The map is NOT the territory

[Guest guest]

Dear Amanda,

 

Thank you for your response. As I don't have enough time tonight to

give your response the time it deserves, and reply to your specific

statements individually, I am just copying here something general I

wrote a few months ago, hoping it will do, until my more specific

reply sometimes tomorrow.

 

Love,

 

Ivan.

 

 

THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY

----------------------------

 

We have two kinds of knowledge of reality: intimate and symbolic. It

is always helpful to realise and frequently remind ourselves and

others that our perceptions, thoughts and communications about

reality are usually only its symbolic representations – and hardly

ever direct and intimate. Korzybski, father of modern semantics

explained this insight by describing what he called the "map-

territory" relationship. The "territory" is the world-process in its

actuality, while a "map" is a symbolic notation that represents or

signifies some aspect of the territory.

 

The obvious point is that the map is not the territory, that the

words and concepts we use in describing our ideas about (and

experiences of) reality are not the things (or experiences) that we

are describing. For example, it is obvious that the word water will

never satisfy your thirst, just like reading cookery books will never

satisfy your hunger for food, or reading books and watching movies

about love will never satisfy your hunger for love...

 

And yet, how many well-meaning people on the so-called spiritual path

make the mistake of confusing the "maps" with the "territory" they

are attempting to find. How many sincere seekers used maps (models,

thought systems) like the Bible, Kabbalah, Chakras, Astrology, Tarot,

The Secret Doctrine, Scientology, Advaita, Zen, etc. in order to find

God, Brahman, Self, Reality, Truth, Oneness, Love, Wisdom, Holy

Grail, Enlightenment, Consciousness, I, Self, etc. — and somewhere

along the line got totally fascinated by and lost within the maps

(their books, schools, religions, rituals and other practices),

without ever finding the territory they originally intended to find.

Very often their search is leading them further away from — not

closer to — that which they are supposedly seeking. As you cannot

satisfy your physical hunger by reading (or "eating", devouring)

cookery books, so you cannot satisfy your spiritual hunger by reading

and devouring books on spirituality, or by thinking and talking about

spirituality, God, Truth, Love, Enlightenment...

 

All symbolic knowledge — all of our memory, thinking and

communication — is dualistic, indirect and imperfect. If God,

Brahman, Reality, Truth, Absolute… is One, All, Omnipresent, it

follows that It cannot be found through thinking, talking, reading or

writing, through any "doing" or "non-doing", through

any "seeking", "within" or "without". There is a difference between

knowing about something (e.g. God, Reality, Self, I, Love)

symbolically (i.e. through thoughts, books, lectures, sermons),

knowing it directly, intuitively, intimately — and, of course, being

it!

 

Our way out of this dilemma lies in direct, intimate non-dual

experience of and being that which we "seek", i.e. God, Self, Love,

Truth, Wisdom, Reality, One, I, ... As there is not one "map", "way"

or "method" that will bring about this experience, in this journal we

tried to give our readers at least some hints, from the experiences

and writings of some well-known mystics in various religious

traditions, realising that they are just hints and pointers on the

path and that the real "work" is best done by each individual, alone,

in silence and solitude, to the best of his/her "knowledge" and

abilities.