I actually know what I am talking about, I just can't explain it to you properly

I have always been quite interested in linguistics. I think it all stems back to my non-jaded (yet somewhat pretentious) academic excitement as a first year undergrad discovering Derrida for the first time. And so if there is a question about language and how it inhibits our ability to truly understand and communicate with one another, I will jump on the chance to name drop my favourite completely non-understood philosopher of linguistics and life in general. Even though I seriously had/have no idea what he was talking about, in my first year excitement I decided that is THE POINT. Language is not a perfect medium of communication and we are all doomed...

Sharf’s discussion becomes quite Derridian at points “As it is never possible to communicate exactly how things appear to us (how could we ever know whether your experience of red is precisely the same as mine?)” (pg 110) Doesn’t he sound lonely? Poor guy, but I understand... How can we ever explain to someone how we truly feel, what we truly believe if we cannot express it in language. How can we explain our understanding of “red”?

How could one go about explain such a complex feeling/experience as experiencing the divine? One could write a poem like Rumi, paint a picture, play a song? These are all so easily misunderstood, so easy to not “get”. But can we really explain it in words? Can you explain red? How could you explain it to others who have never experienced red? What about trying to explain a mystical experience to someone who has never experienced, or to someone who have absolutely no belief in the existence or possibility of such an experience? What if two people are in a room and both have had an “experience”, do they need words to convey what it was? Or is wordless mutual understanding the only way? If this is so how can we possibly begin to write about this, discuss this from the view of the non-experienced, or even the non-believer?

“the terms ‘paradox’ and ‘ineffable’ do not function as terms that inform us about the context of experience, or any given ontological ‘state of affairs’. Rather they function to cloak the experience from investigation and to hold mysterious whatever ontological commitments one has... they eliminate the logical possibility of the comparability of experience altogether... To assume, as [others] do, that because both mystics claim that their experiences are paradoxical they are describing like experiences, is a non sequitur.” (Katz pg 204). Yes I agree that jumping to such conclusions based on the use of similar words is too simplistic. It is further complicated by the impossibility to describe personal experiences perfectly using words. The go-to words used in describing are provided by our culture, the definitions of the words are defined by our culture.

Maybe all the mystics, anyone who has ever experienced such an “experience”, are experiencing the same thing (The “universal core” of Stace discussed in Katz pg 200). Maybe the Jewish devekuth, the Buddhist nirvana, the Sufi fana, the Hindu atmavada are all the same indescribable experience. Maybe it is uninterpretable, unidentifiable, unmanifestable. The only way to describe what the hell just happened to us would be to go to our own cultural clichés to help us define, explain and understand. It is all so clear in the moment, yet once that state has been exited it is impossible to describe what just happened, “well it was kinda like.....[insert culturally relevant simile]”. Once you start to use such culturally constructed clichés to explain yourself you begin to start believing that is what indeed happened. The personal understanding of your experience that you take away with you to remember at a later date is dictated by easy ways to remember it, by the “models” given in our own culture.

I agree with the heavy role culture plays in shaping our understanding of experiences as discussed in Sharf’s article. Referencing another article by Katz, Sharf sums it up by saying “mystical experience is wholly shaped by a mystic’s cultural environment, personal history, doctrinal commitments, religious training, expectations, aspirations, and so on” (pg 98) This is true, but I would say that culture etc. may not dictate how we experience the experience as it is happening in the moment, it dictates how we understand and describe it later. (I did love his example of aliens as religion, it was a great example illustrating how culture shapes our experiences...but maybe “small greys” really DO exist... and then the point would be moot as they all indeed experienced probing by the little guys!! Same thing goes for is all mystics experience the same ultimate divine... wouldn’t this all be so much easier if that were to be proven? Hehe!!)

I probably have not been in scholarship for long enough to become as jaded as the scholar we have read for this week’s discussion (and all the weeks before this). Katz says there are no pure unmediated experiences (pg 189). I like to think true experience can be experienced, and I do not really want that to be taken away from me. I usually keep my beliefs separate from what I do, nobody needs to know them unless I feel they should, but as scholars are we really expected to be so unbelieving, lacking so much faith. Does EVERYTHING have to be explained or broken down under such minute scrutiny? I guess keeping the personal you and the scholar you at a distance is the best way to go about it, they should not meet because they would probably get in lots of fights. The scholar you calling the personal you irrational and silly, the personal you calling the scholar you heartless and cynical. Worlds are colliding... George is getting very upset!

OK I am simply going to blame the incoherencies of my post to the wonderful go-to belief that we can never fully express ourselves in words... oh it makes things so much more simple sometimes!