Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Mar 26, 2022 3:06 amHumans had to invent words to distinguish between a vast range of concepts, from the concrete to the abstract. Human consciousness made that into an imperative. The
transmittable concept-packets of other intelligent creatures, though impressive, are nowhere near that range while communicating very well within the range they have being all that nature requires for any particular species.
It is true that words are invented. What I doubt is that language -- some sort of background to the communication of which words are one expression and a central one -- is invented. But this means, ultimately, that I do not think that the Universe, whatever it is, why-ever it is, invents itself as it goes along. So it is a 'necessity' that what occurs, what forms (and concept and language and communication is one of those things) had, in some sense, a prior existence. We must assume (at least I think so) an infinite number of prior creations and not just the relatively blink-of-the-eye manifestation of our universe and our *world*. It already happened -- I mean language and being and the need to communicate already happened infinite times. So in this sense 'language' is part-and-parcel of the manifestation.
The notion of *Word* and utterance and of consciousness vibrating everything into manifestation is, naturally, a freaky idea. It is also an archaic concept and is born of a certain primitiveness of conception. But what does it really mean? I would suppose it does not refer to a mouth uttering a Word, that would be childish and that would be a 'picture' which is a metaphor for something beyond the picture, right? It refers to constructive consciousness, ur-intelligence, a priori intelligence,
manifesting the Kosmos. This is what I have always supposed 'logos' to refer to. Something within the Universe, the Kosmos and the manifestation
organizes itself. It is hard to escape this idea. But then I have wondered if instead of all creation being pushed toward manifestation -- the idea of 'bang' and 'explosion' implies this -- I have wondered if it is not being
pulled along. Not impelled or propelled but drawn. It is another way of seeing the same thing.
I also realize that *humans have consciousness* and what it is, and why it is, no one seems to know or be able to say definitively. But it seems to me that it is not a specific creature-consciousness that we must examine but Consciousness itself which is, by the fact that it exists in us and we know this is so, something latent and also necessary in the creation itself. And again if this is so, and it is manifest, it did not invent itself as it went along.
Obviously, and if one wanted to get mystical about it, people have been speculating about what consciousness really is for a long while. My reference point is often Vedic thinking because, right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, close to the truth or a wild approximation and lyrically romantic, it seems that these Vedic seers got to the heart of the matter.
So again 'word' and the power to utter, to manifest, and for all things to take shape and 'come into being' -- even of course the 'world' (
loka लोक) in which we are given this opportunity to be aware, to perceive where we are and what we are a part of, are perceptions and notions that are all tied together.
If there is an absolute truth it's one ruled by probability which denies any absolute truth; it doesn't equate with logical necessity. It remains an empty variable without ever having been assigned a value denoted as absolute. Not least, an assumed absolute truth is one which grants itself complete authority, and that never worked out well. There is too much human subterfuge in determining Absolutes. One must always ask, whose purpose does it serve?
The way you are looking at it, I gather, is
political ultimately. The noton of an absolute truth held and meted-out by a dominating clique for its own purposes and benefit.
While I agree that those who are within the manifestation, within mutability and
ensconced in it (here Dasein and the ideal of 'worlding' and being subjected to that worlding must enter in to our concept), must recognize that they cannot within their condition define some *absolute truth*, the notion of it is inherent and necessary. Perhaps I have negated by putting it this way that some terrestrial, defined 'truth' is possible. Yet to posit the opposite -- that everything is in flux and undecided and constantly mutating and in this sense ultimately unstable, even unknowable -- is as much of a mistake in the political-idea-social realm as its opposite.
It's a function, a very advanced function but why should it be sacred?
Well, the notion of the sacred, when examined, becomes pretty complex. If you ask me to provide an answer I can only speak from experience. And in that experience, or vision if you wish, the sacredness of all things was clearly revealed. It is intuitive, subjective and personal. And, having let's say received that understanding, the choice became whether to accept it and choose to integrate the understanding, or to forget that it happened and, as the Platonists and also the Vedics might say, become immersed in mutable reality, become *lost* in mutable reality, or as the Vaishnavas say to 'forget' and lose oneself in 'the material entanglement'. Within that system of seeing, and believing and being, to become lost in this sense is a tragedy and has infinite layers of consequence. And if what is proposed here is true, and I suggest that it is pretty obvious that it is true, then let us define what is 'sacred' as that idea, that concept, that awareness, that brings about or augments the understanding I just outlined.
So 'awareness' and 'awaking' and 'purification' and honing and sharpening of the same is, let us say, something 'sacred'. Why then is what is sacred always surrounded by mystery? Why is the 'sacred ground' sacred? What is the demarkation-point that separates the profane man from the man who, in one degree or other,
realizes awareness? Or carries it through let's say to some elevated point?
Well your guess is as good as mine but it always seems to be so. No matter what traditon one examines, be it Buddhist, Vedic, Taoist, Christian and even Islamic. And then there are the more *primitive* examples. For example the 'sacred awareness' cultivated by shamans of the South American jungles. A similar paradigm exists. Take the story revealed in
The Wizard of the Upper Amazon. They use a bizarre jungle drug and in their vision they encounter the Anaconda Spirit. And that spirit rules the domain in which they exist -- their *world*. It reveals itself and it brings knowledge and understanding.
One has to examine this paradigmatically, no? We are all, in one way or another, ultimately concerned for the same thing. We become *viewing lenses* that attempt to focus in on what is real, on what is true.
Though it is pretty obvious that the System that we now live in has separated itself from even the belief and understanding that such awareness as I reference is worth anything at all. We live in a system which begins to look more like a
machine than a
culture. Can the Machine lead people to awareness, freedom, knowledge and understanding? It does not appear so. The Machine in this sense functions when it incorporates a being into itself and, in this sense dulls awareness. Or do you see it differently?
Thus: the notion of what is Sacred
must be given emphasis. If it has been forgotten it must be rediscovered. It may be a polluted pool and many see organized religion in this way (and perhaps religion generally) but I for one think there is much
much more there.
In Vedic thought as well as in Hebrew thought it is the language itself, the word, the revelation, the meaning, but the Word itself that reveals this, and that is sacred. The
vocalization of the scriptural word that is given 'sacred' emphasis. This sense comes through it seems to me. It cannot be denied. But it is an allusion to higher, even
transcendent truths. The story is not the truth, the enactment isn't either.
If life isn't sacred -- being only our testimony that it is - why should anything in life be considered so? There are degrees of value and perhaps the highest can be considered sacred but that too depends on time and place. The word sacred denotes an absolute of some kind remaining changeless through the ages instead of getting reinterpreted as time goes on. We're always on the hunt for a new Sacred!
I have made an effort to present my view of the matter. I would answer again but I'd repeat myself!
New Sacred you say? It might go round in circles but I am uncertain if a genuine new sacred is a viable idea. But obvioulsy I tend toward a form of traditionalism (having read a good amount of René Guénon and others like him). It is, I guess, the way I am wired (to put it in mechanical-electical terms).
) as we do. So I am not sure if it is correct to say that we *invented* words. In this sense, I suppose, I accept some of the more far-flung ideas often found in Vedic thought. 
