I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who expressed what is probably a very common idea. She said, "Have you ever thought how language limits thinking? You cannot think what you cannot express. I have thoughts that language cannot touch. Maybe it is my limited mental abilities or that I am not a very deep thinker."
Do others who read this blog also feel this at times?
In any case, I know this person to be very smart and that she is indeed a deep thinker so I had to come up with a way to show her and maybe others that there is a mode of thinking which has nothing to do with mental abilities.
I asked her how she would describe a rose.
She answered as most people would by saying that she would describe its parts, its attributes, perhaps its aroma, etc. And I said, "Sure, but can you describe the rose itself?" The answer is that you cannot describe the rose itself. A description of its components will give a person who has seen a rose an idea of what you are talking about and that is usually adequate but what I am seeking is a description of roseness.
We know that roses and other flowers exist. We are aware of their beauty and the quality of their being. Can we talk about their essence?
Another example is roundness. Can you describe roundness, which we see constantly, without speaking of an object that is round such as a table or a wheel or even a circle? All of these are examples of roundness but how would you describe roundness itself?
There are so many things that we just accept as realities without being able to think of them as other than descriptions of their components, yet they exist as qualities in the Universe. So, what does this say about our thought processes?
Imagine for a moment that these essential attributes are imbedded so deeply in your psyche that it is difficult if not impossible to bring them forth as thoughts. Never the less you can in fact think roundness or roseness or any of a number of basic attributes that we are aware of. Most often you will think of components that use these attributes but you can also think of the quality itself. Thinking roundness is not the issue, describing it is. If I say roundness everyone knows what I mean. There is no need to describe roundness as it is a basic quality of the Universe. Perhaps instead the human mind needs complexity and gets a bit worried when something is so simple that no additional description is necessary.
Spirituality is like this. The fundamental idea of all mystical systems is to become human which is a very simple state of being. The complexity comes when we ascribe method and system to this idea. We always approach becoming human from our cultural point of view which assumes that a human being must have the qualities that the culture believes are essential to the perfected human. Not so but our cultural imperatives will demand it. As I understand it the perfect human being is a person who lives totally in the present, intelligent of course, capable of many things, but always in the present, meeting each situation or condition on the merits of the present moment. How often do we meet conditions or situations based on history or what our culture tells us should happen. So we tend to create systems that look as if they are secret or superior or somehow better than the average person is capable of understanding. Let us instead meet each event and each person on the merits of the moment.
Love and Blessings, Fatah
