Words don’t make us human.

By Aaron Bethune

An Experience Beyond Words.

Recently, during a deep meditation, I had a profound mystical experience. Afterwards, I searched for others who have had similar experiences, I wanted to hear their stories, hoping to find words that could capture mine.

During my search, I stumbled upon a quote from a living Zen master that resonated deeply. I ordered his book and devoured it, then reached out to ask for an interview. To my surprise, he agreed. But when the day came, he said there was no need to talk; there was nothing to discuss. It was a lesson in Zen itself—sometimes, words are just noise. He shared a piece written by ChatGPT instead, offering a synthesis of insights on awareness and our state of being, drawing from texts across time.

If an AI without human experience could weave such deep thoughts into beautiful language, how do we, with our own human understanding, find true meaning?

The Limits of Language in Spiritual Contexts

This experience lead me into deeper conversations with ChatGPT, exploring the nature of being and awareness. The AI's clarity and depth were impressive, yet it admitted it didn't understand the content. It was like a musician playing a technically perfect piece without feeling the music. This paradox—AI's ability to articulate complex ideas without grasping them—underscored a fundamental truth: words, though powerful, often fall short of capturing our true essence.

Words are like musical notes. They convey a spectrum of emotions and thoughts, but their impact depends on the musician's ability to convey the feeling behind the sounds and the degree of resonance for the listener dependent on their own experiences and memories. Essentially, words are symbols representing far more than the letters of which they are composed, and their effect—whether uplifting, saddening, or neutral—depends on the personal context they trigger for the listener.

Language frequently falls short when tasked with describing the mystical or the ineffable. The poet Rumi once said, "Silence is the language of God; all else is poor translation." This sentiment echoes across various philosophies and teachings, highlighting that the most transformative spiritual insights often evade linguistic expression.

Philosophers from Wittgenstein to Nietzsche have pondered language's boundaries and failures. Wittgenstein famously said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," suggesting some truths are beyond words. And Nietzsche said, "We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things - metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities." Spiritual practitioners, from Buddhist monks to Christian mystics, often find themselves at the edge of language's capabilities, striving to articulate experiences that are immediate yet elusively beyond words.

Non-Verbal Forms of Expression

This realization led me to explore alternative means of expression—like koans and music—that convey experiences beyond words. Historically, humans have turned to other mediums to express the unutterable dimensions of spiritual life. Art, music, and dance serve not only as expressions of cultural identity but also as vehicles for conveying spiritual awareness.

Art

From Byzantine frescoes to Sufi calligraphy, visual art bridges the gap between the divine and the earthly. These artworks use images as metaphors to evoke a sense of the transcendent that words cannot describe.

Music and Sound

In many traditions, music offers a direct path to the divine. Gregorian chants, Qawwali music, and Tibetan singing bowls use the visceral impact of sound to induce spiritual states and express the inexpressible. The sound is felt directly, its vibrations touching the listener in a way that bypasses rational thought.

Ritual and Dance

Rituals and sacred dances, like the Sufi practice of whirling or the Native American Ghost Dance, encapsulate spiritual narratives in movement. These practices convey meanings and experiences that are deeply felt but often remain unspoken, creating a communal space for spiritual encounter.

Direct Experience as Knowledge

Direct experiential knowledge, or 'gnosis,' stands apart from intellectual understanding. Such knowledge isn't learned; it's realized through experience. In Hinduism, yoga is not just physical but deeply spiritual, aiming to lead the practitioner to a direct realization of the unity of all existence. Similarly, Zen Buddhism's zazen (sitting meditation) and kinhin (walking meditation) are less about acquiring knowledge and more about embodying it.

Meditative practices across traditions share this characteristic: they provide methods for practitioners to directly encounter spiritual truths, engaging with them in a personal, experiential manner that transcends verbal articulation.These practices emphasize the importance of presence and mindfulness, cultivating an awareness that is both expansive and deeplygrounding.

Communicating the Incommunicable

Spiritual teachers have long used methods designed to guide students toward realization without overly relying on words. Koans, paradoxical anecdotes or riddles used in Zen Buddhism, serve this purpose by jolting the mind out of conventional thinking patterns. Parables, used extensively in the Christian gospels, function similarly by using simple stories to point towards deeper truths.

Symbolic language and metaphors are also crucial in these traditions. They aren't used to define reality literally, but to represent it, encouraging personal exploration and insight. The use of metaphor can be seen in phrases like "the kingdom of heaven is within you," inviting an interpretation that is as personal as it is profound.

Personal Narratives and Collective Understanding

Personal stories of spiritual experiences often serve as testimonies to the reality of these phenomena. These narratives provide not only evidence of the ineffable but also offer a map for others on the spiritual path. By sharing these experiences within a community, individuals can find common ground, validating and enriching each other's understanding.

The collective practice within a community—whether through shared meditation, prayer, or simply gathering to discuss spiritual matters—creates an environment where these subtle, often indescribable insights are nurtured, felt, and acknowledged by others, fostering a deeper, communal encounter with the divine.

Expressing Human Experience

What this ultimately underscores is the essence of being human. As AI continues to advance, capable of interacting with us through text and beyond, it raises profound questions about our humanity. What truly sets us apart from AI isn't our words or descriptions, but the depth and complexity of our experiences. The capabilities of AI, though impressive, highlight the unique value of our human abilities.

What fundamentally distinguishes us? As we continue to understand and define these differences, it becomes clear that our potential to experience and interpret the world in ways that go beyond mere data processing is what makes us uniquely human.

While words are powerful tools for communication and creation, they are limited when it comes to fully capturing the human experience. Our unique capacity to understand, feel, and connect with the ineffable aspects of existence is whatsets us apart from AI. As we navigate an increasingly AI-integrated world, our human genius will become ever more valuable, reminding us of the profound and irreplaceable nature of our existence.