Structure vs content example

[YIDIRYIDIR]

Nearly all Arabic ex-Muslims still have the same structure as religious people. the furthest they went in their truth seeking is agnosticism. 
you can see that clearly see that in the content of big names and communities discussing this stuff, they're stuck at debates and criticism, and the never-ending belief vs disbelief and materialistic content. and rarely have I ever heard of spirituality or enlightenment get mentioned. 

all they do is go from religious ideology to anti-religious ideology.

I think why that is, is because of language. you technically can't speak about spirituality and enlightenment using Arabic, and the ones that become open to that are usually the ones that learn other languages like English. 

One funny thing is that both Arabic Muslims and ex-Muslims shit on and reject Sufism, the spiritual branch of Islam, which hammers the point home.

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, YIDIRYIDIR said:

you technically can't speak about spirituality and enlightenment using Arabic

But Sufism does, no?

[YIDIRYIDIR]

31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

But Sufism does, no?

From what I know, the words "enlightenment" "ego death or ego dissolution" "mindfulness" or even "meditation" don't exist in Sufism, nor Arabic. the word for meditation in Arabic is "ta'ammol" which means reflection, which doesn't explain meditation at all.
the vocabulary that exists is exclusive to Sufism, like a practice. for example, Sufism in Arabic is "Sufia", and the act of practicing spirituality is called "tasawuf" which is extracted from name Sufism, as an adjective. 

the Arabic vocabulary that exists in which you can talk about spirituality with is borrowed from other fields like psychology, or just from regular language in order to translate technical words, so if you hear someone talk about spirituality in Arabic, you'll be confused at first because what they mean by using those words isn't what the words mean. 
 

Edited 6 hours ago by YIDIRYIDIR

[Leo Gura]

They got much of this stuff covered:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawhid

Meditation is a pretty stupid word, even in English.

Edited 6 hours ago by Leo Gura

[YIDIRYIDIR]

23 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawhid

Reading this article reminded me of when i was a good Muslim as a kid LOL

btw, in this article, the content that's written in English is not the same as the one written with Arabic.
in English, it is written in a neutral, external spirituality-aware tone. it uses no verses from the Quran and it talks about the meaning of "tawhid" in a very broad sense.

but in the one that is written with Arabic, it is like an orthodox Muslim wrote it, it uses religious language, it uses demonstrations from a lot of Quran verses, and it doesn't mention Sufism like the one written in English. it is like it is biased.
it also talks about tawhid in the intellectual belief-based level. "To unit" means to believe there is one God which is Allah and to say "ash-shahada", which is “Ashhadu an lā ilāha illā Allāh wa ashhadu anna Muhammad rasūlu Allāh” 
that's as far as they go.

kinda weird

[Ziran]

3 hours ago, YIDIRYIDIR said:

and the ones that become open to that are usually the ones that learn other languages

maybe it's the learning from another, not the language itself

[YIDIRYIDIR]

@Ziran but without language, how can you learn from another? 

[Eskilon]

@YIDIRYIDIR I think stuff just get lost in translation. Meditation, nirvana, samadhi, consciousness, this things cannot be translated because of their experiential and subjective nature. So you can imagine how hard it is to transfer that to other languages. Especially languages as dry and stale as English. There's no accurate translation to meditation anywhere for example, because it is an activity beyond mind.

Edited 3 hours ago by Eskilon

[YIDIRYIDIR]

@Eskilon yes true, but certain languages limit you and what you can think about. it is not just vocabulary, it's more than that i don't know how to articulate it.
for example, i speak a native Moroccan language, and with it, I can't even speak about basic intellectual stuff without using words, structure and flow of another language like French or Arabic. I don't really know how to explain that.

[Ziran]

1 hour ago, YIDIRYIDIR said:

@Ziran but without language, how can you learn from another? 

Gesture and inflection