A man is not miserable. But he thinks that he is miserable and surrounded by miseries. He has endowed happiness but he has been conditioned to be unhappy as he has been conditioned to succeed others in a rat race of a lifetime. To succeed and do better than what others are doing, he becomes poorer by what he seeks. He seeks to succeed, be rich, powerful, and positioned on a big seat. So he stands in a long queue all his life trying to outpace others that make him miserable as others have already reached where he wants to reach.
You are happy but if you think that somebody has built a bigger business or assumed a better position than you that can make you miserable as you still haven’t had that. You want to collect a lot of things around you and these things define you. Man lives in the world of things. Your possessions are your definitions and reflections of your own self. In fact, man lives in a dilemma. He wants to retain things because in things he finds certainty. A thing that he has now will certainly be there tomorrow. He becomes master of these things. It is said that a bird in the hand is better than the two in the bush as a bird in the hand cannot fly it is a certainty. You turn bird in hand into a thing. But birds in the bush may fly away. That’s the dilemma as man is not a thing. You turn people into things too like your spouse, family, and friends.
The moment you define something, it becomes a thing. Lao Tzu has said that every word is a lie. So every written or spoken word is essentially a lie as the definition is never defined. Even what you call things are also not dead things. Things are constantly changing. Things are utilitarian but your presence and your sense of ownership turn them into things. You call them your things. Things are independent things. Things are also beings. Buddha has said that ‘one day every stone will become a being.’ Remember things don’t endorse your slavery but you perceive them under your slavery. They are simply things in existence as free as anything or being. They are not aware of being slaves to you but you are aware of you being their ruler. Beyond words, you can turn things into independent beings that is what is meant by being one with existence.
Humans can communicate in words spoken and written. Well-known linguist Noam Chomsky has said that ‘language structure is hardwired in a kind of universal grammar in our brains and our brain is not that blank slate on which experience writes.’ A small child with few words grows up to become a scholar not by experience but just by processing accelerated thoughts. Sigmund Freud has said that ‘people talk as they want to hide something from others.’ Language becomes a tool to hide your real self and it does not let you reveal what you actually are. In silence, you run the risk of revealing what you are. If language goes away, all your possessions will get dropped. You cognise things around you and define them in language. The human faculty of language is built up by our needs to cognise things around us for thousands of years.
To say something, the other or opposite is needed. Human languages define everything in relation to others. Like if we say what is God, we need to define God by probably something that is anti-God or demon. In fact, language is the progenitor of lies and our miseries because to define something we have to use the opposite but things are not opposite. They are relative. For example, to define health, we say when there is no disease. Health is defined by a disease and are relative. Only a healthy can be diseased. It is two points of the same thing. Like day and night. The night is there because of day and the day is there because of night. The day comes when the night ends and the night ends when the day dawns. Happiness is defined by misery. Without misery, happiness has no meaning. Summer and winter are two points of the same thing. A child and an old man are not the opposite but the child becomes old. Sound and silence are not opposite but one relative occurrence. In sound, silence comes and in silence sound emanates. Rule and chaos are not opposite they are two points of the same thing. Language limits things rigidly, it gives definition and name to things to divide them.
Therefore, Lao Tazu calls words lies. Someone went to Sheikh Farid and asked him, “what is truth?” Farid told him that “truth cannot be said but can be felt. It can only be felt when you want to feel it.” To receive truth from the one who can escort you there without language. To know about God, language is needed. All religions call God as One. But what is One? Two is needed. Hindus, therefore, use the word advaita to talk about one which means ‘that which is not two’.
Your whole life is just words and thoughts. Even your God is your thought. Buddha said that ‘whatever I say that I don’t say about what That-Which-Is is because that cannot be said in words.’ Further, he said that ‘I say it as at least I would be able to take you there from where you can reach a stage where you can reach nearest to the point where That-Which-Is is. So you can immerse into it and be it.’
Mind is ignorant. Words have no meaning. We have imputed meanings on words and made them loaded with meanings. Obviously, imputed meanings are not loaded with the truth. If imputed meanings are lost and we saw the truth as naked truth we will be surprised. Human languages are not that different than computer languages like words and meanings are imputed on binary digits and retrieved as an extension of human language. The human mind works as a language computer.
Language is a mathematic comprehension that man has built through logic. Therefore, one is not able to know God by thoughts. Buddha said that ‘every thought will become a thing.’ Truth is as big as existence, and a lie is pedalled as truth. Language is a great tool to strengthen your ego because in disguise of truth it pedals lies. In fact, your self-consciousness is your ego. I am is the ego. When I-ness gets dropped and ‘am-ness’ remains that brings you to your being. Ego is a wound. You are living in a wound. This wound needs to be healed. When ‘am-ness’ dawns, you will be like oceans of this earth with no boundaries, Hindus call it Brahma. In that ‘am-ness’ you become one with existence and in that epiphany, That-Which-Is is revealed to you.
Existence is one. Existence is limitless. The universe does not end anywhere. That-Which-Is is One and not two. The universe is expanding and will always remain unknowable to man and that’s why Hindus call it Brahma.
The author is a spiritual teacher and advisor on policy, governance and leadership. He can be contacted at arunavlokitta@gmail.com