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cannot be approximately described. Hence to call God "light" is helpful for children to understand, but is not the right way, because then darkness is denied. If you call God "consciousness," then where are you going to put matter? If you call God "spirit," then the body becomes something ungodly, undivine, evil.
It IS because of this cataphatic language that millions of people are misguided. They become anti-body, anti-life, anti-love, anti-joy, anti-pleasure-anti-everything! for the simple reason that they have become accustomed to a cataphatic language.
Dionysius says remember that cataphatic language is just like music. You cannot describe music, but you can give instructions about music, you can give notations for music. And the person who understands the language of notation, one who can decode it, will be able to produce music: the indescribable will be heard. But it is a very indirect way. If the person does not know anything about the notations he may start worshipping the notations as music. He may try to hear it by bringing the notation close to his ears and he will be surprised: "There is no music! And that fool was saying that great music is contained in this notation, and I don't hear anything at all!"
In the middle of a busy street, a madman is kneeling down, his ear to the tar. A passerby sees him and becomes very puzzled by the scene. Not being able to contain his curiosity he also kneels down and puts his ear to the ground.
He does not hear anything so he says to the madman, "What are you listening to? I can't hear anything."
The madman replies, "Yes, it has been like that since this morning."
You cannot hear music from musical notations -- that will be mad -- but you can produce it. Those notations are not descriptive, they are instructive. These two words are significant, "descriptive" and "instructive."
All great Masters are instructive, they are not descriptive. They are not describing God; they are simply instructing you how to create AGNOSIA, the state of not-knowing, so that knowing can happen.
The second kind of language Dionysius calls "apophatic." It is negative language which speaks
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