Descending Babel: Chapter 32

My entire life, from the moment I was born until just recently, I was taught to consider myself something, to belong to something, to be a member in good standing of something, to embrace something, adhere to something, espouse something, praise something. It didn't matter what this something was, because this something was different from household to household, city to city, state to state, country to country. My something, whatever it was, could be completely different from your something, and yet we were both taught in passionate and precise ways that our particular something was correct, righteous, and true, while everybody else's something was incorrect, unrighteous, and false. But what made one person's something 'true' and another person's something 'false'? What was the mechanism involved, the measuring stick, the sounding board, that cranked the wheel and turned the gears?

Even today, the something that each of us is told we are or belong to or must become exists by way of definition, through the use of words and language, through religious abstraction and invisible political borders and social artifice.

One of the first things I remember being taught as a young boy was that I was an American. But outside of words and lines on maps, where exactly does America exist in the real world? America isn't natural. It isn't physical. America isn't something you can touch or hold, because it's a mental construct, it exists only in the mind. America isn't real. The line separating the United States from Canada isn't a real line, it isn't found in nature, it isn't part of the real world. It's a mental construct, it's imaginary, and it's given its substance only through the artifice of language and words. The same holds true for every other something we've been taught we are, to which we were told we belong or don't belong, every something meant to regulate our choices and behavior, actions and activitiy, the very course of our lives.

Way back in Chapter One I made a list of all the various things that influenced me from birth to age five, and of course this list is comprised of nothing but somethings. If all these somethings are artificial, then what does that make me? What am I without relying on the somethings? If I remove all the somethings, all the words and labels I use to define me, what remains? And is what remains in the absence of all the somethings at last the real me?

In order to better comprehend the nature of the game, there should be a clear understanding of its rules at the onset. The rules themselves are defined initially by the notion of 'versus' (or vs.) as in Good vs. Evil, Freedom vs. Repression, God vs. Devil, Light vs. Darkness, Positive vs. Negative, Duality vs. Nonduality. But there's more going on here than meets the eye. You see, a closer examination will reveal the rules are an illusion. The concept of 'verses' is really a trap. The game, which at first glance appears competitive, combative, and contentious, is really just a game of Solitaire. There is no competitor other than the language of the rules themselves, and the language of rules depends on the notion of 'duality'.

In Philosophy, Duality (or Dualism) is a set of beliefs which presupposes the claim that the mental and physical have a fundamentally different nature, that mind and body are two irreducibly distinct things, two unique halves where never the twain shall meet.
In Physics, Duality is present when two different scientific models actually turn out to be equivalent, as in wave-particle duality.
In Mathematics, Duality describes a pairing of concepts, objects, or numbers that have some features that are considered opposite or complementary as found in algebra, geometry, graphy theory, and calculus and represented by points and lines, vectors and matrices, etc.
In Analytical Psychology, Duality is an archetype representing the powerful symbols of the functioning of the psyche, as in Oneness (Unity), The Two (Polarity), Feminine/Masculine, Animus/Anima, Incubus/Succubus, Apollo/Dionysus, Hades/Hermes, etc.
In Western Religion and Theology, Duality is considered the distinction between that which is God and that which is not God, between Obedience and Disobedience, Life and Death, Heaven and Hell, Salvation and Damnation, Christ and Antichrist, etc.
In Taoism, Duality is represented by Yin and Yang which describe two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe, wherein Yin, the darker element, is passive, dark, feminine, downward-seeking, and corresponds to the night, while Yang, the brighter element, is active, light, masculine, upward-seeking and corresponds to the day.

For the purposes of this discussion, we shall interpret the word Duality to correspond with the term dichotomy, a differentiation of awareness of any type into two distinct and divisive halves.

Nonduality (or Nondualism) is the understanding that Duality (or Dualism) is really a misinterpreted belief system based on an illusory distinction separating mental abstractions.

It means that philosophical notions of Good and Evil, God and Not-God, Heaven and Hell, etc are artificial constructs extrapolated only after observing the physical properties of the natural world: hot and cold, light and dark, male and female, life and death, animate and inanimate, etc.

Because we are able to qualify and differentiate properties in our immediate environment according to some sliding scale of interpretation—for example, whether the sky is clear or overcast, whether we are walking uphill or down, whether it is an icy January or a humid July—we presuppose that purely mental concepts are themselves subject to the same notion of either/or and so render our perception of the universe according to these imaginary scales we carry around in our heads.

Simply put, by observing physical dualities in the natural world—hot or cold, wet or dry, etc—we visualize mental dualities that in no way could have been deduced from our environment then go on and attribute to these an authority and power to which we subjugate our very lives. We alter our behavior, the choices we make, how we view the universe, not by viewing the universe or interacting with our environment, but by granting power and authority to the mental constructs of duality we've presupposed are more important than us, the choices we make, our own lives. For the sake of 'god', 'salvation', 'eternal life', 'freedom', 'patriotism', 'war on terror', etc, we surrender ourselves and the choices we make instead of simply interacting and connecting with our natural environment. We allow ourselves to be convinced that mental constructs, based on an interior dialogue of duality, take precedence over our lives, define who we are, determine how we are to live. Because of this artificial duality, young men and women willingly permit themselves to go die in battle half a world away, disturbed mothers drown their infant children (who have presumably not reached some theological 'age of consent') so as not to risk God's wrath or potential of later being judged to Hell, priests and nuns deny the splendor of their own sexuality then wonder why they pursue sex in shame and secrecy. Instead of celebrating the mystery and majesty of their own unique lives, people are conditioned to believe their behavior is somehow more noble or righteous if they deny themselves, or abstain, or sacrifice, or die, all for the sake of the mental constructs of duality they carry around in their heads.

Whenever a 'cause' or 'word' or 'idea' takes precedence over one's own life, then mental constructs, artificial words, imaginary language, are allowed more power than the unfolding energies inherent in the physical world itself. In short, it isn't war that kills people. It's attributing to the words and ideologies of war the power over one's own life that kills people. Wars would not be fought, soldiers would not die, missles would not be launched if it wasn't for blindly surrendering one's power to abstract mental dualities. From the perspective of a unique individual, isn't preserving one's own life a more noble cause than tacitly allowing it to be sacrificed to an abstract mental duality? Isn't life more precious than slogans and words, imaginary boundaries, geo-political lines of demarcation?

Make no mistake: I am neither advocating a moot passivity when it comes to protecting one's family or homeland nor suggesting that the sacrifice of those troops who do are somehow diminished by their decision to fight. No, I wholeheartedly agree that any immediate threat to home and hearth should be answered in force and kind. My dissension with policies of war and unwavering patriotism is with those who blindly support the 'terms' of war—and accompanying flag-waving, chest-pounding, drum-beating, sabre-rattling—not because there is any physical threat but solely because the language of ideology and jingoism has been deemed somehow more important (of greater instrinsic value) than the lives of those asked to fight. I do not think that the lives of soldiers—all unique and remarkable human beings—are expendable in any number simply because our elected leaders speechify using terms like 'freedom', 'democracy', 'patriotism', or 'war on terror'. Why should troops be asked to "stay the course" if that course was delineated only in the mind and not on one's doorstep? If there is no threat, then battles fought half a world away simply because of words or ideas devalue the lives of our sons and daughters and make all too apparent the callousness of our elected officials. It's up to parents to intelligibly dissuade their children from buying into the warrior politics of leaders who all-too-willing are asking them to die. And for what? Words! The slippery rhetoric of patriotic words! And, so, too, it's up to our children to remember that their lives are infinitely more valuable than any combination of words our leadership might use to motivate them to enlist and fight.

When talking about duality vs. nonduality there is an inherent paradox, that word versus. It is language—the artifice of words—that creates the paradox, the puzzle, the enigma that seemingly must be overcome. In reality, there is no paradox because words do not possess physical characteristics or contain tangible properties. Words are not forceful or can forcibly manipulate you in any way.

Words have no dimension, no power, no ability to move you one micron. If you move at all, or alter your behavior, or abstain from joy, or enlist to fight someone else's battles, it isn't words that have done this.

It's all been you. All of it. You. You've empowered words and allowed them to convince you there's an obstacle that must be overcome—a perilous mountain, an original sin, the search for moksha or satori—then spend the remainder of your life trying to work around this onstacle, or climb over it, or dig through it. You permit yourself to believe in a thing—whatever "it" is—that must either be rejected or received before you can move forward. You've convinced yourself you need to "get rid" or something or else "come into possession" of something before you can become the person you are really meant to be. And whatever this turns out to be—whether it's sin or salvation, Jesus or Allah, fame or wealth or power or wisdom—it's only an idea, a cognitive element given form only by your acceptance of it.

The person you are, your 'true' and 'real' self, is not a composition of ideas with no corresponding properties in nature, not the unfolding processes of speculative or supernatural words bouncing around in your head, but flesh and breath and blood. You eat and sleep and egest and copulate, and all the rest is an abstraction you've empowered, because you were taught to empower it. You were raised (indoctrinated and enculturated) to afford words and language and ideas and concepts with values that exist nowhere outside the mind. You can't point to God, but only the word 'God'. You can't point to Jesus, but only the word 'Jesus'. You can't point to Satan, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, Heaven or Hell, Angels, the Rapture, or Seven Years of Tribulation without opening a book. Nor can you point to Nirvana, Samsara, Karma, or Dharma. And, truth be told, neither can you point to Love, Compassion, Justice, or Empathy. You can interpret and infer your feelings, define your emotions, generalize your fears and anxieties, but beyond this dualistic dialogue teeter-tottering inside your head all you really know is your own physical being and the way it interacts with your environment. All the rest is words—words that you've empowered to control your life, motivate your beliefs, restrain your feelings, manipulate your behavior.

As you become aware of the illusory nature of duality, the paradox of the word versus, the antinomy inherent in contradictory language, you slowly begin to wake up to the realization that words—all words—are weak abstractions and flimsy nuances with no executable bearing on the person you really are, your 'true' self, that element remaining if all words and language were magically removed from your life.

In the absence of words, in the removal of philosophical and ideological arguments, religious terms, sacred texts, scientific and mathematical formulas, what is left? Without deferring to words you can no longer define yourself as 'Human' or an 'American' or 'Christian' or a 'Republican' or 'Pro-Life'. Without words there is no Bible, no Koran, no Upanishads, no Tao Te Ching, no references to Yahweh or Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed.

Without words, what is it that you might believe? Without words, is belief even possible?

Well, yes and no. Without words belief would be tied only into the way you interact with your immediate environment, in the assumptions of causality, the experimental considerations of cause and effect. You might believe that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that if you let go of a rock it will fall to the ground, that eating food reduces hunger and drinking water eliminates thirst. Without words, without the artifice of language, the only belief system capable of being entertained is strictly cause-and-effect oriented, empirical and experimental, scientific in a non-verbal way. It is only after introducing abstract language that you are able to embrace abstract entities and concepts—gods, ghosts, devils, life-after-death, eternity, infinity, enlightenment.

The 'true' you, the 'real' you, is not the person defined by abstract entities and concepts, but who is immediate and who exists prior to the use of all language, despite the use of language If you want to discover whether or not something is true, whether or not your beliefs are true, whether you are being true to yourself, remove all references and deferrals to language. In the absence of language, whatever remains is true. If what you understand to be true requires language to be communicated, needs to be preserved in a book, constantly referenced and quoted for argument, you can be rest assured this has nothing to do with what is true.

After coming to the understanding that words are artificial and that any distinctions made by referencing words are themselves illusory, only then are you capable of recognizing your 'true' nature and 'real' self, what is meant by 'truth', what it means to become 'awakened'.

But 'true' and 'real' and 'truth' and 'awakened' are all just words themselves, as abstract and artificial as 'god' and 'heaven' and 'paradise' and 'nirvana'.

And that is why you find yourself playing an epic game of Solitaire. If you want to change the game, or stop playing it all together, you need to recognize the rules for what they are.