There is a big problem with non-duality and Enlightenment teachings: It’s seeming obscurity has caused it to be translated into something that doesn’t meld well with our culture. This teaching has been translated to us here in the Western world so that we now think the goal is to stop thoughts. We then go into overdrive, thinking and talking about stopping thoughts. Somehow we’ve turned the whole idea upside down into a nihilistic view of the world. We’ve now turned it into a philosophy where only thoughts exist.
But what it actually means is that thoughts do not completely accurately define the things we are looking at and that you are not your thoughts.
So, lets change the story. Instead of thoughts, say language. Can you stop language?
It is easier to realize that you’re not your language than it is to realize that you’re not your thoughts because “thoughts” is too nebulous a concept.
Those two things are exactly the same thing inside the human experience. Two words for the same thing. All your thoughts come through language. They drift in your head in your native tongue.
Language also creates our worldview.
The language we have, our western English language, is what has led the entire Western Civilization to conquer native lands and have constant wars. All this horrific stuff that we attribute to human nature is really our language.
Understanding this this makes it easier to see how to move forward as human beings.
One big problem in spiritual communities, and progressive communities, is a basic belief that human beings are awful. It’s, ironically, a sick repeat of the Christian thing: we’re full of sin,. So many people believe that humans don’t even deserve to exist; we’re going to destroy ourselves and there’s no way out.
What if human beings were actually just fine, and the only problem is this language that consumes our head. The language that creates our world view and our thoughts is what makes us destructive because our very thought processes are destructive. This horrible human nature we believe in is only a belief.
What if the divisive structure of our language itself is the problem? What if it’s not the human being that’s the problem, it’s the thinking process that we have created?
The big difference between the Western conquering worldview and the natural native worldviews is a deep-seated belief that things are separate. You can only destroy things if you really believe that it’s separate than you. If we really felt that the Earth was our mother, we wouldn’t be destroying the Earth, right? If we felt that we were deeply interconnected with things, we would find ways to live beautifully with things and each other.
You can see it in the structure of our societies and especially in our prejudices. The only way that you can destroy another people is if you believe they’re different, that they aren’t you, that they aren’t even human. This is a belief that is given to us very young, and our language is hugely instrumental in the way that this has come about.
We can take an example from various different languages. A native language would have had no word for private property. How can you actually own the Earth? How can you own a piece of property? There would have been no word for it.
In our language we talk about “mine” and private property all the time, we base our entire societies on it and consider it normal. Our language sets our world view.
The reason this is important is because it is easy to step back and realize that language is something that has been taught to you since birth. Your language is just a thing, it’s not you. I am not my language. You and I could sit right down and learn a new language. If it was a native language we would also learn a new way to think.
You will have a different worldview if you learn a new language because you’ll have a new way to structure thoughts.
There are so many things in language that are specific to a particular culture. In English there are so many little sayings that prove this. If I say, “A stitch in time—’ I don’t even have to complete the saying. You know it’s going to be ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’ You know it’s all about being frugal and keeping things repaired. Subtly I’m saying that a good human being keeps things nice and in order. All I have to say is “A stitch in time—” and all the rest of that is implied.
We can look in our brief lifetimes to find instances of words being invented. Like, an emoji. Twenty years ago, there wasn’t such a thing. In the 1980s if somebody said ‘LOL,’ that would have had no meaning whatsoever. LOL. Today, we know exactly what that means. It means that you laughed out loud when you saw something funny. It also means that you couldn’t be seen when you LOL’d and so you have to text the other person to let them know you are laughing… a million subtle concepts contained in three letters.
Language is integral to our concept of who we are. However it’s exterior to our being. Language is not our actual beingness as a human being.
All of our conditionings have come to us through language. “A stitch in time saves nine.” We’ve been conditioned with that idea. If you don’t keep your possessions in good order you’ll be a be a bad person, right?
“A bad apple.” We know that one bad apple ruins the whole barrel because it starts decaying and the decay goes into all the other apples. We can say that about other people… emphasizing the idea that it’s possible to be a hopelessly bad person. Look at how that informs who you think you are and who you think other people are.
This one silly statement emphasizes the idea that there can be good people and bad people. You got good apples, you got bad apples. Things, things, things. Our very language itself is about dividing up objects into separate things. Our very language itself creates separation and division.
We are fed this from when we’re very, very, very young. Even the toys that we are given create a subtle division in us. As a baby you’re given a toy to keep you occupied, so that you’re happy to be all by yourself. Instead of human connection, you’re supposed to be entertained by the toy. It’s so normal to us that we don’t even notice it until we step back a bit with a different worldview.
All these subtle little things create division and separation inside of us. It all comes from language. And then you teach the next generation and the next generation and the next generation.
The cool thing about language is that it can be relearned, right? If we start relearning how to think, reforming the way we live in the world, then we are going to have a different worldview.
This applies to Nonduality and can help take us out of concepts. Instead of disassociating ourselves from the world we disassociate from our language.
Spiritual training often tries to tell us to stop our thoughts. But that’s crazy making. Thoughts won’t stop, but they also aren’t fixed. It’s just language firing in your brain. A fleeting wind.
So let’s move on forward. We talked about language to death. Next let’s talk about history. The stories of who we are, that we’ve been taught since we were babies, creates the worldview that we live in. It gives a clue on how we’re able to change it.