Spiritual Labels: Descriptions, Definitions, and Identity

Human languages have always had their limitations. Like any other systems of symbols, it is not always all encompassing. Life is vast, and it is often difficult to capture such vastness within the confine of human made constructs, which by its very definition serves more the comfort of our human understanding, which is not limitless, rather than the very thing they seek to understand.

In order to communicate, we need a common language. This much is obvious. 

We need labels and terminologies, and not only that, we need to have the same understanding of these labels and terminologies, before we can use them as a common ground to discuss various matters from. 

The sad reality of our human condition is that with labels come categorization. With categorization comes inclusions and exclusions.

When we categorize, say, avocados, all is well. Let's say that I maintain that avocado is a type of fruit, and you say nope it is a kind of vegetable. Then I say but I mix it with coffee and sweet milk in a blender so it is surely a kind of fruit. And you say but I have them in my sandwiches and salads, so it is a vegetable for sure. And then I say but you can have fruit in your salad and sandwiches too. And then you say hmm I don’t know about that.

You get the picture.

When we categorize people however, we come across this thing which we do not with avocados.

Identity.

This is when things can get hairy.

Identity touches the core of who we believe we are. We have painstakingly scoped for ourselves this little area within reality that we can call our own. A fragment of space which we can have all to ourselves. A place where we can externalize ourselves, from which we can then say, this is who I am. 

A self definition we feel we must have of ourselves, outside ourselves, in order to know ourselves.

When someone comes into your world and say, well, I am like you, I am a bit of whatever you define yourself to be. But. I am also a bit of what others who are unlike you have defined themselves to be, it is understandable that this kind of thing might feel as if it takes away from the solidity that we have created for ourselves. 

The things that we have imbued ourselves into. We project ourselves onto. So much so that we almost always expect to see an ever clearer image of ourselves, as we are, or as we want ourselves to be, looking back at us. 

Our own reflections interrupted by the reality of having to constantly avail this space to others who are passing through.

Identity.

The labels we spoke of earlier are descriptive. They are not prescriptive. At least they should not have been.

Hardly anything in this life is “pure”. Something always comes from something (else), as Maria von Trapp sang to her beloved in a particularly romantic moment in “The Sound of Music”. Things evolve all the time. Life is never tidy. And it always changes. Always.

Things may appear somewhat permanent in our human moments. In our limited capacity to see the whole of reality, we may be forgiven for thinking that everything stand still.

Like looking at piece of lemon, trapped in an ice cube. As some point, it was a piece of lemon floating on water. And maybe, perhaps in a particularly hot day, it would just be a piece of lemon. But for a single slice of time, we can describe it as “lemon in an ice cube”. Because that is the best way to describe a slice of lemon trapped in an ice cube. Next time, it may be “a slice of lemon in water”. That, too, would be correct, as least for that particular segment of time. If a piece of lemon in water, or in an ice cube, ever found itself in a transition phase, say, between being inside an ice cube and being among dribbles of water, then we can say, there is a piece of lemon in both an ice cube and some water. Or, there is a piece of lemon in half an ice cube. Or, there is a piece of lemon in half of a dribble of water. Or, whatever.

You can see that this can get very tedious very fast. 

Understandably. 

So then, smart creatures that we are, we concoct terminologies, as we do. A shorthand for those who are interested in discussing the topic. Of course, it goes without saying, that it might help if everyone involved in the conversation agrees on what each terminology represents.

Once, I asked for “plunger coffee” in the US. Blank stares. And then laughs. In New Zealand, this is the term that we use for “French press”. Not in the US! There, a plunger is something you use to deal with some unmentionable unpleasantness related to household plumbings!

Could I have just asked for “coffee” to keep things simple? Sure. But this would involve describing my coffee brewing method of choice in all of its painful details. No so simple after all.

Labeling is a form of shorthand. We all get that.

Labels are not definitions.

Defining often entails the act of describing. But in describing, we do not have to define them.

Why should we?

Our labels do not have to be our identity.

Why should it?

We are who we are. This is the only way to define ourselves.

A label is a beautiful thing, when we use labels to assist the flow of communication with others, to increase dialogues, exchanges of ideas, self explorations, fellowships, better understanding of everything, and contributing to an over expanding view of the universe.

But when we start confusing the mean with the end, the tool with what the tool is suppose to accomplish, trying to squeeze people and the vastness of reality into tidy little boxes, treating the tool for clarity as clarity itself, we would not only deny ourselves the ever expanding potential of our mind, but we would also be denying the universe, and by extension, ourselves, its (our) true becoming. Its (our) true vastness made absent, its (our) glory denied.

We are who we are. Describe it. Own it. 

Always remind ourselves that things are forever changing, flowing, evolving. 

Remember that we gave birth to labels. 

The label does not become us. It is the other way around.

More important than the connection between a particular label and the truth as we see it, is the consistency of, and an agreement on, what each label represents, in a particular given conversation.

But there it is again.

Identity.

It is always EASIER, to identify with something that is NOT so forever flowing, and changing, and morphing. So vague. So abstract.

Sure.

Once again, in moments like this, I usually ask myself the same question: Why I am on my current path?

What am I here for?

If I need an external source of identity, I’ll get a new hat.

Our spiritual path is a part of who we are. In some cases, IT IS who we are.

But the shorthand, is NOT.