Takk’n

“An arm reaches out and grabs car keys. Another arm grabs the front door handle, and the door quickly changes shape. A new colour palette appears: green from bushes, grey-blue from the sky. A sudden sensation of cold out of nowhere. Green and blue disappear and make way for light grey squares, wheels, and shades of blue, car door. An arm reaches out and inserts the key. The grey squares disappear. Now there is transparent glass and a car mirror. ‘Bang’ sounds after a quick movement of the oncoming car door.”

“A humming begins. Arms and legs move as they tense and relax, pushing, pulling, and grabbing. The light grey squares begin to move and turn into dark grey asphalt that approaches and disappears. Faster and faster the asphalt moves, swerving to the left or right, disappearing here. A thought pops up: “Hurry up!” followed by more tension and movement. This here swallows up the asphalt even faster until a tiny house looms in the distance. It quickly gets bigger until it comes to a halt and the humming stops,” I say.

When my friend looks at me in bewilderment, I rephrase it: ‘When you called to ask if I could come as quickly as possible, I grabbed the car keys, ran out the door and got in the car. I drove from the neighbourhood as fast as I could to get to you.’

Language is not designed to describe the direct experience here and now. In fact, language has no place in direct experience. It always comes later. Thank God, because that frees the non-dual, immediate experience from the idea that there could be a correct language to describe it. It doesn’t matter whether you avoid the word “I” or not (as in those humorous cartoons about Advaïsts in conversation, or in the above piece), it remains a retrospective commentary on what is essentially wordless.

I remember my eldest son’s first word, “takk’n”. I didn’t understand what he meant by it, but we were both delighted that the young throat had produced a word-like sound. A new layer of communication opened up between us. Soon he would say understandable words, invent strange rules for his younger brother, and later we would negotiate the pros and cons of eating sweets at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Language gives power.

But communication also takes place without words. My cat, for example, knows how to make herself understood. She taught herself to meow after she accidentally got locked in once, heard me calling and couldn’t make herself known. Her vocabulary has now expanded to include all kinds of sounds, which she uses to indicate flawlessly what she wants. I enjoy listening to my cat. The fewer words are used, the more attentively I listen. And listening attentively, from the Silence behind the words, brings me Home. That is why a conversation with my deaf neighbour, who attentively reads lips and forms words she cannot hear herself, strikes me.

There is so much to say about language… with language. This InZicht highlights aspects of language that you don’t usually think about. Language is far from a boring subject; it has an enormous influence on our experience of reality. Read the words to discover what lies behind them.

PS Takk’n means “thank you” in Hindi, Serbian, Creole, and many other languages. In Acehnese and Malay, it means “I don’t know”. In Bashkir, it means “That’s enough”. And in Oromo, it means “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with that”. My son communicated more clearly than I thought.