Words Also Hide Truth

A corollary to an earlier piece on words and writing.

(The earlier piece talks about how words are both my strength and weakness, and in not nourishing the strength I have let the weakness grow)

Further into the way words are being a paradox in my life, even while being in the pursuit of truth and writing it, I also use a lot of words to hide unpleasant truths first from myself and hence perhaps from the other as well.  I have not done this consciously and not all the time, and it cannot somehow fall in the category of lying, but words become a coping mechanism many times to deal with life events and situations that one does not feel capable of handling. And this has been happening at a very metal level.  I also realise that I have seen this phenomenon in the other and criticised it and so on and thus intellectualised the whole matter for myself.

I also see that often when there is clarity and truth, words are fewer and sharper and flowing.  Mostly, a poem comes out of me.  How insightful are the words of Chaturvedi Badrinath: "the paradox of language is that silence is its highest function."  

"Work is Love Made Visible" - Khalil Gibran

It has always been so "nice" to hear this above quote (and others) of Khalil Gibran.  However I realised that I now wanted tangibility.  How is work love made visible? This had become especially important because I had seen how much of a struggle working has been for me.  Why have I not been able to work at all? I had always seemed to be bogged down by "externals", "logistics", what I think of as my incapacities - all of this had seemed to stop me from working, from being able to work. 

How is work love made visible? Love for what? I really wanted to work, but it had not been happening.  By work I mean any or all kinds of work, domestic, social, the work that I had chosen for myself as part of my career. Some one or more parts would be frozen over at any given point in time.  Much more than anything else, the official work had been stagnating. Because a home means dependents, the household had to be run; there is no question of stopping there, however that could also become mechanical in a not-vibrant state of being.  

So my thoughts of incapacities and fear of failure held me frozen.  How can I work like I wanted, knowing I may fail, knowing that I don't know enough to work? There had been a layer of excuses and reasons on the surface which had to be peeled off before reaching this question.  The top layer was made up of issues around the externals like operational problems, issues with coworkers, ups and downs of balancing multiple roles of life and so on.  It took a while before getting to the hidden fear of failure and thoughts of inadequacy.  This was a layer of truth that again had to be peeled off to reveal deeper truths. 

Between that first question, "How is work love made visible?" and the other questions centered around oneself, "How can I work knowing I may fail?" etc, lies the favourite theme of writer-philosopher Chaturvedi Badrinath.  A theme that recurs in much of his expression, and now I see why.  There is a struggle between those 2 questions.  Because each question is in a different language altogether.  One is that of history, and the other, that of transcendence.  The voice that tells me I have all these limitations is the language of my history and experience - the voice of my thought-belief-perception self.  The other voice and language is that of transcendence.  Of that inner being, inner self that is watching all the drama of life.  That inner self which is love, which is oneness of all creation. 

Which voice am I aligning myself with at any given moment?  This seems to be a quintessential human struggle.  Each has its gifts and consequences.  I had always said, "Of course, I really want to work". I want to align myself with this deeper, inner self of which I have glimpses and flashes when there is clarity, when the inner space seems to be lighted. That was intention.  But what of action?  Why had it never flowed through and manifested in action?  The question here for me was, why do I want to align myself with that inner voice, and why do I want to work? Because I want to be productive, I want to be efficient, I want to be able to write the truth, every single day, I want, I want... And with this want, my mind has quietly aligned itself with the voice of the limited self.  This is self-love.  And I don't mean this in a judgmental way.  It is self-love in that I am in love with my own perceptions; taken with my perceptions of the end results of a love being made visible through work, for example. Some toys and sweets and savouries that I will be able to get from the Mela at the end of the walk.  If I am actually present there with that end in my head, it pulls me deeper into self-love.  I am struck by fear, what if I don't get those toys there in the Mela? Maybe I should see what route others are taking, then I will go to the correct Mela.  This then leads to mental paralysis, and of course paralysis of action.  In being stuck in this self-love, there is no Yoga.  There is no flowing of that inner being, love.  With that sudden sight into the struggle, the message of the Bhagavad Gita, which we have made into a platitude - "dont think of the fruits, only put in your best work" takes on such meaning and significance. 

In Yoga, that inner self flows.  And I, the actor in the drama of life, completely align myself with that flow, and allow it to make of me what it does; allow it to season me.  This feels suspiciously like surrender to me.  Funnily enough, I felt that I have been reflecting on self-effort.  What is this paradox? It perhaps is both at the same time? And life goes on.  The stage is set.  The actor is out there and in here at the same time.  And I realise that the question, which voice am I aligning myself with at any given moment?, is not an either-or question that has a one-time solution.  It then becomes a constant and on-going conversation that I engage with at every step, and that is Yoga. And this ongoing dialogue also gives one spaces and possibilities to travel back and forth between those two languages, to straddle both and, their paradoxical nature notwithstanding, take even concrete steps with seemingly abstract ideas - faith, taking responsibility, action despite / with fear and any number of ways as there are beings.  Then what begins to happen is work manifesting as a consequence of the greater self, greater love.  

About Words, Writing, and Writing Everyday

'Words'  I realise, are the big paradox of my life.  They are one of my greatest strengths and they are also one of my biggest weaknesses.  

Strength because I am able to string a few words together (in English) and make good prose or even better poetry.  I believe that the goodness comes out of my pursuit of writing the truth as I see it. I want my writing to reflect truth.  This has been such a strength that great writing achievements had been expected of me.  However as it happens with many of us sometimes or some of us many times over, an ability not practiced is no ability at all. These days there are flashes of that inherent skill now and then, and a very occasional glimpse of brilliance.  

This ability with words has also wrought disaster, because I have been so careless and thoughtless with the way I have let them loose on all and sundry.  I have hurt people, wrecked relationships and made a battlefield of the world with my words.  In not feeding my strength, I have been letting the weakness grow to gargantuan proportions.  I have allowed the weakness to prevail over and over again, fed and nourished it while my strength languished like an orphan.  

image from www.writebynight.com

Now that I have seen it, I need to feed and nourish the strength; allow it to grow so huge that there is no space for the weakness.  One can strengthen a muscle first and primarily, by exercising it. All else can only be supplementary.  I can nourish my writing essentially by writing, writing every day, and writing all the time.  I will have to write so much that I am able to understand the nuances and intricacies of words, their relationships, spaces and processes so well, that there is no possibility of making a mistake with a word. Or the very least possibility.  

I will have to practice writing every day. I want to do so. I also want to write only the truth.  For writing the truth, my words have got to come from my own experience.  I feel that they have to be so authentic that the examination of truth begins from the question of why I want to write.  However, that line of inquiry is not in the scope of this piece and can be safely set aside for another.  Coming back to writing the truth, and hence writing from experience, I see that most of the time, words fall short of the experience.  They can never communicate the original experience 'accurately' (except perhaps factual information, though I question even this), because when another is reading the words, that becomes his or her subjective process of meaning making from what is being read.  A reader would bring her experience into the process, and lend to it her uniqueness. That which makes you, you and me, me.  And hence now, there are two truths, your truth and my truth.  And my truth can also change over time?  I am remembering Mahatma Gandhi's 'Note to the Reader' in his famous book, Hind Swaraj.  He says in his note that since he is learning all the time and changing, his words about the same topic could change in subsequent writings and hence the reader must always take the latter. This means that truth also is relational. However, that there's got be something that is constant is my gut feeling.  For me now, at the very least, one constant will be that my words not inflict violence on anyone.  Which means any and all truth for me has got to go through the filter of not-being-violent (ahimsa) before it is presented.  

I wondered whether I was getting carried away with this struggle between what is constant and what is relational, and hence distracting myself from writing yet another time. And decided to write about the process.  And my pursuit of writing the truth will include this awareness that truth also is a process. It is relational, and yet there are constants.  The pursuit can only be enhanced by looking at this play of constant and relational aspects of truth given any theme.  And writing about it.