the limitation of words

[juanmacarthur]

last night i was smoking in my room and i stayed looking at the cigarette smoke that has a peculiar very flexible form that can not be trapped or structured with anything .. and i thought .. life is the same .. it can not be enclosed in simple words .. people are also the same .. we are like the smoke of a cigarette .. we have great flexibility, we flow like the river .. and no word can enclose us in any way even if we try .. life is very complex .. each person is composed of millions of atoms, millions of cells all different, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts .. and if each part is extremely complex the whole is much more complex, and i thought .. the greatest state of freedom arises when we flow like smoke without labels or thoughts in the mind, it is the mind with its limited definitions that makes us less free and conditions us to simple and limited words ..

Many times we can feel conditioned by words and we seek to decondition ourselves with words... but I believe that the greatest deconditioning arises when we go beyond words... when we are without any thought in the mind... I believe that the greatest freedom we can experience is when we are acting and within us there is an absence of words, an absence of thoughts... for example when we cry, when we laugh... when we are running... when we are walking... when we melt into a hug... words are limited... only silence is unlimited

A passage of scripture says "you shall not make for yourself an image of me or of anything in the heavens or in the seas or under the earth" I believe that with those words God meant that to define something is to limit it.

 

[jacks]

Great thoughts.
I think sometimes good poetry can partially describe the "smoke". Though our usual descriptions are only a shadow of life's complexity and multiple facets.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

last night i was smoking in my room and i stayed looking at the cigarette smoke that has a peculiar very flexible form that can not be trapped or structured with anything .. and i thought .. life is the same .. it can not be enclosed in simple words .. people are also the same .. we are like the smoke of a cigarette .. we have great flexibility, we flow like the river .. and no word can enclose us in any way even if we try .. life is very complex .. each person is composed of millions of atoms, millions of cells all different, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts .. and if each part is extremely complex the whole is much more complex, and i thought .. the greatest state of freedom arises when we flow like smoke without labels or thoughts in the mind, it is the mind with its limited definitions that makes us less free and conditions us to simple and limited words ..

Many times we can feel conditioned by words and we seek to decondition ourselves with words... but I believe that the greatest deconditioning arises when we go beyond words... when we are without any thought in the mind... I believe that the greatest freedom we can experience is when we are acting and within us there is an absence of words, an absence of thoughts... for example when we cry, when we laugh... when we are running... when we are walking... when we melt into a hug... words are limited... only silence is unlimited

A passage of scripture says "you shall not make for yourself an image of me or of anything in the heavens or in the seas or under the earth" I believe that with those words God meant that to define something is to limit it.

What does the word 'limit' mean in your view? Or is there no limit to what limit can mean?

 

[juanmacarthur]

What does the word 'limit' mean in your view? Or is there no limit to what limit can mean?

To be more precise, I believe the freedom and conditioning of silence that we experience every day is far greater and deeper than the freedom and conditioning that words give us.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

To be more precise, I believe the freedom and conditioning of silence that we experience every day is far greater and deeper than the freedom and conditioning that words give us.

That sort of undermines the general idea (and significance) we find in the Bible about "speaking forth" this or that "word," doesn't it?

Do you have any specific biblical verses you cite in reference to your preferred view here? I mean, you may be correct and I may be wrong because I'm going to prioritize philosophical, historical, hermeneutical and cultural facts over the theologies that any one of us may intuit, whereas you're probably gleaning some motif from the Bible itself, I reckon.