Tuesday, January 24, 2012

communication - its all in the mind

As I am writing this there are ideas in my mind which are taking the shape of words and being put here. Whoever is reading this will form his/her own ideas which may be the same or very different from what I intended. Sometimes we read too much into words and this affects our own thoughts and feelings (ego in short). We either get elated or totally upset independent of what was intended by the transmitter. As some one said we all live in our own worlds (in our minds)!

I am reminded of a scene from Beverly Hill Billies the movie. The Clampett family which has moved from a rural area to LA is on the freeway. A car filled with gangsters pulls along and one of them makes the "middle finger" sign irritated by their slow moving jalopy. Thinking this is the way folks greet each other in LA, granny smilingly responds back the same way. Angered the goons show their guns. Further encouraged, granny pulls out their shot gun. Panicking the gang speeds away from the scene. Only if you are familiar with the two contexts from which the participants in this scene come from you can fully enjoy the (mis)communication that is going on. It goes to show how much the context plays a role in any communication.

Recently I was watching a video of an informal session with Sri M (Mumtaz Ali Khan) which had come along with his autobiography "Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master". The author and his spiritual journey make an interesting read but that is a topic for another blog. One point "M" makes in the video which caught my attention was that all our thinking is dependent on a language. Or in other words we think using a language, without language there are no thoughts. Brain does work outside of this language boundary and it has to do with emotions and feelings. Something to ponder about.

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