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Main Index
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create many things, and one can be lost. But the Upanishads are not for words. That is why they use as few as possible. Their message is so telegraphic that not a single word is used unnecessarily. The Upanishads are the shortest treatises; not a single word is used unnecessarily because words can create a hypnotic sequence. But words have to be used, so be aware that you are not lost in words.
Meaning is something different. Even more than meaning -- it would be good to use the word "significance". The Upanishads use words as signs, as symbols, as indications. They use words to show something, not to say something. You can say something by your words, you can show something by your words. When you show something, then the word must be transcended, must be forgotten. Otherwise words come in the eyes and they distort the whole perception.
We will be using words, but with this caution: go on remembering that not only are meanings meant, but some indications. Symbolically, the words have been used -- just like a finger pointing to the moon. The finger is not the moon, but one can cling to the finger and one can say, "My teacher showed me -- this is the moon!" The finger is not the moon, but the finger can be used to show. The word is never the Truth, but words can be used to show. So always remember that the finger has to be forgotten. If the finger becomes more significant and important than the moon, then the whole thing will be perverted.
Remember this second point: words are just indicators to something else which is wordless -- something which is silent, something which is beyond, something which transcends.
This forgetting that words are not realities has created much confusion. There are thousands and thousands of commentaries, but they are concerned with words, not with the wordless reality. They go on discussing. For centuries, millennia, pundits have discussed what this word means and what that word means. and they have created a large literature. But so much search for meaning -- and totally meaningless! They have missed the point. The words were never meant to be realities -- only pointers towards something else totally different
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