Word meaning--sacred and exoteric
In esoteric studies there is the concept of the sacred word. In mythology we have "Open Sesame," English translation of "Open Simsim," the magic words Ali Baba used to open the cave of treasure in the tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. This sacred and magical perspective implies a special relation between sound and meaning. Perhaps it is this esoteric sense of word/sound/meaning that finds embodied, somewhat unfortunately, in the more exoteric sense of word/meaning, namely the comming notion that words have fixed meanings.
People oflten tend to listen and respond as if words have more or less fixed meanings. But words, exoterically speaking, don't have fixed ordained meanings. They mean what we, the community of word users, agree they mean--and we often disagree and change our minds. Word meanings are in motion like the fluid consciousness that gives them birth, and dictionaries are the fluent history of our collective verbal habits. Dictionaries are not meaning bibles but an ephemeral record of how we have used words. Words are a catalyst for consciousness--there is no meaning in the words themselves. Or we might say words have shadow meanings that follow the actual meaning that exists in the life of consciousness. Words are symbols, forms, obscure mysteries---they are in the world of dead things and only take on meaning in a moment of illumination in the mind and heart of the reader or speaker.
Best Thoughts,
James
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by William John Meegan on
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As for myself I call LANGUAGE the Ga Ga Prattle of a new born babe simply because that is as primitive as the species gets no matter what culture one is born into. That little ball of beauty has to be civilized from its savage ways. Most times I do not like the theories of the academics because they do not explain the nuances surrounding such ideas. As for language, sounds from the mouth or the pen are expression of WANTS and/or NEEDS; therefore, those sounds have meanings that come from the inner working of the psyche. If you think of the psyche as a vortex (chaos from the human perspective) and yet like the cloud that spoke to any of the prophets: "write" the sound came out in an audible and intelligent manner. Ask yourself the question, 'how did the words now written on the page come from the vortex of the psyche, which was not there a nanosecond before penning them to the page, go from CHAOS to ORDER?".
Yes, I do believe that language is inherent in the psyche because the psyche is given all it needs when it comes into the world. A lot of people like to call the psyche the soul; however, the psyche is the incarnation of the soul in the world. The soul can never enter into the world. The psyche is merely a mirror image of the soul. When soul manifest into the world it splits into the psyche: the ego-consciousness and the unconscious mind: these two are one: the psyche. and it exist on the field of the collective unconscious mind, which is merely a commentary on the soul that has become the god/man CHRIST (Vesica Piscis = Birth of Consciousness). The collective unconscious is liken to the chessboard and ego-consciousness and the unconscious mind are the black and white chess pieces that move upon the chessboard.
What most people do not recognize and the Hindu did was that all sounds are variation of the sound 'OM'. It is interesting that the ancients had dictionaries for words but Noah Webster was the first to compile the English dictionary in 1806: what happened between this great chasm? Why does the human species go from the great civilizations to the primitive continuously like a yo-yo? What is it that makes the species relive the trials and tribulations of infancy over and over again like our concept of reincarnation.
The Hebrew language has 22+5 final letters. The 22-letters create an infinite amount of words and only a small portion of them were used to write the Old Testament.
One could imagine that after a period of time when people grouped together the Ga Ga Prattle of the new born babe became the local and cultural language. This is why there are hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects to go with them that blanket the globe and this is after thousands of years of civilizing these languages into the 21st century.
If language was not inherent to the psyche and was merely made up by brilliant individuals in their local communities and/or their perspective cultures then there would be no way of translating one language to another.
Look at how mathematics (considered the universal language) is a constant throughout the world; yet, this mathematical language come directly from the soul: the collective unconscious. The Hebrew language of the sacred scriptures, not the modern vocal profane language, is mirror after of sound of 'OM' because from one letter comes all the letters. The 22+5 final letters are grouped into three rows of nine columns representing the material, psychic and spiritual layers of creation and each of the words are explicitedly patterned based upon this formal strucure coming directly from the psyche. Mathematics and the written word have a symbiosis: these two are actually one.
Essentially, the sacred scriptures are saying that the written or spoken word is meaningless because it is only what come from within the inner nature of the psyche that demonstrates your character. Every single thought, word and deed is basically a communication with the divine. It is the eternal prayer of the individual. I always saw LIFE as PRAYER; thus, each of us is judged by who we are internally not who we are outwardly.
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Permalink Reply by Paul lee James on
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William,
Then how can my prayers reach God,if my words are meaningless? I can't understand if our words are meaningless, then how can we understand each other. I was touched from God but,I knew spiritually (feeling without a word being spoken) it was God. Language any language is a communication to speak to others. Adam spoke to God and he replied.Jesus spoke to God and he replied, If that happened how did they communicate with each other if words do not have meanings? Paul -
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What I mean by the spoken or written word being 'meaningless', and I should have elaborated on this above, is that a one word definition does not convey the true message of the internal vortex of the psyche. This is why there is so much misunderstanding in the world. It is because, though we mean internally a great deal when we open our mouths to speak, when we 'attempt to' put that internal understanding into words - those words are poor mediums to express what we are trying to convey. Almost every time we open our mouths to say something or pen something to the page we don't say enough to express ourselves or the words we use are not expressive enough to convey the meaning behind our thoughts.
This is why I say that "LIFE IS PRAYER", because our internal thoughts within the vortex of the psyche is what we individually are all about. The reason I believe the tongue is called a 'a folk tongue' is because every time we speak there are several or more meanings behind what we verbally are saying. Silent prayer is the best we can hope for in communicating with God.
"Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds (S&H pg 1:10-14)."
"The unspoken desire does bring us nearer the source of all existence and blessedness (S&H 2:28-30)."
These are quite powerful statements, about prayer, written by Mary Baker Eddy in the 1860s. I recommend this work to you. SCIENCE AND HEALTH: With Key to the Scriptures. This is a work on Christian Metaphysics.
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William,
Excellent answer. I never studied christian metaphysics (except through theosophy)before. But it makes sense to me from the description. I had a (out of the body experience and absolutely knew it was God). No questions or doubts. Being material by nature is exceptionally confusing from that point of view when involved in any esotoric experience. I will study Science and health and get back to you. Thank you for your patience with me and your experience. Paul
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James,
Material words and spiritual words are different. Material words are words we understand written by material others (words are in the langauage of the writer/speaker. Spiritual words John 3:16 are from God, who is a spirit talking to his created beings in material language with spiritual meaning. As far our emotional words spoken or written, I believe our emotions are spiritual and God has given us away to interpret through our language his meaning. For example, the ten commandments. spritual truths written materially. The whole epitome of the bible, is to believe it! The mind to me is spiritual as is the heart, (questioning the theory of we have a spirit). I believe if we think of the sentence (I feel sick) that feeling is believed spiritually and we get sick.
If the written spoken or spiritual word is written spoken or believed in our mind , we become what we wrote .spoken or believe by our belief. I cannot believe our words has no meaning in themseles. Paul
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