Language and Meaning                    12-Dec                                                                        

  Good people, bear with me a while  .  .  .   Please understand, there are some basic premises in how I see myself, how I am, how I think, what I write.  Amongst them are these : 

  • That we humans have a higher level of Consciousness than any other species
  • That we humans are a mix of Human/animal being, and Human/Spiritual being.  It might be easier to think of us simply as being both Human and Spiritual beings
  • That the Human in us leads to pondering, to study, to make what we imagine to be the best decisions we can at any time, to dance, to play, to love, and to make love
  • That the Spiritual in us is, as it were, our ‘divine inheritance’ from the Universe.  We call that specialness Soul, and, in having Life for a spell, we share all of it with all of everything, understanding Soul to be the shared generative factor of Universal Intelligence, of the Cosmic Consciousness that lives in every cell of each of us, in the air and in everything; being as awakened as we individually allow.  It becomes us to Listen to that Universal Soul insofar we are able, insofar we have progressed our spirituality 
  • That the Opening of our Mind early in life to common human dilemmas and rarified [1] spiritual essentials creates, along with the impositions of childhood-through-young-adulthood, what we may think of as our Psyche, (which can find itself at odds with our Ego)
  • That Mind is some sort of free, intelligent crucible, welcoming input from all our senses, and from every cell in everything in our ambit [2], very much in tune with Soul, (see above), if we can only listen, and welcome that.  Interpreter of Soul and muse, coachman to Brain [3], mediator between internal nexuses and differing cerebral drivers; ultimately, the Real Us  
  • That Psyche (cerebral collective) can be understood as individual formatting from childhood-through-young-adulthood, particularly of positive inputs and encouragement, and from the imprint of confusions and traumas, and emotions, and how we deal with them for our sanity, such that (generally) from around our late-twenties, Psyche governs our everyday Humandimension, (not Spiritual); the everyday mental ‘framework’ for our thoughts and actions; in part the pattern of our nature, and who we may appear to be
  • That Ego (limbic-system based) is essentially our Teacher – in infancy for survival; in childhood as our young ‘personality’; in teenage-hood for finding our way, for better or worse amidst surrounding chaos; in young-adulthood for seeking Who We May Be; in adulthood for coming to terms with a range of temptations.  Ego can become confused emotionally, and disastrously play-act, (persona), which generally serves to damage both oneself and others 
  • That we have but one Right, the Right to Life, which means also to be Free; and in the understanding of this right alone, we may be seen as equals
  • That the ultimate Human Purpose may be to become an Enlightened Species.

  Language is labels, a series of word-labels, and their spelling as in written vocab, and as in the spell a word may cast.  For struggling grey brains, labels will likely lead to convenient ‘definitions’, always limited, shrunken and impossible; a road mistaken, a road to doom !  For more open and creative Minds, ‘labels’ can lead to descriptive poetry that sings to us, opens us to love, truth, beauty, and so on.  This latter path is entirely preferable to the former, as it inspires colours in a pulsing breast, a taste for life, of the real; a path to hope and a positive future. 

  And yet, in seeking to explain in language-words alone, one may need to describe how one uses a word-label : not so much as definition, more as feeling : challenging for those who may have dedicated their Psyche to the mistaken path of grey definition : a daunting, massive chasm can open before them between continuing the panacea of prescribed claptrap, and feeling, and accepting their true nature, which in crisis may seem alien; but it is their earlier adopted ‘nature’ that is likely to be skewed from common-sense, possibly originating in childhood confusions; which challenge may very likely lead to psycho-emotional breakdown; which impending shadow (psychosis) they may feel bound to internally combat, as if for their very lives, until, one early morning, they find the courage to bring themselves to begin to accept the Real. [4]  

  So many words, so many labels; so many used quasi-descriptively, possibly without the speaker or listener quite knowing what is intended to be meant by them, and guessing, or trying-it-on [5].  So many word-labels are used for convenience by so many disaffected folk, leading to disagreements, conflict, compromise.  Confusion upon confusion : the state of humankind.  Future wise-folk may look back on the last c. 300 years as a passing stage in the development of Unreason, an era of extravagant error, and, possibly, a necessary wrong path ? [6]

  Sigismund, known as the father of psychoanalysis, was something of a case himself, indulging in doubtful stimulants and questionable relationships, described in many of his works.  Both he and Carl Gustav [7] used key words differently.  For example, Sigismund describes the Psyche as ‘all parts of the Mind that make up personality’; that the Ego be our sense of self, mediator between the ‘Id’, (desire, sex, etc – more pleasure, less pain), and the ‘Super-ego’, (morality, conscience, being a socially-acceptable ‘good person’); which, in strictly Human-being terms only, can be seen as ‘not that far off’; but he replaced the notion of Spiritual-being with his version of ‘super-ego’, (he was a Jew).  Carl Gustav, father of analytical psychology, saw the Psyche – conscious and unconscious psychic process – differently, but also in three notional key parts, not confined by time and space, being in his terms the Ego, (Conscious Mind); the Personal Unconscious, (memories, dreams, et al); and the Collective Unconscious, (all specie knowledge and experience, leading to synchronous connections).  He saw Soul as ‘a clearly demarcated functional complex best described as partial personality’ [8], (he was raised a Swiss-reformed Christian); and God as “universal, metaphysical being, and superior will” [9].  The point is, these titans used key words differently, as do others, as do I : potential stumbling blocks in communication. 

  The notion of Identity may follow that of Psyche, individually or collectively, but we might wonder if one perceives one’s own psyche as others do; whether a nation perceives its national psyche as other nations perceive it; indeed, whether the pronouncements of one nation can really be understood by another, their cultures and understandings being so variably different [10].  

  Confusion between peoples, businesses, churches, governments, cultures, as to what they understand by word-labels, can easily follow, unless they can agree on certain meanings and background references in common, and on positive intent.  Without that, whether or no there be negative intent, no relationship can survive.

  Historically, we may observe any number of ‘breakdowns’.  With hindsight, we can see that most have concerned some political will in conflict with freedoms and philosophies, or in avarice imposed by governments on their peoples, and by one nation state on another.  Where then were the essentials of Human Being, of Spiritual Being ?  What happened to the fundamental tenet of every religion [11] ?

  Through the centuries, we humans were still reaching out for understanding in a right direction, seeking inner-learning, up until quite recently.  The catastrophe that is War – breakdowns in human integrity and communication, coupled with insane development of ever more terrible killing weapons and machines, promoted by shallow politicians the world over, their political ambition, dishonesty, materialism and commercialism, destroys Life, women and children, homes and hospitals, safety and sanity.  One might wonder how potentially brilliant human beings could ever get into such a state; but it continues ever more terribly even to this day; an exponentially spreading Grand Failure [12].  And we know why : such madness depends on the deflection of one’s ‘better self’, of our Spiritual Being, of our inner-learning, and of right communication by those who seek quasi-authority and power.  Both of these latter can be seen to be hideously Wrong Paths.

  Inner-learning is to be found in Mind, (assisted by Brain), as Mind is our only real arbiter of what is Right, Good, Beautiful and True, (not Brain).  It is with Right Mind that all resolutions are found.  Unfortunately, promoted religions, (notably the Ibrahamic religions [13]), got in the way of human inner-learning and knowing, deliberately preventing our progress, hijacking devotion and our finer instincts; corrupting humans and human progress by insisting on a ‘package-deal’ of their wretchedly promoted belief-systems, fuelled by a desire for crazy power.

  To realise inner-learning, it is necessary to do all the work ourselves for ourselves.  A good teacher can be helpful in the early and ‘medium’ stages.  By ‘good’ is implied honest and open, advanced inner-knowledge, experienced, expressive, empathetic, ‘alive’, caring, good story-teller, and so on.  And it is helpful to be part of a Listening and Learning Circle, and a Satsang and Meditation group.   

  While throughout time, there have been thoughtful people promoting essential values, who too often have been ignored or ‘shot down’ [14], it’s not so hard to weigh the balances of what happened to this species : the endless failures of religions, of politics, of ‘education’, of ‘money’, of justice, of communication, of Soul.  It is surely such very Soul that we need to realise in ourselves, and to  nurture and encourage in others.

  Who nowadays can be seen as an honest intermediary to help lost souls on both sides of any disagreement ?  Who, amongst the dreadful protagonists playing out the many crises confronting our world ?  Must our children and grand-children really endure extreme horrors like the children in Gaza ?  Is that what they have to look forward to ?

  Or the frightful effects of Climate Change escalation ?

  Or another pollution-based, worldwide pandemic ? 

  Or the intrusion into our lives of automated machines and bureaucracies ?

  Is there any chance we humans will ever Stop the Madness, and Get Real ?      

  Hullo  .  .  .   ?

  Is there anyone real out there ?

[1]  Rarified in this day and age because of the accumulated avoidance and poverty of profound address that has characterised human ‘civilization’.

[2]  One’s ‘ambit’ increases as one’s intelligence and openness increase.  [Can be confused with ‘auras’.]

[3]  For ‘Brain’, see ‘Snapshots & Mirrors’, Reflection no. 4.

[4]  We find many variations on this theme, some as graduates and ‘suits’ posturing an entirely mistaken ‘high-view’; and many as mental-health issues.

[5]  If we adopt someone-else’s definition, we may be seeking to parrot and ‘piggy-back’ off them without using our own inner-knowledge, as far as it may have got; thus we would be as ‘dead fish going with the flow’ – of little real ‘use’. 

[6]  Necessary, possibly, because maybe humankind had to go through the ‘valley of the shadow’, and leave it behind, on the way to ‘enlightenment’ ?

[7]  The name given bizarrely to an early (and hopeless) anti-tank guided-missile issued to British infantry in c.1964.

[8]  See also his ‘Anima’, (feminine), ‘soul-life’; and ‘Animus’, (masculine), hostility and violence; both mainly unconscious inner-personality traits found in both genders.

[9]  Interestingly, when asked if he believed in God, Carl Gustav replied, “I don’t need to believe, I know !”  See his 1959 interview with John Freeman of the BBC.

[10]  It is generally accepted that a nation’s culture will largely be founded on that nation’s religion and history; and that religions have invariably adapted to their natural environment.   

[11]  ‘One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one’s own self.  In brief, this is dharma.  Anything else is succumbing to desire.’  Mahābhārata, c. 350BCE.   [‘Dharma’ being synonymous with ‘Tao’, The Way.]

[12]  Grand Failure of all religions, thus cultures, politics, education, etc.

[13]  See ‘Procession of Time’, Reflection no. 2.

[14]  See Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s treatise ‘On Education’, 1762, with reference to children, psychology, philosophy, and politics, which was banned in Paris and Geneva, (his home countries); and his ‘Social Contract’, discussing essential freedoms in relation to ‘the state’, similarly banned, and burned publicly in Geneva.

An Honest Day’s Night.                                                                  1dec23.

  In Conversation, much will depend on one’s sense of who one is, on how far one has got in one’s inner enquiry, how open and honest, how conditioned and prejudiced, how riddled with belief and opinion one is, how funny and friendly, confident or shy, and so on. 

  Sitting in a Conversation Circle, much depends on ‘Where One Is Coming From’ – a little like tacit appraisal at a cocktail party, of oneself; or a stranger arriving on a desert island, and could-be cannibals enquiring, in the nicest possible way, “Where are you from ?”  Which world, what sort of peoples, what they do and don’t do, what they eat, what sort of beliefs, what morals, friendly or up-tight, creative-cool or dull, and so on.

  Advent, meaning approach to Christmas, more realistically to ‘mid-winter’, a time we may imagine to be snatched from horizonless travail for feasting in the warm embrace of one’s friends and loving family, we are told is upon us; part of some earlier indoctrination.  This year, the reality for many will be a testing shortage of funds for food and fuel, coupled with glitzy enticement to overspend; the young glued to cell-’phones, computer-games and TVs; adults exhausted, sightly tipsy, wondering what on earth it’s all about; the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim mythologies having been blown out of the water, and ‘political leaders’ around the world posturing foolishly, mostly out of touch with the peoples’ lives they seek to control.  

  We seem to have become used to the idea of our lives spanning eras of accelerating change and development.  We might as well add population growth, species and resource depletion, burgeoning pollution, etc.  And escalating worldwide financial mayhem, known to some extent by the world populace via feathered media releases; covertly known and avoided, by the ‘men in suits’ whose lives veer between anxiety sickness and wanton extravagance; between fleeting superficial success and dark despair.  We can call it the ‘money culture’, as money, the modern god, dictates and over-rules all else, as directed by those foolish virgins, our ‘political leaders’.  If money is your ‘god’, expect only confusion, personal compromise verging on catastrophe, and unhappiness; a sense of being lost in space.  Happy Christmas ?

  Despite its negative aspects, ‘Political Economic Growth’ has appeared to raise living standards, to increase life expectancy, improve medical care with fewer mothers dying in childbirth, to provide cleaner drinking water, and to result in better-fed populations.  And yet, In the early years of the Industrial Revolution (c.1750-1850), Adam Smith in his extensive volumes and editions of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ decried avarice and injustice, factions and special interest groups be they bankers, corporate, trade-union lobbying, or any like, taxes and tariffs, and the interference of government in people’s affairs.  Around the turn of the nineteenth century, (c. 1800), the writing was already on the wall.  Thomas Malthus predicted over-population, climate and environmental catastrophes, a limit to financial manipulation, and eventual famine.  And in the mid-nineteenth century John Stuart Mill wrote of logic, jurisprudence, and social liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.  

  At the University of Kansas in 1968, Robert Kennedy declared that “Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile”.  And, “If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all the youthful vision and vigour, then there is something wrong with our colleges.  The more riots that come out of our college campuses the better the world for tomorrow.” [1]  

  Is the manipulation of money a right way to manage one’s life and the lives of one’s children and colleagues ?  That it has failed hundreds and thousands of millions of people throughout time, destroying so many and so much, and has brought life on earth to the brink of global collapse, is broadly evident.  For centuries, ‘the love of money’ has been called ‘the root of all evil’ [2], which may be translated as the love of wealth, power, status, thus greed, hatred, division, and so on, is obvious even to children.  That it has determined perverse paths of religion, education, politics, and ‘justice’, and that those wrong ways have led inevitably to the downfall of humankind and widespread compromise-cum-destruction of life, is self-evident.  That it has compromised the good nature, honesty, and well-being of so many for so long, cannot be denied.  We can conclude that figments of ‘financial economy’ are not only delusory, but are seen as ‘wrong love’, a wrong way.  It follows that the challenges facing humankind are mainly egoic [3] (‘the root of all evil’), and that that is where we need to look within to sort ourselves out.  Time to think it all out again.  

  Generally speaking, our natures share much the same essentials of Life, Love, and the Uni, which can be seen as foundational.  Similarly, we share many common experiences of modern living, particularly financial challenges.  Modern generations have endured questionable ‘pay-bargaining’ and eras of politically-based strikes over pay and conditions.  Our differences tend to be found in self-interest, questionable beliefs, adoption of misleading propagandas, competition, profiteering, shortages, mistrust – so many elements that push us apart rather than draw us together.  A reasonable person would see that any family or organisation needs to share its aims, ideals, plans, togetherness, support, and rewards, equitably.  Open and honest discussions, with the shared intention of supporting everyone involved, fairly, and without elements of self-interest, could surely pave the way for common solutions ?  We are not yet an entirely failed species. 

  Notions of Wealth demand Ownership, and yet, logically, one cannot ‘own’ anything one cannot carry.  Notions of Ownership are better seen within an understanding of an environmentally based Natural Collective, and one’s belonging therein.  One’s few personal possessions, (clothes, toothbrush, tools, jewellery), may be seen as belonging to the individual, openly yet discreetly.  We move through the rest as we move through life.  Of far greater moment are an individual’s integrity, perception, caring and creative and positive interactions within a family and collective.  Notions of Wealth and personal accumulation can be seen as underlying the problems that have long faced humankind on Earth. 

  Every environmentally based Natural Collective will face challenges of survival and maintenance, of endeavour and organisation, of hierarchy, pecking-order, and motivation.  Natural exchanges will revolve around both individual and collective adherence to integrity, perception, caring and creative and positive interactions in their everydays, and in collective meetings, where every voice will be weighed, and in their celebrations. 

  Sitting in Conversation Circles, one observes simple guidelines for everyone’s benefit – speaking one’s truth from that deep inner place within, expressing oneself carefully, creatively, descriptively, and succinctly, listening to others intently – which can be immensely liberating.  One exchanges from an accepted point-of-view that everyone brings special gifts and intelligence to the table, insofar they are free of inner nasties.  In this form of ‘sharing’, we can listen and learn and ‘welcome the differences’ as they so often enlighten us.  

  So many people are not ready for this sort of Open Conversation.  So many put their own self-interest first.  So many are confused by what they were taught and have believed to be the way for them and their community.  So many continue to ape ‘keeping their heads above water’; so many feel a social need to display something they don’t feel; so many experience hunger, cold, homelessness, particularly the young, (so many contemplating suicide).  They are our young.  How could we be so careless ?  

  How can we ‘come in from the cold’ ?  How can we overtake the ‘professional’ conventions we have been trained to observe ?  How can we become the real people we would love to be ?  So many people are not ready for Open Conversations.  So few have embarked on their profound inner learning, for-real.  So many put their own self-interest first, their heads in the sand.  So many are confused by what they were taught and have believed to be the way for them and their communities; ways that have brought us close to imminent chaos.  So, what is this profound inner-learning all about ? [4]

  Many scientists will deny the existence of soul, that super-special something within that we sometimes seek to return to, that is the Real Us, our connection to Love, Life, and the Uni.  We can applaud the ancient teachings of Vedant in India, of Zarathustra in Persia, (Iran), of the ancient Greek philosophers, of the ancient Chinese mystics, all 2,500 to 3,000 or so years ago.  And we might as well as acknowledge the Ibrahamic Religions for their reaching for biased misunderstandings of the divine in the last 2,500 years; the point being that notions of the divine, creator, prime-mover, can as well be seen as ‘Cosmic Consciousness’, ‘Universal Intelligence’.   

  That our souls share that same immensity, that each human-being’s soul is a part of that, that that ‘Cosmic Consciousness’ is the most fundamental part of who we are; that we can know that in ourselves and in each other, beckons us to a new age.  It takes a while and a hard inner-slog to get anywhere with such understandings, let alone to ‘real knowledge’.  

  Profound Learning is no more than a label for introduction to paths that can help to support each and any individual find their own way.

  Meanwhile, in the United Arab Emirates, at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, (CoP 28), the ‘men in grey suits’ posture and exchange largely meaninglessly.  After 28 years of mostly faf, we have experienced the hottest year ever with environmental and climate emergencies all over.  In Ukraine, Palestine and all over, appalling atrocities, human failures, continue, while the world watches.  What hope ?

  Perhaps, in ‘Profound Conversations’, we can together find simple ways forward for us now and for survivors in the future.  Perhaps, in Conversations, we can together find consensus on some fundamental challenges : how to control human populations in the future, how to exchange and share with each other positively, carefully, and caringly, how to touch on the commonality of our specialness.

  It’s going to take time.  The sooner we lend ourselves to it, the better for our children, for Love, Life, and the Universe, for all. 

  Time to awake to a new dawn.

  Happy Mid-winter !

[1]  See also ‘Kicking our growth addiction is the way out of the climate crisis’. Larry Elliott article for the Guardian, 2022.  

[2]  Saul-Paul to Timothy, (1Timothy 6:10).

[3]  Rivalry, competition, ambition (as opposed to aspiration), avarice, fear, greed, wanting more, and so on.

[4]  See also ‘Gateways’ – Reflection no. 8.