In One Word, Who Are You?
To try and label yourself with just one word is madness, because you are beyond description. It is more of an experience, like being drunk. A wise man named Osho once said, “If you intellectualize about wine instead of drink it, you will never understand the experience of being drunk.” If words, (which are just sounds) are a tool created by the intellect to convey ideas, (thoughts created by the mind which interprets reality based on only five senses) why does our entire civilization revolve around them? It is as if we are still learning to work with the wheel when there is already a car to be driven!
The only context that can attempt to explain this experience is a sense of liberation, freedom, creativity, and even that in itself is still limiting to who or what is witnessing said experience. So don’t try to “wrap your brain around it,” as my guru says. The mind functions mostly off of memory, and memory isn’t exactly reliable. In fact, it can create a lot of chaos if you choose to live by it. When an event happens, the mind often focuses on one specific idea of the event and remembers only that; memory is greatly influenced by perception, because it is a loop. Your memory is influenced by your perception and your perception is guided by your memory.
I’m not trying to propose our society function without language, just quit defining your life by the words of it. Eighty or ninety percent of language is conveyed through the body, which is a physical way of displaying emotions and attitudes. A bunch of sounds are given too much credit for being what really defines reality. When words are not taken as a serious influence on the mind, which controls the body, there is no fear of living up to expectations or standards, which are made by what other people think. If one wastes their time worrying about what others think of them, or even worse, takes the ideas for reality, then they will never discover who they are and what they’re capable of. This is why it is important to create a self image based on who you experience yourself to be. As mentioned earlier, intellectualizing is not the same thing as experiencing, and once set free of definitions, even your own, one experiences infinite aspects of life, or being.
Another wise man, Lao Tzu, said, “Only a man can govern himself.” This means a man or woman is entitled to mastering who he/she is because they are free to; they do not act out with violence from fear. Fear is a symptom of being defined by any means, because it gives one the idea that they are something, when they are really nothing. Not in the context of not existing, for all the mind can say in full honesty is the fact that “I am,” or, “I exist.” When the idea appears that, “I am the body,” there is suddenly fear and struggle to keep something alive that will eventually die. But you are nothing, unlimited, neither visible not perceivable, tangible or intangible, conscious or unconsciousness. You just are. So just be.
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Freaking excellent post!
Actually, my mind can say infinitely more than, “I am.” How about, “I am not scared of existence.” Or, “Your whole post uses words to try and refute the ability of words to communicate.” Nice post-modern mantra.
Try telling me how you feel about my response without using “A bunch of sounds” that “are given too much credit for being what really defines reality.” You can’t.
I’m glad that you are exploring the concepts of existence, reality, influence, social control, time/space, and about 2600 years of philosophical thought, but refuting the usefullness of words with words is like talking about a one ended stick. It’s a fallacy of non-contradiction.
Thanks for posting though. I look forward to reading more from someone who is willing to delve into this type of thought.
Very well written! I’m not entirely positive the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” works. Anyway, keep the discussion rollen, this is sure to make people think! ww000!
“I AM” translated to Hebrew in one word: Ehyeh
I like that.
Calusa, How quick you are to point out the most obvious duality! However, you miss the essence of the post, which is to challenge how you define life through investigation of yourself, whether it is with words, actions, feelings, etc. For example, “Actually, my mind can…” whose mind are you talking about? Yours? Who are you? Are you just a name, a mind and a body? When refusing to stimulate the five senses, who is left witnessing the sense of “I am?” Where do “your” thoughts come from? Who or what is creating them?
Indeed, these discussions have gone on for… Well, I don’t know, because I have not witnessed 2600 years. What are years compared to infinite silence?
I enjoyed your post! Food for thought. Good food mmmm..
“What are years compared to infinite silence?”
What is infinite silence compared to years?
Read George Orwell’s politics and the English language to understand why humanity focuses on words.
Without vocabulary, we cannot think. If we lack the words to describe our thoughts, how do we communicate them? Better yet so, how do we understand them ourselves?
Along with many other ingenious concepts, Orwell’s explains this concept and how he demonstrated it in his novel 1984. “The party” (aka the government if you haven’t read the book) is slowly changing the country’s language from English to a language called “Newspeak”. Newspeak has very words; for example, the word “bad” is eliminated and replaced with “ungood”. Newspeak also lacks any words that describe “thoughtcrime” (acts against the government). The underlying intention is that if, within a few generations, the country adopts newspeak, people will lack the words to describe thoughtcrime and then, in turn, won’t be able to do it.
Even if you have a thought of “I hate the government”, how do you comprehend it if you do not know the word for hate? Sure, you can feel hatred, but if you have no word for hate (not even “unlove”) than how can you comprehend or communicate your emotions?
I know, I disagreed at first as well. But before you explain to me about how Orwell and I are incorrect, perform one exercise? Try to explain to yourself (and then to me, if you succeed) how you could understand a thought or concept (other than primal emotions) without using your words. (Ever realize that only once you can explain something in words do you feel as if you’ve really grasped it?)
Look forward to anyone with insight–agreements or disagreements.
Dan Montreal
The brain works on words.
***Whoops, accidental “?” there after the word exercise.
dan,
This is true. It is difficult for a human mind to contemplate silence, but that is not its function. A mind always thinks, but that is what keeps it from being dull; it needs exercise like the body. Language serves the purpose of communication, but that purpose is not to constrict what a person thinks of the world, which is essentially their self. By all means, talk and write, find more challenging words to stimulate the mind; think critically! The emphasis is not to not use words, it is to not identify and be limited by their meaning. It is a most dishonest deed!
As for your exercise… You are right! Thoughts and concepts need words to be explained, but they are just theories. Experience does not need an explanation, because it is experience itself that justifies what has been witnessed, which words fail to convey. It is like using a rock to explain the beauty of a diamond; in the mind, it may appear similar, but until you have seen, touched, and become the diamond, one will never really understand.
In one word, absurd. I support Dan’s point that without words we cannot organize or think for ourselves. Certainly roughly 90 percent of our communication is based within nonverbal communication but, we still need words to create society and amass civilization. Without language we would begin to become based entirely on our emotions and instincts. This would inevitably lead to conflict without reason. Language is what separates us from other animals as it allows us to impart reason on one another. I do agree with the statements made in the blog post, language is limiting and does not fully define who we are as individuals. That comes with the experiences we have and we cannot simply define ourselves into a few select words. The reason we do is the hope that the other person we are talking with will be able to connect with us and therefore affirm that we are, infact, individuals yet not alone.
The brain doesn’t work on words. Words are a large part of our daily experience, but no more than smells, sounds, feelings, sights, etc. On the other hand, words are a different kind of experience, because they are extremely arbitrary in comparison to physical experience.
Physical experiences (e.g. pain, pleasure, flashes and bangs, etc.) occur in highly predictable fashions adhering to strict natural laws, yet they may be described in very different, arbitrary words, in any of a thousand different languages. Similarly, physically unrelated events can be linked together by words, which can be spoken at will, so words can be very useful in high-level thought.
The fastest form of communication is not communication at all… but parallel thought. When people experience the same things, they don’t need words, because, in essence, they are already thinking similar things. Even if someone arrives late to a situation, they can often figure out what’s going on without any words spoken.
Today, words are useful, because we all have very individualized experiences. Perhaps if we all ran in packs like wolves and had very tightly integrated experiences of reality, we would not rely on words so heavily.
Even today, similar experience is important, and the Internet is making our communication infinitely fast (i.e. training us for parallel though). In order for you to understand what I’m saying, you must have learned English. More importantly, you must, to some extent, be able to predict what I’m going to say… before I say it (on the level of whole concepts, individual words, and even individual sounds in the case of speech). Otherwise, you’d fail to understand a single word I said, much like AI (until now) has failed.
…and by the way, myself in one word: “dynamic”
Copied from great Indian Books on Vedanta,Bhagavatgeetha! Guys just read books on Vendanta and Indian mythology! You will be the invincible!
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