Updated: September 11, 2024
Hello, my friends. I want
to share today with you two ideas. I think
if you fully grasp these two ideas, then we will be eternally liberated from all seeking and also
from all suffering. Big.. promise. Okay, so what
I'm suggesting is two insights that could lead to liberation from all suffering and also
all seeking, all suffering
and all seeking. That would be total
freedom. Total freedom. So are you ready? Okay. The first insight is the insight regarding language. So I have been a
student of language all my life. In fact, that's
how I make a living, by selling words. And I've been
curious about the origins
of language.
So I read everything
about the evolution
of language. I've gone
to all the AI, you know, Chat
GPT and Chat GPT4 and Google
Bard and Bing and all the
AI platforms to look for sources on the
origins of language. I've studied, you know, people
like Marvin Minsky and others
who are linguists on the origins
of language. And my most one
question has always been, did humans
create language or is language a divine creation? Is language
a divine creation? And is even anything possible to experience
without language? Is it possible for
you and me to experience
anything, any perceptible or cognitive knowing without language? Does language
shape perception, cognition, knowing, experience? Because
without experience, there's no life
as we know it. Life is a continuum
of experiences. So who or what
created language? And I assure you, if you do
your research, you will not find
a definitive answer. And yet we cannot
explain anything; biology or evolution or existence
or experience or perception
or knowing without using language or a word. And we are familiar
with the biblical scene.
First
there was the word, and the word
was with God, and the word
was divine. So who created
language? What created
language? And is biology an experience that we can
have only through language? Is the universe, galaxies, planets,
stars, trees,
insects, humans, animals, rodents, rocks, minerals… Is all this
dependent on language? Because I've used
words written on minerals, rocks,
trees, galaxies, stars, moon,
sun, earth, sky, animals,
human beings. All you have to do is use one word and you conjure up
a whole universe.
So let me choose one word right
now, arbitrarily. And the word
is tree. So as soon as I say the word, "tree",
I'm sure a picture appears
in your awareness. And depending on the contraction or expansion
of your awareness, you will see
infinite modes of meaning in
that word, "tree". I've also wondered
why all these enlightened
beings, Buddha, etc.,
sat under a tree… Anyway… So "tree".
I think the word tree
and on the screen of my consciousness,
I experience a tree: trunk,
leaves, branches,
flowers, buds, fruits, seeds. Right? But then I can expand
my consciousness and look at that tree as a combination of earth
and water and space and transformation,
electromagnetic energies, particles, force fields… all kind of
ephemeral entities, but appearing
as that tree. But then I could go
further.
I could look at the tree from
the point of view of a honeybee that navigates experience
through a waggle dance, language
that is totally alien to me,
but a language. Honeybees
use waggle dance to communicate,
where to go to find honey,
to which flavor, what grove, etc.. And that
is a universe unto itself. The universe of bees, but somehow that universe
of bees is connected to the
universe of birds. Because birds come and feed on insects and insects
reproduce through their own
communication methods. But as I mentioned, there are insects
that communicate through a language called dancing. But those bees are part of an ecosystem
of birds. Birds come to eat
those bees and those birds
themselves are navigating
experience through instruments that we don't
normally use for navigation,
ultraviolet.
We experience,
a bird navigates, moves from one place
to another. Of course,
the birds create their own nests and the birds
and the bees and the insects
and the honey are a part of all ecosystem
of existence that ultimately involves
the whole universe. The earth, the air,
the water, the rain,
the sunshine, the earth itself,
with all its, all its ecosystems
of living forms, the trees,
communicating with each other through fungal
networks. There's
a whole universe in that
word, "tree". But of course,
I just use the word in English. What is the word in Sanskrit
or Swahili or any of the Germanic languages
or or Chinese? See, there is a word
for tree, but it's a different
sound, it's a different
vibration, and it's linked to different
facial gestures and expressions without language to describe, there is no world
to explore.
Which here is another very
interesting thing: that word does not describe,
it constructs an experience. It conceives
an experience. It governs
an experience. It becomes
the experience. And first
there was the word, and the
word was with God. So I, being
an Advaitist… Advaitist means I believe in
non-dual monism as the source
of all experience and language as the instrument for the source
of all experience, not only in humans,
in every species. Furthermore, go
a little further … the human itself
is an experience, the other species themselves
are experience, and we have to use
language to actually infer
those experiences or know
those experiences. So language is not
human. In fact,
nothing is human. If you said, "did
humans create the Empire
State Building?" And the answer
is no. Consciousness
conceived the Empire State
Building and used the instrument. This particular
instrument, this particular mode of knowing
Homo sapiens to create the Empire
State Building. But what about a
star? What about a galaxy? Is that not a word
for a sensation or combination
of sensations? Sounds,
textures, taste, smells, the alchemy
of sensation.
And if you said,
"That's the moon. That's
a physical body. That's a star. That's a rock." And you can say it
in any language. Okay. And you will have
an experience. But of course,
the language, depending
on the mode of instrumentation
and the language that we use, it, would create
an experience. I mean,
when I say, "we," even "we" is a
product of language. So let's go a little
deeper into this, because in Indian
philosophy, there are four levels
of language. Four levels
of speech. So let me explain
these to you.
And this will, I hope, give you
a major shift. So "para"
is the highest form of sound. Sound is the basis of language
or vibration, let's say. Even gestures
are vibrations. Facial expressions
are vibrations. Let's take
this sound. So para
is the highest form of sound, which is unmanifest
and transcendent. It is the source of all speech
and the essence of the supreme
reality. Para, means
beyond transcendent. I would go further and say
at this level, Para, language or all languages are
in superposition. All linguistic
languages are in superposition. So the word, "tree", in every language, is in superposition for a particular
experience, depending on your
state of awareness. The word, "tree". It is in
superposition with the word, "tree"
or whatever it means in every
possible language, every possible language, linguistic. But it
is more than that. It is
the superposition of languages beyond linguistics
or biological language,
which is its own ecosystem
of experience, mathematical
language, language of physics,
quantum mechanics.
The language
of dance. The language of art. The language
of music. All these languages coexist
simultaneously and are entangled
and in superposition for infinite
experiences. Infinite. And they're not
the creations of the human mind. The human mind
itself is a word,
an expression of language. Okay, so para, the infinite supreme source, whatever
you want to call it God, divine,
unknown, formless,
transcendent, irreducible,
without cause, shapeless, formless,
infinite vibration, less superposition
of every model of reality.
Because those models
are created in language,
mathematical, biological, physics, biology, chemistry, etc. the supreme language
unmanifest. Para. That's
what it means. The second level of language
is Pashyanti. Its the sound vibration heard
in the causal words. Causal words
means words beyond
the subtle words, where
their sound and its meaning
are inseparable. The sound echoes
the sense. It is the first stage of manifestation
of speech where intention and
expression are one second level. So now what we are doing is
at the second level, the divine
infinite source of all languages
is choosing one modality
of experience.
Let's say that modality of experience is
biological language or the modality
of experience is mathematical language, or the modality of experience
is linguistic but Pashyanti is where infinite possibilities are reduced to an ecosystem of probabilities. Pashyanti. The third
level of expression of language
is madhyama. It is the sound
as perceived in the subtle
or pranic world. It is an
intermediate stage between unmanifest
and manifest speech, where words
take shape in the mind
before being spoken. That's
where you hear your internal dialog, mostly linguistic,
okay? Or it could be another model
of language, if you're used to
thinking in biological language, or mathematical
language, or any other form
of language. But there's… you hear your own
conversation with your own self, but there's
no sound, okay? There's no sound. Okay. So it is between manifest
and unmanifest. In fact,
you can choose not to speak what you're
thinking, right? So what is it that chooses not to speak out,
what you're thinking? What is it? Okay.
And then the fourth
level is we can see in
Sanskrit is called Vaikari. It's the lowest
form of sound, and it signifies
outward expression. It is the speech
that we use in verbal
communication, which is differentiated
by various languages and symbols. So language is the symbolic mode for manifestation. And we did not
create it. Okay. It comes from
the infinite source of all languages, all models
of reality, which then give us
maps of reality, which we explore
as experience. Okay, so that's the first insight
I wanted to share with you,
that language conceives,
governs, constructs and becomes manifest reality. The second is a question
of identity. As soon as you
say… use a word,
you create a provisional
identity. Tree. Human being. Watch. Hand. Book, phone, etc.. So this word has now become the
so-called, "flesh". The so-called material world. But as you can see, the word itself has infinite
possibilities. I use the word,
"tree", and you expand its correlations and
its relationships that ultimately
appear as that tree. And there's a whole
universe there. You know, I you can, I'm sure, relate to this poem
from William Blake: To see the world
in a grain of sand and see, you know, something,
a wild flower in the palm of your hand hold eternity
in the palm of your hand to see a world
in a grain of sand and hold eternity in whatever
that experience.
So it doesn't matter
what the word is. If you chase it, you'll end up with
the total universe. But then these are these four stages and who or what is creating
these stages? Which leads me to the second
insight: identity. The only identity that you and I have is contained in two sentences that I can
relate to. So those two
sentences I drove from the Bhagavad
Gita right now in chapter 13, I believe I am the field and I am the knower
of the field.
So the field is
consciousness and consciousness
is existence. Existence. Awareness are
synonymous, okay? No awareness,
no existence, no experience
of existence. So I AM is both the field of possibilities, infinite field
of possibilities. I am the knower
of the field. The field
is self aware, and the field uses language to create experience, infinite
experiences. And all these
languages are in superposition
until one is used
to manifest an ecosystem
of experiences, or several are used, but then only one
ecosystem of experience is available at one
time, depending on the language
that you're using. And it goes through
these four stages. Para, unmanifest. Pashyanti a differentiated
stream of experience being created. Madhyama. The interval between the manifest
and the unmanifest and Vaikari
that particular stream
of manifestation. So the field knows
itself as awareness, but the field also experiences infinity of experiences through
the production of infinite modes of knowing. Also coexisting as the superposition of language. Therefore, language is the divine act of creation, period. And all we have to do is shift
our identity from being a person which is a
product of language, to the field
of awareness in which
the person is but one continuum
of experiences.
One continuum
of experiences. A glimpse
that the Infinite is having
at this moment. Called "Deepak" or that painting or whatever word you wish to choose. So words are
the magical property of those who know how
to create. Two insights:
language creates, and you're
not a person. Person is a product
of language. You are the field and the knower
of the field. Just these
two insights should bring
all seeking and all suffering to an end. I hope it made
sense to you. Maybe it did not, but just, you know, relating this to you and communicating
this to you brings me great
joy and freedom..
