Symbols January 8 2009: God

The Carpet of Language

A very presumptuous title, I shall agree with you on that. However, we have to start somewhere with the serious business, so we shall start here, and be outrageous. The meaning of the picture above may become clearer as one reads. Right now, it is merely a mute sign. Human beings are individual entities. They interact with their environment in meaningful ways. Human beings create meaning, they communicate meaning, and they store meaning. They do this by way of symbols. Symbols are the carriers of meaning. Information is a concept of Physical Science; Symbol is a concept of Human Consciousness. Human beings work with meaning in various ways: Language, Music, Imaging, Mathematics, Plastic Arts, Planned and Structured Movements ( such as Dance ), Emotions, etc. There is a Core Set of these conscious behaviors that deal with meaning - Symbolic Behaviors- and the paradigm over the last century or so being Language. Each Symbolic Behavior is ontologically independent of any other; for example, Music comes into existence independent of any Language events.Each Symbolic Behavior is expressively independent of any other; Music needs no Language to exist. You may have a song with lyrics, but the lyrics are non-essentials to Music.

Symbolic behavior we are aware of is conscious symbolic behavior. Symbolic behavior of which we are unaware - the subconscious - is symbolic behavior which is not linked up with conscious behavior. Become familiar with the core set of behaviors you use to work with Meaning.The Imaging we do is one such system: When you cast back to remember your childhood, a good deal of this activity is accomplished with Images. As you know from dreams, the "grammar" of Images is not necessarily the same as the grammar of Language.Nor is the "grammar" of Music anything at all like the grammar of Language. The Conception of the Holy is a symbolic behavior which is one of the basic core set of human symbolic behaviors. In other words, I am saying that your experience of God is essentially on the same basis as your experience of language: it is an inherent potentiality to a new born, and it is part of our life of meaning in the world.Our experience of God is not derived from some other conscious event. I have seen people who gush over a beautiful sunrise, saying "Truly God exists!" This is not a religious statement; it is an emotional statement. The concept of the Holy is not dependent on feeling good, nor is it dependent on beauty. It is an independent human activity dealing with meaning. Experiencing God is similar, then, to experiencing language, music, art. To those who speak of the evil religions have done, look at the words of hatred uttered over history, yet we do not deny Language; listen to the cacophonous musical drivel produced at times, yet we do not banish Music. Nor do we denounce these symbolic behaviors as being inherently pernicious to humanity. Yet we do so with religion. "God" is a symbol. That is, God is a carrier of meaning. In our time, Mankind predominantly thinks in narratives and stories, the structured myths (mythoi) of Language, and Language is pretty much a tyrant of consciousness, relegating the other forms of dealing with meaning to insignificance. Remember this and consider: God is Unity within Diversity: the quest for oneness among the diverse conscious beings that see themselves as individuals. The individuals see their lives as narratives of independent entities. God brings them from the prison of their isolation, and they leap beyond the limits of their skin and intellect, and enter as one in the creation of one Holiness. When you feel alone, you are with many. The many are not those predators and spies and purveyors of celebrity who seek to strip us of our true individuality, but the many are the members of the circle unbroken! And we are joined as true individuals into the circle unbroken, where we gladly surrender our isolation. Yet again, God is the refuge when stories break down. God is the steadfast in chaos. When all things break apart, God endures, for the breaking apart of the structured world is nothing more than the breaking apart of our story world, a world which we have spun from the ancient meanings: from our old symbols and our antique memories. God is independent of the stories. His existence is the greater universe, a house in which our narratives are a small carpet upon a small floor.

The Carpet of Music

pic: alfarabbi