Universal Symbols

"Words are devised by the symbolic levels of the mind." - Bhante Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

When I used to debate on message boards, very little irritated me more than the red herring fallacy of picking on words used in an assertion. As a (nearly) professional writer, I am intentional with my language, and as a mystic I am specific, and therefore oftentimes I won't use certain words. But from an unprejudiced academic and in so reliable point, there are many words that can sufficiently describe a single point.

What I love about the above quote is that it suggests the mind has a universal bank of concepts that we as social beings choose from. Carl Jung called this the Collective Unconsciousness - archetypes (aka symbols) that we draw from in our day-to-day living. This in fact is the teaching that started me on my Hero's Journey over twenty years ago.

The idea of a symbol is tri-fold: 1) It quickly indicates something, which goes back to the reptilian brain where we had no time to relay dangers to the tribe, 2) It is universal, transcending language barriers, and 3) It communicates something that cannot be sufficiently expressed through words due to abstract concepts.

Symbols are so profound, because they are a way around God's punishment as shown in the story of the Tower of Babel. People were trying to reach God on their own terms, by building a tower to reach Him. As a consequence he divided them by language, so that they could no longer speak with each other and work together on the tower. This is why symbols are now associated with witchcraft, the occult, and magic, and for the most part collectively frighten people.

But now I understand symbols to be a safety net for people like me who are seekers of Truth, and who can easily be blocked by those using our words against us. We all come from the same place, we are all erecting this single archetypal tower in our own ways, yet through the phenomenon of separation we became enemies to one another. Using speech can harm us to the point where symbols can come to the rescue.

There have been many occasions where I was told I didn't use a word correctly, ironically from people who do not have English or Linguistic degrees, when they were in fact appropriate. The problem with being berated, which usually happens from people who are in opposition to us, is that it's easy to then second-guess ourselves (cue one of my best tools, the thesaurus). But through universal archetypes in its purest form, before the confusion and that can salvage us even to the point of our careers or reputations.

No matter how much we blunder a sentence, distort a vision, or simply cannot express ourselves, we will always have ubiquitous symbols to support us, whether we refer directly to them or not. While people can be harshly judged over misunderstandings and wars can be waged over miscommunication, we always have a way out by returning to our well-intentions, through the use of symbols.