How to Find a Different Kind of Truth Beyond Words
You need to step outside the language bubble
Language and cooperation have made us the dominant species on the planet. We have always lived in groups to survive, and language is how we have been able to manage the complexity of modern society.
It is the tool with which we organize our thoughts, and with it, we have created a model of the world that does not always match our imperfect senses.
Before language, we responded to the information from our senses with feelings and emotions. Now we have a verbal model of the world that sometimes contradicts that earlier understanding. We are receiving two suggestions at once; it is like listening to two radio stations.
The verbal model of the world has been so successful that we use it almost exclusively, and as senses arise, they are mapped onto words. See the red lines in the diagram. If an experience is not verbalized, we are generally not aware of it
Diagram from How You Are Living in a Bubble of Words
Our earlier nonverbal self still affects how we behave. It is wired to move us toward our longings and away from danger, whether it is another person or a saber-tooth tiger. We get nonverbal messages about how to behave all the time, and yet by definition, they do not enter our verbal consciousness. It is disconcerting to know that there is another aspect of ourselves of which we are unaware. To even admit the idea of unconscious forces operating is hard to accept because we have such a strong sense of agency. Until you recognize that you have a nonverbal side, you don’t have a chance. It’ll move you around the world, and you will come up with post facto reasons to explain your behavior. To become aware of it is to make a gap where you can respond instead of reacting, and in doing that, you can make your own choices.
But how can we know about the non-verbal side of ourselves? It seems like a Catch-22 situation; anything we can say about it does not count.
Descartes said “I think, therefore I am”, and thereby declared the mind, the user of words, as the arbiter of knowledge. But if I do not think, does it follow that I do not exist? Of course not. There must be an alternate form of knowing along the lines of “I do not think, therefore I am”.
There is, but this knowing is intrinsically beyond words. We can find it through paying direct attention to the senses, both internal and external. Don’t dismiss your experience as secondary. The entire edifice of thought rests on the evidence of your senses.
Stepping beyond the language bubble is hard to do at first, and one way there is by the practice of meditation. Pay attention to the sensations of your body. Look at your breath entering and leaving. Notice your thoughts arising. In the beginning, you will be consumed by thoughts and have to repeatedly redirect attention to the breath. With practice, it becomes easier. You are peeling layers off an onion. The outer layers are words, ideas, conversations. As they fade a little, emotions will arise, and below those layers is a stillness of being. With practice, the experience of that quiet center will influence the rest of your day.
Think of yourself as a house with two rooms. Normally, you live in the verbal room and hear the nonverbal messages at a remove from the other room. To meditate is to attempt to move into the nonverbal room, where your thoughts become distant voices like party chatter from the adjacent room.
To be in this room is to be present. The two are the same; when you are present, you are in the nonverbal room. In this room, there is no past or future; they are concepts, thoughts, that only exist in the verbal room.
Mindfulness is learning to pay attention to the present moment, on purpose and in specific ways, i.e., with openness, curiosity and non-judgment. Nicholas Stein.
There are other routes besides meditation: exercise, nature, the arts. I want to give a special shout-out to poetry, which has an uncanny ability to describe those things about which we cannot speak.
For most of us, this alternate view is aspirational, but there are occasions when a direct non-verbal experience of the world occurs.
When something happens and you say “I have no words for it.”
Zen Buddhism is a practice that teaches the primacy of direct experience. One story tells of the finger pointing at the moon; in other words, do not confuse the finger (words) for what it is pointing to.
Enlightenment Intensives are three-day retreats where you sit with a partner and ask each other in turn: “Tell me who you are.” Change partners after 45 minutes. By repeatedly giving your name, your occupation, your mental state, your body, all manner of descriptions of yourself, at some point you get past those verbal veils and have a direct experience of who you are. It is undeniable, unspeakable, a different form of truth from those of language.
“The Tao of Now” by Josh Baran is a collection of hundreds of such direct experiences by Christian mystics, Zen masters and ordinary people. An example from that book:
One day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it came to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I ran all around the house. I just knew what it was. In fact, when it happened, you can’t miss it. Alice Walker