When I was a young person I went to the university and I learned

In the mystical and piercing words of Alejandro Jodorowsky, he once said: “When I was a young person I went to the university and I learned a rational language, to think with the left side of the brain. But in the right side of the brain you have intuition and imagination. Words are not the truth; they indicate the way to go, but you need to go alone, in silence. Symbols have a language that kills the words.” This is not merely a reflection on intellect — it is a revelation of the human soul divided between reason and mystery, between the mind that measures and the spirit that dreams. Jodorowsky, the visionary artist and philosopher, speaks as one who has seen that knowledge alone cannot reveal truth, for the highest truths are felt, not spoken.

When he speaks of the left side of the brain, he invokes the realm of logic, structure, and language — the world of definitions, analysis, and control. This is the world the universities teach: where truth is captured in words and numbers, and reality is broken into parts to be understood. But Jodorowsky contrasts it with the right side of the brain, the kingdom of intuition, creation, and sacred vision. It is there, in silence and symbol, that we commune with the invisible — with the truths that cannot be dissected, only experienced. To think only with the left brain, he warns, is to live half a life, to mistake the map for the territory, the word for the truth itself.

The origin of this wisdom lies in Jodorowsky’s own life — a life that defied all boundaries of art, philosophy, and spirituality. Born in Chile, he studied philosophy and psychology, but found himself drawn to the language of myth, tarot, and sacred performance. Through film, theater, and mysticism, he sought to heal the human spirit not through logic, but through symbol. His works, from The Holy Mountain to Psychomagic, are filled with images that bypass the intellect and speak directly to the soul. Having once lived in the realm of rational learning, he discovered that the mind alone cannot awaken — that awakening requires the heart’s silence and the imagination’s fire.

To understand his meaning, imagine the story of Lao Tzu, the ancient sage who wrote the Tao Te Ching. When his disciples begged him to explain the Tao — the Way — he replied that “the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” Like Jodorowsky, Lao Tzu knew that words, though beautiful, are only pointers, not the destination. The truth they gesture toward cannot be held within them. As the moonlight cannot be captured by the finger that points to it, so too the divine reality cannot be contained in any phrase or doctrine. The wise man knows that after learning, there must come unlearning, and after speaking, silence.

Jodorowsky’s statement that “symbols have a language that kills the words” carries the power of sacred paradox. He means that symbols — images, dreams, myths — do not explain truth, they embody it. A symbol is a living door between worlds: it speaks to the unconscious, to the place beyond speech, where the heart recognizes meaning before the mind does. Words can deceive, but symbols pierce the veil of reason. The cross, the mandala, the spiral, the rising sun — these are not objects of thought, but mirrors of being. To see with the right side of the brain is to perceive through symbol, intuition, and presence.

And yet, Jodorowsky does not reject reason; he transcends it. He teaches that the journey begins with knowledge but ends in silence. We study words to find the path, but to walk it, we must lay the words down. In the stillness beyond thought, the intuition awakens, and we begin to see with the eyes of the spirit. The silence he speaks of is not emptiness, but fullness — the silence of a mind at peace, where truth reveals itself like light upon still water.

Let this, then, be the lesson: honor both the mind and the mystery. Learn to think clearly, but do not mistake thinking for knowing. Seek not to explain everything, but to experience deeply. When you have read the books and mastered the concepts, go out beneath the stars and be still. Let the universe speak to you not in words, but in symbols — the language of intuition and wonder. For the mind may lead you to the gate, but only silence will open it.

Thus, the wisdom of Alejandro Jodorowsky becomes a torch for all who seek truth: that the intellect builds the road, but the soul walks it. Words can guide, but they cannot deliver. Beyond all noise lies the sacred stillness where the Real begins — the realm of the right brain, where imagination becomes revelation, and silence becomes truth.