in the beginning

In the beginning there was no word

That was what was so good about it

Words are a very human phenomenon. Other animals may communicate with sounds and maybe even make markings now and again, but they have a very limited range of symbolic language. We humans have taken language to another level altogether.

I don't know whether you've ever thought about what a word is. It's a symbol. It represents something else. The thing it represents might be something in the physical world, or it might be something rather abstract, a concept. But in either case that symbol, that word, is not the thing itself. And this is why words are actually the cause of a lot of trouble. When we are focusing on a word, as a thought or for communication, our energy is with that word, with the symbol. And in that we have removed ourselves from the thing denoted by the word. We are no longer in direct contact with the physical world.

And so with words, with thoughts, we distance ourselves from reality. We become separate from existence. We lose touch with nature and with our senses. If you have meditated at all, or just spent time really looking at something in nature, or smelling a rosebud, or listening to the sound of a bird, to really feel it thoughts need to stop, for a moment at least. And it is only when the mind is silent, when the words have gone away again, that we return to our true self. It is in that wordless state that we once again reconnect with nature, with existence.

And that is why I say in the beginning there was no word, and in that wordless state all was as it should be. We were not separate. We were not separate from nature. We were not separate from god. And in truth we are not, even to this day. But when we are lost in our words, as so often we are, we feel separate, and that is the nature of words. They replace reality with a symbol. And there is a separation between the symbol and the reality. There is a distance, a gap. And all our effort on the spiritual journey is to close that gap once again, to come home, to become god once more. And for that we first need to return to a wordless way of being.

Of course words have their place. Thoughts have a role to play. But they need not be there the whole time. Just once in a while is enough. That way they can serve a purpose, a positive role. But when thoughts come one after another, an endless stream of words, that is when we are lost, lost in words. So let us return, return to the beginning, for in the beginning there was no word.