Spiritual Language

[Goddodin]

Reading some of the discussions/arguments in the Tony Parsons thread, it occurred to me how quickly spiritual language becomes cliched, and also potentially provides a barrier to understanding.

 

Neo-Advaita is/was refreshing in many ways because it lacked the traditional linguistic garbs of its 'feeder' religions - Hinduism, Buddhism & Taoism. However, even in the short time I've been familiar with it, I'm aware that many of the neo-advaita phrases are starting to sound like the sort of bullshit-bingo you have to put up with at work.

 

Apart from it being slightly irritating to listen to, the chief problem here - imo - is that you can mistake a grounding in the language of a tradition with a grounding in the understanding/experience of a tradition. In the data-knowledge-wisdom stream of understanding more worldly pursuits, this stuff is just the data. You can learn it by route but it can still be pretty meaningless.

 

Neo-Advaita isn't being singled out here, all the others have their own sets of buzzwords and phrases too. I am increasingly thinking that just doing your practice and avoiding trying to equate it to someone else's description of it is the best way forward.

 

Equally I find myself posting this on a public forum, so maybe it's just good fun to talk shit about this stuff too!

 

Penny for your thoughts, Bums.

[GrandmasterP]

Specialist language serves to define the users thereof in order to exclude the uninitiated. Hence you and I ma have a cold but our Doctor will call it acute coryza, cos she can.

No fun at all belonging until you learn the passwords and become accepted by other password users as part of the gang.

All these buzz words and phrases are just that, language to both include 'us' and exclude 'them'.

The bullshit-cleric-ridden paths aside (Tibetan NE one?) , all the terms have a core and similar meaning or focus.

We say cultivation they day meditation. We say playing they say exercising. We say summerland they say heaven... And so on

Edited November 14, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Jetsun]

Language creates huge barriers in understanding, which is why when writing his own spiritual books Gurdjieff created his own words for many things so you can't attach your own predetermined ideas and project your own interpretation onto what he is saying. Ten people could read a post about Vedanta and each come to a different conclusion about what is being said, even individual words can be confused and have multiple meanings depending on what associations you have running through your mind.

[GrandmasterP]

Our friends the Postmodernists did much the same, as does Chomsky, the superstring theorists and many others. Symbolic Logic exists by reason of the shortcomings of language.

Greek, German and French are better languages to philosophise in than is English due to the wider choice of tense and concept terminolgy.

Chinese ideograms are worse than useless for Western philosophising hence the schismatic nature of academic Sinology.

Two sinologist = three translations plus several appendices with footnotes always longer than the journal article's original word count.

Taoism cannot be communicated in the original ideographic forms to those brought up and encultured to interpret said ideograms, hence even less so in any English gloss on whatever interpretation anyone chooses to put on a text.

That to me is its attraction, it is beyond language, hence truly-ironically transcendent.

Edited November 14, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[GrandmasterP]

Grandmaster Chang on Tao.....

 

"Not for talking... for LIVING!"

[Goddodin]

that's an interesting point about the limitations of English. As a semi-related point, I often chuckle at the literalist interpretations of the Bible that seem pretty popular at the moment. A good friend of mine holds these views but the translation of the Bible he reads is some modern American-English rendering which strikes me as utter bullshit.

[Stosh]

Static use of language stands as both a barrier and a bastion for conveying ideas

Subject specific terms are fine, but in my opinion ,should be relegated to footnote as often as possible

As to the habit of redefining old words to new meanings , bad.

Creating ones own new words , maybe not as bad , but it seems a lazy approach to expressing meaning.

 

One shouldnt have to learn chinese to understand what someone means, describing universal truths.

 

The humongous language of english works just fine at describing anything from quarks to supernovae

If one cant use it to explain what they know or understand ,,, they dont know or understand it.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Stosh

[GrandmasterP]

At a certain and popularist level that is quite true, however beyond reportage for a generalist audience , sometimes; a specialist technical-professional language is necessary. In my trade symbolic logic is the tool of choice, that is shorthand for thoughts when, to commit said thoughts into writing reams of paper and millions of words might be necessary and then only those who spoke that language would understand, whereas like symbolic math, symbolic logic is a universal language to those who can read it, irrespective of their 'mother' tongue ( a.k.a L1 in symbolic logic).

Edited November 14, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Jeff]

that's an interesting point about the limitations of English. As a semi-related point, I often chuckle at the literalist interpretations of the Bible that seem pretty popular at the moment. A good friend of mine holds these views but the translation of the Bible he reads is some modern American-English rendering which strikes me as utter bullshit.

 

Interesting point. The original greek versions (w/new testament) use something like 18,000 different words. Average english version uses about 6,000 different words. Something being lost...?

 

[Stosh]

At a certain and popularist level that is quite true, however beyond reportage for a generalist audience , sometimes; a specialist technical-professional language is necessary. In my trade symbolic logic is the tool of choice, that is shorthand for thoughts when, to commit said thoughts into writing reams of paper and millions of words might be necessary and then only those who spoke that language would understand, whereas like symbolic math, symbolic logic is a universal language to those who can read it, irrespective of their 'mother' tongue ( a.k.a L1 in symbolic logic).

 

Agreed ,

 

(If folks who already are familiar with a subject can use specialist terms , it speeds-things-up

If Im describing snow , I might want to have the Inuit words for it.

But explaining snow to folks who dont already know the subject I can still describe it as crunchy or heavy or frosty dry squeaky

or -pink like the old snow on the shady side of a peak.,, just substituting new words for an explanation = stingey effort)

[Stosh]

Interesting point. The original greek versions (w/new testament) use something like 18,000 different words. Average english version uses about 6,000 different words. Something being lost...?

 

 

The number 6000 english words is in line with the spoken vocabulary size of americans , they recognize many many more , and along with technical terms slang and expressions etc the total verbiage of english easily passes half a million sequences

Edited November 14, 2012 by Stosh

[GrandmasterP]

 

 

Agreed ,

 

(If folks who already are familiar with a subject can use specialist terms , it speeds-things-up

If Im describing snow , I might want to have the Inuit words for it.

But explaining snow to folks who dont already know the subject I can still describe it as crunchy or heavy or frosty dry squeaky

or -pink like the old snow on the shady side of a peak.,, just substituting new words for an explanation = stingey effort)

 

.......

Where I come from we have thirty odd different words to describe types of rain.

;-)

 

[GrandmasterP]

 

 

Interesting point. The original greek versions (w/new testament) use something like 18,000 different words. Average english version uses about 6,000 different words. Something being lost...?

 

..........

Plus Koine (New Testament) Greek has one more tense than English that Aoristic 'present continuous', which puts quite a different spin on some passages translated into the less vesatile Latin thence English.

Paul's "I press forward towards the mark" for example often used as a text to encourage diligent application and the protestant work ethic when in the Koine he is saying..

"Me guys? Shit I just hang. So chill" or words to that effect.

[doc benway]

Reading some of the discussions/arguments in the Tony Parsons thread, it occurred to me how quickly spiritual language becomes cliched, and also potentially provides a barrier to understanding.

 

Neo-Advaita is/was refreshing in many ways because it lacked the traditional linguistic garbs of its 'feeder' religions - Hinduism, Buddhism & Taoism. However, even in the short time I've been familiar with it, I'm aware that many of the neo-advaita phrases are starting to sound like the sort of bullshit-bingo you have to put up with at work.

 

Apart from it being slightly irritating to listen to, the chief problem here - imo - is that you can mistake a grounding in the language of a tradition with a grounding in the understanding/experience of a tradition. In the data-knowledge-wisdom stream of understanding more worldly pursuits, this stuff is just the data. You can learn it by route but it can still be pretty meaningless.

 

Neo-Advaita isn't being singled out here, all the others have their own sets of buzzwords and phrases too. I am increasingly thinking that just doing your practice and avoiding trying to equate it to someone else's description of it is the best way forward.

 

Equally I find myself posting this on a public forum, so maybe it's just good fun to talk shit about this stuff too!

 

Penny for your thoughts, Bums.

Nice post.

I think this is a natural part of the progression.

Something leads me to the spiritual quest.

I'm intrigued by words, ideas, practices.

They help to shake me up enough to loosen the delusion.

At some point the words just don't mean anything anymore - isn't that sort of the point?

The words are just another story, a creation of thought, an object of consciousness, no matter how accurate or evocative.

Eventually they just burn out when subjected to the light of awareness.

[deci belle]

My experience in this arena is so alien. I had no one to tell. Not before, nor during— nor for fifteen years after, or about 2007.

 

From the start, it was always a matter of recognizing what was really happening on the interior, nonpsychological level and guessing how the dharma-vocabulary applied in each case.

 

Talking is very wasteful and depleting in terms of autonomous energy …it is generally a contentious process no matter how subtle or congenial~ at the very least it can be termed comparatively conciliatory; not a bad thing, but in my experience never once contributing to independent concentration and insight.

 

The problem, really— or the issue at the heart of talk is that is of absolutely no consequence— it's cheap. Most of it is discontinuous streams of mutually projected lies for the purpose of idly entertaining chatter.

 

Real talk is a matter of disclosure, espionage, as it were, in order to flush out facts— interrogatory and pointed, no matter how subtle and soft the trap. Anything else is bullshit~ probably to the tune of 95% of what goes on around here.

 

Sinfest just posted his 3.269th post …left absolutely nothing for his trouble❤

[PLB]

It is very difficult to make out what other people are doing. It is very difficult to talk about what oneself is doing.

Words offer a bridge and a barrier to the same.

 

The advantage of traditional sources is that nobody owns them. They are there like a wall, a path, or a lake.

The advantage of talking about what is happening now is that it doesn't even exist yet, the speaker searches for clues in the crime scene of life, hoping to establish a narrative for what just happened.

 

That is why people try to have philosophy; not to explain everything but to make room for words.

[Goddodin]

The words are just another story, a creation of thought, an object of consciousness, no matter how accurate or evocative.

Eventually they just burn out when subjected to the light of awareness.

 

Yes, this.

 

(Sorry, that was an inarticulate way to reply to a well crafted sentence, but my own use of words is pretty poor!)

[GrandmasterP]

My experience in this arena is so alien. I had no one to tell. Not before, nor during— nor for fifteen years after, or about 2007.

 

From the start, it was always a matter of recognizing what was really happening on the interior, nonpsychological level and guessing how the dharma-vocabulary applied in each case.

 

Talking is very wasteful and depleting in terms of autonomous energy …it is generally a contentious process no matter how subtle or congenial~ at the very least it can be termed comparatively conciliatory; not a bad thing, but in my experience never once contributing to independent concentration and insight.

 

The problem, really— or the issue at the heart of talk is that is of absolutely no consequence— it's cheap. Most of it is discontinuous streams of mutually projected lies for the purpose of idly entertaining chatter.

 

Real talk is a matter of disclosure, espionage, as it were, in order to flush out facts— interrogatory and pointed, no matter how subtle and soft the trap. Anything else is bullshit~ probably to the tune of 95% of what goes on around here.

 

Sinfest just posted his 3.269th post …left absolutely nothing for his trouble❤

.......

Depends on context I suppose.

Lady tells me she loves me every time I leave the house to come to work.

That communicates pretty nicely.

[deci belle]

Um, what's that got to do with the topic, hmmmm? The topic is words, the wearing out thereof, et al— not communicating sentiment with a loved-one.

 

This is another reason why discussion (spiritual language) gets derailed and diluted on this forum and recreational chat-rooms.

 

It's the way of the world …I just wanted to make an example of the post, GP, (and make the point) that's all!!❤

[et-thoughts]

.

Edited December 11, 2012 by et-thoughts

[GrandmasterP]

Hence the graph.

No need for words if one can read the graph.

[GrandmasterP]

A picture may well be worth a thousand words but it usually takes far more than a thousand words to describe a picture.

[et-thoughts]

.

Edited December 11, 2012 by et-thoughts

[skydog]

word

[GrandmasterP]

Show the graph whydontcha?

;-)