How do we define a word, and idea, or an experience? Why does it need to be defined? Is it possible to share or relate without the use of symbols or words or definitions? Is the human mind on a constant, often unconscious, search for symbols in the surrounding environment, with which to make mental sense of it all?
We use words all the time. I'm using them now. In fact, I would say we all abuse them from time to time. Are we the words we speak or write? Is what we attempt to convey via words and the mind in fact those words or ideas? The actuality with which we are in communion with - is it or is it not synonymous with the words or ideas or values themselves?
Based on human action it would seem so. Why else would a person die for an idea or a belief? Why else would people judge one another based on what one thinks or how one goes about one's daily life?
Do we ever "hide" behind words - saying something is this or that, labeling it and defining it so we might bypass it altogether?
Some quotes from "On Love and Loneliness" by Krishnamurti:
"...they say they love God, and they depend on what they call God; but it is not God, the unknown, it is a thing created by the mind" (Krishnamurti).
"What matters is to see very honestly and very clearly exactly what it is you are feeling at the moment, without bringing in the ideal of how you should feel or will feel at some future date, fo rthen you can do something about it". If you say "must" and "your real feelings are quite different" then "those words become a screen behind which you hide" (Krishnamurti).
So our mind is always concerned with finding something. Through furniture, through a house, through books, through people, through ideas, through rituals, through symbols, we hope to get something, to find happiness. And so the things, the people, the ideas, become extraordinarily important, because through them we hope we shall find it. So we begin to be dependent on them" (Krishnamurti).
An online dictionary (google it) defines "word" as:
"a unit of language that native speakers can identify"
An online etymology dictionary (www.etymonline.com) expresses "word" as:
"speech, talk, utterance, word"..."from...wurdan", etc.
Words are tools. Even in this process I am using words to label what words are and how they're used, in my opinion, which is also a result of thinking. Words are based on thought, even if the words come after a spiritual experience, once we come back to the mind and attempt to describe it, we are thinking.
Now, in Krishnamurti's book, he seems to be quite against the mind and thinking. In other parts of the book (title above), he says it's necessary to put the mind in it's place. I do feel the mind is necessary considering most of us don't communicate in a completely telepathic way. Secondly, I do feel that mind and thought processes need to be observed for what they are (whatever that may be for any given person or animal).
A little off topic perhaps, when thinking about "word", I also began to think about another word I've heard, being "wyrd".
An online dictionary claims:
"A word somewhat like fate, but the word comes from a root meaning "past", thus the emphasis is on fate derived from one's past actions"
The online etymology dictionary makes the case:
"wyrd" "fate, destiny" (n.), lit. "that which comes""
(It was actually brought up under the word "weird")
Now this has me thinking about karma...
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