language (Was Re: Quotations)

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Mon, 28 Apr 1997, Allan Curry wrote:

> Sometimes I think that the best use of reason/thought/language is to spend
> just enough time on it to figure out how to run it in reverse! How else
> will thought, which is the "outward tendency of the mind" lead us to
> discover the origin of thought and help us to be rooted there?

The Indian view (I use Indian here instead of "Hindu" or "Vedantic because
this view is common to many philosophical traditions.") is that language
is the template for thought.  Words really do represent the essence of
things and more than anything are the origin of thought.  So the idea of
using language is to learn to express things in the most succint and
accurate way.  If you define thought as "the outward tendancy of the mind"
you may be righ but I think there is more to thought than that.


> Isn't
> thought the thief that is pretending to be the policeman looking for the
> thief?

Should we give up on the idea of having police just because a thief might
pretend to be one.  Same with thought.  Just because the faculty of
thought can be used erroneously doesn't mean it should not be used at all.

> Can there be any possible thought concerning the witness of thought
> that is true, particularily if the ultimate witness of thought is also
> witnessing the very organ (ie. buddhi) which determines what is true and
> false?

Some philosophies such as Buddhism express similar doubt as you do but a
Vedantin would answer: of course there can. This is an important
distinction between the two that many people confuse.  The "witness of
thought" is self illuminating.  It simply does not require another source
to be apprehended the way sight requires light, sound requires hearing
etc.

> If thought was the _only_ way to truth why would Bhagavan Ramana
> Maharshi talk to us about "killing" the mind which he said was just a
> bunch of thoughts?

And how did he propose to do that?  Chances are it required some thought.
Of course if you only mean the outward thoughts it makes more sense but
the only people who avoid thought altogether are coma victims.

>
> Having said all that, I must admit that of course I know absolutely nothing
> about the Indian philosophy of language! If I did, I might very well praise
> its virtues to the skies and find it to be extremely useful as a path to
> truth. From bitter experience however I'm also aware of the extent to which
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> the illusion of seperation from the truth is created by thought itself.

Why should you infer anything from your experience?  It could have been
the result of your being drunk or feverish or any number of other things.
The very essence of truth is it is objective and constant.  It cannot
depend on any persons experience.  Experience can at best be supporting
evidence for the truth or falsehood of a proposition.  It is _only_
through language and logic we have a framework for independantly
determining the truth.

> that illusory seperation was not created, perhaps the path to truth would be
> considerably shorter!  As someone on this list said to me recently,
> "everyone is in the sahaja state, they only think themselves out of it".
> If that is true, could anyone, by thinking, put themselves back into it,
> if they have never actually left?
>
> Is this just too simple minded to be right?
>

Yes.  It wasn't the thinking that put them "out" of it but undisciplined,
unrestrained thinking.

--
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