "And because some need words to lead them to the wordless. The wise person uses words to transcend words. He builds a ladder, then burns it. He draws a map, then throws it away when he arrives."

Tat considered this. "So the highest teaching is to need no teaching?"

"The highest teaching," said Hermes, "is to become the teaching. Not to know the truth but to be truth. Not to understand reality but to be reality understanding itself. When the seeker becomes the sought, the journey ends where it began. You were never separate from what you sought. The search was how you discovered what was always the case."