Book Review: Aflame: Learning from Silence by Pico Iyer
Aflame is a celebration of Iyer’s decades-long infatuation with a Benedictine retreat in an isolated spot in the hills above the ocean at Big Sur. In his recent book The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise, Iyer searches the world for locations with unique spiritual significance, but in Aflame, he offers readers a glimpse of his own special place, the place he prefers to escape to when he is in need of spiritual renewal. Although the retreat is run by a Catholic order of brothers, all who seek stillness and silence are welcome. Iyer emphasizes that he does not believe in God but approaches the spirituality he finds there from a secular perspective. His observations, which are presented in short, succinct sections, remind me of the insights offered by Erling Kagge in his meditative book Silence: In the Age of Noise.
Iyer has a very busy, globetrotting life conducting research for his books and the magazines he writes for, and alternating his time between his home with his wife in Japan and his mother’s home in California. As he tells it, sometimes it all becomes too much, and when he needs to slow down he invariably opts for the small hermitage at Big Sur. His thoughts caused me to remember times in my life during which I had been rushing to get from place to place and felt the need to pause, step back, take a few quiet breaths, and get refilled with inner peace and fortitude. For instance, on my first trip from Europe across the Middle East on the Hippie Trail, when I finally arrived in India, the first thing I did was to retire to a Buddhist ashram north of Bombay where I spent a couple of weeks learning to meditate. Later, while in Nepal, when I was unsure of my next step amidst my travels, I found an isolated spot on an unmarked trail high in the Himalayas where I could stop and ponder my life’s path. On my next trip to India, I’d been traveling hard to make it to a certain location in Goa, India, but just before I arrived I paused, found a tiny beachside village, and rested for a few days in silence and stillness. We all need this from time to time, only many of us do not recognize the need and allow the stress to build up to the breaking point.
It is not as if you will necessarily have a special revelation if you embrace the silence of which Iyer writes. He emphasizes that “the world isn’t erased here; only returned to its proper proportions. It’s not a matter of finding or acquiring anything, only of letting everything extraneous fall away.” And it’s not as if everything Iyer writes is a gem of wisdom. Sometimes his observations are sort of hit and miss, or perhaps it’s that certain parts of the book may speak to some individuals more than others.
The difficult part, according to Iyer, is to carry the peaceful attitude brought on by silence and contemplation back out into the world. In my case, as I read this I wondered how I could reconcile watching Futurama or Family Guy while eating a meal with the need I have for profound silence and deliberate life choices. The answer is moderation. Balance. It is important to enjoy oneself while at the same time maintaining an attitude of waiting and listening. Going to overzealous extremes can easily lead to self-righteousness and snobbery. One thing that Iyer appreciates about the Benedictine brothers at his Big Sur hideaway is their open-mindedness and tolerance. They receive anyone who seeks peace.
The title, Aflame, is mainly metaphysical but also literal, as Iyer explains that one time he was driven to spend time at the monastery after his home burned down in a California wildfire. In fact, the hermitage is frequently in danger of the forest fires that sometimes rage in coastal California and sometimes has to be evacuated during fire season. Iyer writes: “Fire is nature’s agent of rebirth. It replenishes wild places much as I replenish myself by sitting in silence.” The stoical attitude that the monks take toward the occasional fires is drawn from their overall attitude toward existence. Life is a transitory phenomenon.
Near the end of the book, COVID strikes and the world locks down. Iyer takes it as an opportunity to seek whatever beauty he can find where he is. He says, “In a curious way, in the heart of a trembling world, we’re living a little as we might in the silence of the monastery.” And that’s really the message of this book. Not everyone can take off to a retreat as Iyer can. He acknowledges this when he writes: “I’m lucky indeed to have the time and money to go on retreat, I know, a luxury that most might envy.” The point, though, of Iyer’s book, and of Kagge’s book about silence too, is that we must take time to pause and reflect regardless of our situation and location. You can turn any quiet spot into a monastery, a place of rest and renewal.
