Communication

At the beginning of the path, a student perceives mountains and rivers. As he proceeds, he realises that mountains and rivers are not mountains and rivers. At the end of the path, mountains and rivers are mountains and rivers.

Although sinking back into the world looks like returning to the first position again, it is not so. Everything has changed irrevocably. Everything one experiences is as it is: totally transformed by understanding.

Karma is the return of the first position, and the need to go through the renunciation. In the Hindu tradition is the saying, "Neti Neti". This is the negative conceptualisation of all concrete existence, reminding oneself not to grasp to finitude. Another saying is "Tat tvam asi", which again reminds oneself not to grasp to finitude, but to see all as sharing the same nature.

Communication is rife with difficulties, because speaking of the truth is always negative. The hearer is not yet even in the first position, so hears only fixed and concrete realities. They have that deep prejudice and lack of insight. It takes skill to take away from the listener in all the negating conceptual gifts. This seems like a paradox, but it is a simple process of finding words that tear away the concreteness of a grasping mind's conceptualisations and by slipping and sliding and merging ideas so as to convey less.

Unfortunately, in negating and destroying, there are many listeners who so bring their objectifying mental habits to bear, that they see only "destruction", "death", "nay-saying", and "bleakness" in the negating dialectic. It is truly difficult to break apart the concretising habits of such an attitude; it is the social animal that wants merging, power, illusion, enchantment, magic and mystery. It is possible that such a base, emotional psychology is not close enough to the realms of reason to deal with God in the dialectical, indirect way. Probably one has to give them baby food like poetry, strongly positive (i.e. nondialectical) ideals, and take the level of personality in order to draw them to first base where mountains are simply mountains and not reminders of their childhood. Truly, one is speaking to little children with these.

It is wrong to be speaking directly and positively, quite wrong, because this is existentially revoking the meaning of one's communication. But if the listener is of low scope, then it is impossible not to work on a level they can step towards more easily.

One must always remember to be, at first call, in the relationship individually and authentically, to the truth. Only to that ground is one's message meaningful and right-oriented. One cannot speak as anyone but as that relationship of self to the Infinite. One cannot speak as a human finitude related to the crowd, or to another human finitude. That misplaces the truth of the message. One must always take one's stance in the meaning, taking away at every breath any tendencies or movements to reinforce or concretise, or even the movement of negating that would profer itself as substantial.

It truly takes mindfulness and consistency in faith to communicate. As another has said, only a wise person can speak the truth.




Kelly Jones