Ineffable (dictionary definition): Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.
A character in a movie said, “You won’t know love until you have held your wife’s hand for two months while she dies.”
What’s going on here? Do we really need these highs and lows of emotion to know love? Can love not be quiet, shy, and rarely roar? Isn’t that kind of quiet love better for some?
The ancient Tao Te Ching verse 2: “What we call beauty is actually ugliness. Cruelty is disguised as kindness. We confuse one for the other and can’t see their complementary nature.”
In verse 8, Tao Te Ching said, “Water is great. It nurtures but does not contend. It dwells in places shunned by people.”
Are the highs and lows unnecessary? Are they, in fact, the source of our troubles?
When the world overwhelms us with its falsehood, we run along the riverbank, looking for solitude. When it pursues us with its judgment, we stand still by a small stand of trees. When it becomes hostile, we go to places that are unwanted by others.
Reality is not as it appears.
Our minds make us see loneliness and isolation. But we don’t have to go along. Our minds also tell us we are limited creatures bound by time and space.
Standing at the kitchen window one day, I could feel the sun on my skin. It felt as if I was close to it. It was as if the sun and I had briefly commingled.
In the middle of the night, I followed the sound of my wife’s soft breathing and reached into her mind.
On a frigid night, I felt the presence of widespread awareness, and I radiated into the cold night via the humming sound of the house furnace.
Was I consciousness more than matter?
Even if we are no more than what we see, hear, and feel, we should already be limitless.
If matter and consciousness are the two ends of the same spectrum we call reality, why must we favor one and reject the other?
Is this what an ecstatic path is—to freely meander along the spectrum of reality?
Can you only meet the ineffable (or inexpressible) upon death, or can you do so while alive?
Let’s admit there is no meaning to this life, none that we can discern at any rate. But that’s alright. We can cope with it if we are sufficiently drunk with life.
Do you believe in the ineffable? You may have another name for it—some trusted god or faith—but you know it is there all the same. It doesn’t matter what name it goes by. And you know you cannot approach it with your ego intact.
The ineffable or the indescribable is beyond words. Your words and all internal dialogues (talking to yourself) will have to go, followed your ego and sense of self.
The ineffable may be, I suspect, equally vested in the sacred and the profane.
The surprise is that even the ordinary can lie beyond words. That happens more often than we may realize. Words fail when you think about the inevitable parting with the ones you love. Words similarly fail when you reflect on how helpless and confused your loved ones will be, for a time, to be without you. You can try to describe the pain, but words do not do it justice. That is ineffable.
The ineffable is real.
Words fail when you are, for example, exhausted and without hope. You may lie in bed, but you are no longer saddened. You can feel something large stirring.
Words also fall short when you wake up and cannot form a single coherent thought. (Are you still dreaming? Is this body really yours?) Words likewise fall silent just before you fall asleep.
When you are in deep dreamless sleep, are you dead? Are you unconscious? On the contrary, you are quite conscious and alive. It takes no more than a whisper in your ear to wake you. During dreamless sleep, you have no thought; you are not even dreaming, yet you are fully aware. Is that why some people think the ineffable dwells in our sleep?
If you look closely, you will see that the ineffable is everywhere. It’s not as close as you may like. But it is there. You cannot reach out and touch it, but there are plenty of hints of its presence.
The ecstatic path begins and ends with the ineffable. It begins when you begin to grasp the ineffable. It ends with you being immersed in it.
One can begin by recognizing falsehood as falsehood. Think of all the false promises and vain hopes that have led nowhere. Think about how budding relationships come to nothing. Or how fine words have betrayed you.
At some point, you may run even while only half awake so as to keep ahead of your all-consuming thoughts or shake them loose. And stay calm even in an invasion—an invasion, that is, of other people’s noises and uninvited mental junk.
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