Article 2, March 2nd, 2013, AJN/RFB

Communication Some Food for Thought

They say humans are communicating creatures. But what is communication? And how do humans communicate? Well there would be the "Shannon-Weaver model" of Sender and Receiver, however is that not a little too simplistic? We know it is possible for someone to express something, not because they advance a view, but because he is "fishing". Fishing for what? For reactions, so called opinions, views, values et cetera. Now what is all that? One casts a net to reveal conditioning, the automated reactions that such an "impulse" causes. All that is communicated on linguistic, physical or the emotional level can cause conditionings, it can be perceived on multiple levels explicitly or simultaneously, according to the level of comprehension people bring about. Men and women not in full harmony with themselves are fixated in one of their centers, interpret everything in accordance to that center and unconsciously assume the same applies for everyone. They judge other people on the basis of this initial position. For example an intellectually centered individual evaluates every comment, every reaction in that way. Reactions from beings centered in the emotional or instinctive center are sensed inappropriate or superior. The same problem appears in the following area. An intellectual center of thought talks about a matter and naturally only perceives only the layer carrying the meaning presently accessible to him, that he thinks solely possible and reasonable. A being centered in the emotional center perceives based on it' s way of cognition an entirely different aspect of a message, same applies for instinctively centered ones in the same situation. Today a confusion of tongues is in place as thousand years ago already in Babylon, conditioned reactions can be caused, conflicts and disputes can arise from vanities. People thus start seeing each other as unsympathetic and so forth.

Tower of Babel

Another difficulty in communication is, people do not actually listen to each other, but their ever associating automated cognitive apparatus fills up and completes a text based on expectation after just a few words and stops listening to it all together. The same applies for memory, where one can remember just the filled up sentence and not the actual one, as it has never been heard correctly in the first place. Just try and admix this factor to the earlier mentioned one of the different ways of perception! Now what is most people's understanding of communication? They compare the conformance of their conditionings. As long as they feel accordance they are sympathetic to each other, become attracted to each other, allegedly understand each other. As soon as they get involved with other areas of this fellow human, in which their conditioning does not coincide for that reason many people try and conceal things from each other seemingly inevitably conflict and antipathy arise. Figuratively, they are in a state, where there is no one to communicate with. There are practically just automated input sequences. For this reason one can conclude, language in this state more separates than connects one another, as long as one has to deal with automated reactions of someone locked inside a single center with a conditioned being. However, it should be clear, this can be used for manipulation. Am I aware of the conditioned reaction of a fellow human being, I can send a message that positively affirms his or her conditioning, and I am perceived as similar minded, sympathetic and so forth. That in fact means I would use my fellow's conditioning to my own advantage, exploiting it, absent the slightest interest of making the other one realize his or her machine like boundedness.

At the end of this short article I would like to put a tale from the TRADITION.

"We know a word that describes what we do and summarizes the way of our thinking. The word is 'Anguruzuminabstafil'. And the Agha tells us an old Sufi-Tale: 'Four men, a Persian, a Turk, an Arab and a Greek were traveling to a remote place. They quarreled on how to use their last remaining coin. I want to buy angur said the Persian. I want to buy uzum said the Turk. No, I want inab said the Arab. I say we shall buy stafil replied the Greek. Another traveller, a man of the TRADITION who came by approached them: Give me the coin, I shall find a way to satisfy all your wishes. At first they did not want to believe him, then they resigned and gave him the coin. The man went to a fruit merchant's shop and bought four bundles of grapes. There is my angur said the Persian. That is exactly what I call uzum replied the Turk. You have brought me inab said the Arab. I call this stafil in my language, replied the Greek. The men stopped their fight and shared their grapes.'

The Agha spoke: The travelers are four simple men with different believes. The man of the TRADITION shows them, the basis of their believes is just the same. Still he does not offer them wine, an essence that refers the inner lore in this instance. The wine would be for a later state."

Idries Shah, The Sufis

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