Duped by words

Speech and language are among the most important inventions in the journey of human evolution. Without speech we would not have transformed from cavemen to modern humans, nor would have been possible the technological enhancements and today's comforts that we take for granted. Speech, language and thus words play an important role in our day to day life.

Words enable us to think, to frame our ideas, and to transfer our thoughts through print and conversation. Words enable us to identify objects, places and people. Words enable scientific and technological enhancements - we use words to name new discoveries, phenomena and inventions.

A word is a very useful and indispensable tool. But there is a dark side to words! They have the tendency to overpower us, consume us and hide the actuality from us. This happens when we make words more important than the reality behind them, when we forget that there is more to words than the words themselves. When we see a rose, the word 'rose' immediately springs to mind and we say,” what a beautiful rose!". The two words 'beautiful' and 'rose' are more often than not used quite haphazardly in such a situation, without really noticing either the beauty or the rose itself! Those words hide the color, the smell, the texture, the thorns that go along with it, the individuality of the particular rose, and even the surroundings - everything that makes the rose beautiful. Further, the chattering mind starts running away with thoughts,” Maybe I will present that rose to my wife..."

The same thing happens when we start having a relationship with a name rather than the person, when words start having positive and negative connotations such that we don't see the truth behind them, when we string these words together to form a train of thoughts that because of their limitations lead us further away from truth and awareness.

Words thus are clearly a hindrance to awareness when we do not realize their limitations. They make our minds dull when we don't see through them to observe the reality behind them.

Another danger of words is that a given word can have different meanings and different degrees and shades for different people. Due to this, not only do words hide the truth portraying a biased and prejudiced picture of the truth, they also portray a different picture to different people. And then people go to war due to these differences!

When I first realized the danger of words and stopped to look at the rose, I realized that there was so much I had been missing! At that moment the words dropped away, the train of thoughts halted, the chattering mind stopped for that moment of awareness - that was the first time I really experienced the rose! I wish I could experience my whole life like that - but I hope you realize the danger in that train of thought!

Words should be used as tools. Let us be aware of being enraptured by words into unawareness.