Why Wise or Holy Words Can Not Lead us Home (EP-39)

You might understand intellectually that each ‘action’ or ‘effort’ towards enlightenment is a barrier.

The very desire to become enlightened is a barrier. It is still easy to wrap your head around this statement. But does it make you an enlightened soul?

No.

Just understanding is not enough.

Now we might think ‘What is the way out, then?’

Ashtavakra, a revered sage in the Indian tradition, said:

If only you will remain resting in consciousness,
seeing yourself as distinct from the body,
then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds.

But what does it mean? And even if you understand the meaning will you be able to ‘rest’?

Anyway, what do we even understand by the words ‘rest’ & ‘consciousness’?

What is the first image that comes to our minds when we say ‘rest’?

When we tell a child “Look, my dear, that’s a tree” we are conditioning the blank and innocent mind of a child. A pure child didn’t know that ‘something’ green and brown is called a tree.

After all, these are all just labels. Something that humans ought to use for only convenience.

But these labels are so deeply ingrained in our minds that we mistake the labels for ‘reality’.

What I am trying to convey is that understanding the meaning of a word will not help us to wake up or ‘rest’ in consciousness.

Ascribing meaning to words itself is a controversial topic. Because language is the invention of the human mind. And the truth or reality is beyond the mind.

That’s why I have always propounded that words are only as good as the finger pointing to the moon. Understanding words doesn’t mean realizing ‘moon’.

I wrote in one of my earlier posts:

I would rather sit under a tree and watch the clouds engulf the mountains than read the Upanishads in my room.

Books, too, are beneficial, but they mostly work at an intellectual level, conscious level but observing the nature penetrates deeper than the surface.

Thanks for reading Eastern Perspective! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is what some of the Indian sages had said about the futility of words to convey the truth:

1. Adi Shankaracharya:

   "Brahman is not an object, not a thought, not an experience. It is the eternal subject that can never be objectified by anything."

2. Jiddu Krishnamurti:

   "The word is not the thing. The description is not the described."

3. Ramana Maharshi:

   "Silence is the true teaching. It is the perfect teaching."

4. Swami Vivekananda:

   "Words never express the full meaning; numbers can never fully represent the truth; symbols can never fully describe the reality. All that can be said is an incomplete expression of the whole."

Your Take

What do you think about this?

Do you think words are useful or futile in our efforts to convey the truth? Let me know in the comments below.