Thursday, February 21, 2008

Why I lost my belief in words ... and how I (almost) ended my reading habit

God. When I talk with you and use the word 'God' - I have many different memes associated with that word in my mind. And -- you -- probably have a set of other, different memes in your mind. And both of us probably are not in sync with what we 'think' is 'real'. Forget what 'IS' real. Why God - even plain words like, say -- 'western culture', when used by enough people, result in a large amount of what can best be called verbal delusion or 'vikalpa' (shabda-dnyaanaanupaati vastushoonyo vikalpahaa - Patanjali yoga sutras, Samadhi paada.)

Examine any language closely, and you will slowly realize that all words are mere pointers to reality. No wonder that ancient sanskrit grammarians recognized and studied languages and grammars -- nay, not just that but whole levels or media of communication more powerful than written and spoken language. For instance - 'paraa', 'pashyanti', 'madhyamaa' ...

Examine any language you know closely, and you will also see laws analogous to Newtons laws of motion or the laws of thermodynamics ... hell, meaning seems subject to entropy as well.

When I realized this, the first thing that struck me was, it is impossible to follow the 'yama' or rule of 'satya' or truth; if I speak or use 'common' language, so to speak. If the very nature of the language I know is untruth, how can I ever claim to be truthful!

All words are lies (and so are these! ... see the loop... beautiful, but a limitation in a tool that attempts to describe reality accurately.) So words seem to me now like シャボン玉 -soap bubbles blown by children. Beautiful, ethereal, temporal ... but not very good as tools for accurately describing reality - a use case most often attributed to languages.

So ... the end of language as I knew it.
This is from my notebook - from about a year ago.

1 comment:

Hari+Hiroe = AIHORE said...

Quotations written in Roman alphabets may follow the Himalyan Omkaranand system, if Hepburn is not possible to write with diacretical marks.
Thanks and CONGRATULATIONS for deep thinking. hss