An Interview

[Guest guest]

Hinduism today is discussed in an interview with Dr. Janssen Theo,

Visiting Professor and Researcher of Applied Linguistics at the

Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas and the International

Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas. (May 13, 2006)

 

Interviewer: Sannyasin Kumaraswami

 

See articles on Hinduism at:

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/about_us.shtml

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Kumaraswami: Namaste. We have here with us today Dr. Janssen Theo,

Visiting Professor and Researcher of Applied Linguistics at the

Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics and the International

Linguistics Center and author of the controversial book, " Language Use

and Discourse In Religion: An Anatomy of Discursive Epistemic Cognitive

Amentia. " From all of us we here offer thanks for taking time to sit

with us today to speak about your book.

 

Dr. Theo: Thank you for the warm welcome and it is my pleasure to be

here with you.

 

Kumaraswami: Your new book " Language and Discourse in Religion: An

Anatomy of Discursive Epistemic Cognitive Amentia " has created quite a

stir in religious circles. It is widely condemned and considered

defamatory for its treatment of religious thought and discourse.

 

Dr. Theo: Yes, that does indeed appear to be the case, even though

there clearly is no intention to defame religious thought. The reaction

was not unexpected.

 

Kumaraswami: Why is that?

 

Dr. Theo: Well you see, in my book I explain how all religious

literature without exception is entirely imaginative work since it is

based on the principles of word formation. It could not be anything

else but imagination per se. And discourse centered on these imaginings

can lead to a specific form of cognitive amentia when word formation,

meaning and use is not clearly apprehended and belief in words takes a

tyrannical hold on mental life. Saying this alone seems to be enough

for some to light fires and erect crosses.

 

Kumaraswami: I see. I too disagree with your ideas as I understand

them, but for the sake of others what is and how does one develop the

condition you named Discursive Epistemic Cognitive Amentia.

 

Dr. Theo: I am glad you can be a sport about this and to be so direct

since many of the anecdotal evidence concerns practitioners of various

forms of Hinduism of which you and the others here are engage. It is

also correct to say as you did that the study is not about imbeciles

but about an imbecilic condition.

 

Kumaraswami: That is why you are here. We want to hear it directly from

you. Since I do engage Adaviata Vedanta language, perhaps, I suffer

from it. What do you think?

 

Dr. Theo: I don't if you do or do not and frankly speaking it does not

matter if I do know or not. That is something for you to intuit and to

deal with it. You know, I have no intention of calling the believers

and practitioners of religion imbeciles. The book is reporting

observations of the underlying factors that allow distinctive cognitive

disabilities to form through discursive thinking, speaking and writing.

 

 

Kumaraswami: Is there a test that is administered to determine if it is

present?

 

Dr. Theo: No there is not.

 

Kumaraswami: Then how is it detected or recognized?

 

Dr. Theo: You see, the creation and transmission of religious

imaginings by generations of purveyors and believers has created a

transferable body of self-replicating delusional language and

discourse. Both the language and the discourse are inherited, passed on

and this allows the formation of distinctive patterns of speaking and

writing. These patterns when used without careful examination and

repeatedly applied by practitioners, they come to form a distinctive

syndrome called discursive epistemic cognitive amentia or DECA. DECA is

the gradual appearance of cognitive imbecility using discursive

language knowledge in an attempt to eliminate discursive language

knowledge. In other words, people talk themselves into cognitive

amentia by trying to talk themselves out of knowledge by unknowingly

using the same knowledge that they are trying to eliminate. In crude

terms, they unknowingly talk themselves into DECA and it is readily

observed in their expressive speech and writing.

 

Kumaraswami: This is a little hard to follow. Could you explain it on

other words?

 

Dr. Theo: DECA is equivalent to the behavior seen in taking out an oil

grease stain with oil grease while assuming, thinking or believing that

the stain is being removed, has been removed or is already removed. To

any non-imbecilic observer, this is imbecilic behavior. However, to the

person engaged in the behavior it is not apparent at all and when

informed of their behavior it is usually denied and they continue to do

as before. There is no recognition of this habitual, conditioned

behavior and this is DECA.

 

Kumaraswami: Is this condition harmful?

 

Dr. Theo: Generally speaking, no it is not harmful to the practitioners

and in some cases serves a useful purpose. However, there is a tendency

among in extreme forms of DECA to display mental rigidity and

inflexibility, emotional volatility, intellectual impairment, memory

loss, incoherent and irrational thought and speech patterns, paranoia,

mania, delusions of grandeur, word and concept fixations, obsessions

and compulsions, addictive speech and writing behaviors, vegetative

mind states, a wide variety of delusions, hallucinations, and other

non-normative mental, brain and intra-psychic states and experiences.

 

Kumaraswami: How widespread do you think DECA is? Is it rare or common?

 

 

Dr. Theo: DECA is a common condition among all who are ignorant of the

nature of language and discourse and its relation to living. DECA is

not limited to religious practitioners. Scientists of all kinds,

philosophers, theologians any one with beliefs in words suffer to some

degree from the condition, more or less. My focus has been on those

discoursing using religious language and conceptualizations.

 

Kumaraswami: How does DECA occur? What is the anatomy of DECA?

 

Dr. Theo: It begins with taking words for granted. Words, spoken and

written and otherwise known and expressed are everywhere - around, in,

on, with - as is the air breathed. Words are the basic linguistic units

used in the formation, development, transmission and exchange of

knowledge. Words are bases of communication and communion among human

kind and the bases of human thought process including the construction

of meaning and experience. Yet, little time or energy is spent in

understanding precisely the formation, development, maintenance,

change, nature, use, and limitations of words. They are used without

knowing what they are.

 

Kumaraswami: I see. And since so much religious knowledge is created,

thought of, and communicated of using the spoken, written, and thought

of word, it is important to know something of the science of words...

 

Dr. Theo: Yes, and a full knowledge of linguistics is unnecessary. A

clear understanding of the basics is all that is needed.

 

Kumaraswami: So how does the condition emerge from the ignorance of

word science?

 

Dr. Theo: Fundamentally, a word is spoken, written or symbolic unit in

a language. A word also is a unit in the lexicon or dictionary of a

language. All words are dependent on other words for definition and/or

meaning. Words cannot be used or understood without using other words

and so using one word leads to another in an unending linkage within a

limited lexicon. The limited lexicon is used to create limited imagined

worlds that are simultaneously, more or less, defined, mediated and

experienced through words. What can be conceived, created, and

experienced is limited by the words available in the lexicon. The

words, lexicon, and language of religions and related teachings are

used to do the same, to create limited worlds that are thought to be

infinite or inexplicable. In fact what is created is an imagining

composed of words and experiences mediated and described in words. As

the words and linkages change so does the world and experiences in it.

It is all the work of imagination using words.

 

Kumaraswami: Yes it is clear that words themselves point to or refer to

underlying realities. This is nothing new and this does not explain

DECA. Words point to existing things and existence. How can it be said

that all is imagined?

 

Dr. Theo: When words are used they are used to point to other words

within a lexicon. Words cannot be used to point to any thing outside

the lexicon because there is no thing outside the lexicon by default.

Any thing pointed to would have to be another a word. For example, God

is a word that has an enormous chain of related words, meanings and

word mediated human experiences tied to it in all the ways that are

done. To say " There is no God " is denying that the word God and its

complex of words, meanings and experiences is not. This is not possible

to do for the word God is there - spoken, written, symbolized, used, -

with all the related words, meanings and experiences attached to it. To

deny the word God and its enormous body of words, meanings and

experiences is a symptom of DECA. Also to believe that there is an

indescribable God beyond the word God and the chain of meanings and

experiences derived from the words is equally a sign of DECA. There is

no thing beyond words. " Beyond words " are words and any attempt to

explain what is beyond words ends up with more words. To seriously

assume, think, imagine, or believe that words can be used to point to

some thing beyond the words and its related meanings and experiences

derived and generated from the use of those word is an erroneous

understanding of words and language use. This erroneous understanding

is the base condition underlying DECA. It is an error to believe that a

word points something beyond the word itself or words themselves.

 

Kumaraswami: How can you say this? Are you outside of the lexicon and

privileged to see this?

 

Dr. Theo: As long as I speak or write or symbolize I am within the

limits of the conceived and imagined worlds of my making and that are

made from the lexicon that is available to me. It can be said because

it can imagined. To think, speak, write or symbolize in words is the

limiting factor. Attempting to go beyond this limit only results in

word chains trailing and or leading. You can realize this by gradually

coming to fail completely in the effort to go beyond it or it can be

realized instantaneously. Every question about and every effort to

experience beyond words brings words to use to go beyond words. It

simply cannot be done. It is a futile effort as is removing oil grease

stain with oil grease. This is the core of DECA. The condition of

trying to breach an insurmonatable limit by using the insurmountable

limit. The continued attempt or the imagination that it has been done

is a symptom of DECA, cognitive imbecility.

 

Kumaraswami: I am not convinced that what you are saying is valid.

There are things beyond words. One can sense it or be that which is

beyond words. There is existence and consciousness, being and

awareness. You cannot doubt it.

 

Dr. Theo: It can be accepted, doubted, entirely disregarded, argued and

debated over and so on. They are just words. They are units used to

tautologically select and create the experience they refer to. For

example, words are used to create the concepts of awareness,

consciousness, God the Self, Purusaha, Nirguna Brahaman, No Self, the

Silence Beyond, This, I Am, Love, ego, Maya, illusion, delusion, dream

and so forth and simultaneously experiences begin to gradually or more

quickly or even instantaneously form according to each formulation of

these word-concepts and the attendant meanings. Believing that these

words and the imagination generated experiences are somehow beyond the

words themselves and their mediating effects could be considered a sign

of the presence of DECA; " it, " " that, " " existence, consciousness, "

" being, awareness " are all words with related words, meanings and

mediated experiences attached to them. Now if I ask you what is " it "

that is sensed or " that " that one becomes, or what is " existence, "

" consciousness, " " being, " awareness " or " what " lies beyond these, more

words are used. There is no escape. Using one word begets another, in

thought, speech, writing, and symbolizing. The attempt to escape words

with words is a prominent symptom of DECA.

 

Kumaraswami: So are you saying that all of human experience is

imagined?

 

Dr. Theo: How else could it be?

 

Kumaraswami: We say there is an Absolute that is all. You and all of

what is experienced has its origin and being in the Absolute. Can your

existence and the existence of phenomena be doubted?

 

Dr. Theo: Kumaraswami, you are asking the same question that was

already answered above. Let me assume that the Absolute is all. I agree

with you. Now what is left to say? No thing. Why? Is it because there

is an Absolute beyond the word itself? No. I agreed and so there is no

thing more to say. The word Absolute is a word used to absorb all

lexicons into one word, the Absolute, and thereby rendering all other

words mute by defining the Absolute as attributeless or Nir or

inexplicable or ineffable or by what it is not, more words. It

nonetheless is a word. It is a single word that is made to contain all

words and all words are said to have their existence and emergence in

this one word. A simple word that is used by speakers to render all

other words subordinate or mute before it. Pure objectless awareness is

of the same ilk as well as Divine Darkness or Sunyata. By definition

these words render speakers and the lexicon mute while at the same

being the source of endless discourse since the lexical items contained

in the embargoed lexicon contained within that word unavoidably leaks

out and this leaking of words are then explained and so there is

endless discursive thinking, speaking, writing about these leaks of

words in relation to the Absolute. These sorts of words are clever

linguistic devices and frames of meaning. These frames of meaning are

used in directing and channeling the experience as well as expressing

the channeled experience in words. As you imagine so you experience.

 

Kumaraswami: So what of the experiences, the samadhis? These are not

imagined they in fact happen.

 

Dr. Theo: Yes, they happen and that does not change that all

experiences are imagined. Experiences are word mediated imaginings and,

when thought of and expressed, are worded descriptions; words are used

to order and describe other words. Words and all the related words and

meanings, implicitly and explicitly used, provide the channel for

experiences to be formed. One can have whatever experience desired by

creating the frame or channel to enter that experience and then to

describe it later. Otherwise, there is no experience per se. For

example, the English language has no word equivalent to the word

" chong " found in the Korean language. Also not available are all the

words and meanings chaining with " chong " as well as the behaviors

associated and emerging from the inheritance, identification, belief

in, enactment of " chong " in daily life. Koreans speak of " chong, " have

" chong, " display " chong " or not. Native Koreans familiar with American

behavior patterns say that Americans lack it, that they do not or

cannot understand it, display it or describe it. American search

futilely for the equivalent by composing sets of words that seem to

approximate " chong " but these compositions are rejected by Koreans.

Koreans reject their own compositions as well. And how could the

American do so, since it is not in the English lexicon and is therefore

not inherited, or conceived and therefore is unidentifiable,

unbelievable, non-existent and not enacted and cannot be described. It

is foreign. Here is a great source of cultural differences in thought

and behavior. In reverse, American and European psychological theory is

being revised using relevant Korean terminology to replace those that

do not resonate in any way with the Korean psyche and experience.

 

Kumaraswami: So who or what is undergoing the experience?

 

Dr. Theo: Whomever or whatever you imagine and described in words. It

depends. All words are associated with other words, meanings and

experiences and these associations and their infinite permutations make

words and their meanings and associated experiences indexical.

Indexicality is another attribute of words worth knowing. Those words

are indexical and can mean many different things depending on the

speaker and context. A speaker can say " I exist " and " I am being and

awareness, " but what do these words actually mean? What is that

experience like for the speaker? In fact, it means whatever it means to

the speaker and it is utterly private. The experience is only available

through imagining what it is the speaker means when communicating the

words of it and what it means to the speaker. One can agree or identify

with what the speaker describes, as if it is the same in experience of

the listener. Or the listener can disagree with, doubt it or ignore it

or some other response. Dialogic agreement is nothing more than

agreeing to accept the words as imagined, defined or described.

Dialogic disagreement is the opposite of that and there are all kinds

of ways of treating and using words and concepts both spoken and

written. It simply treating and using words as this or that, having

this or that meaning and sense. Who or what is always indexical, that

is, the meaning and description of meaning and sense of who or what is

dependent on the speaker and context of speaking in a dialogic manner.

It is imagined regardless as to how it is used.

 

Kumaraswami: You are denying existence by saying that all is imagined.

Are you a nihilist and is this not nihilism in linguistic garb?

 

Dr. Theo: No, Kumaraswami that is your inference from and your

understanding of the word imagination and its relation to your

religious lexicon that includes reality and illusion, snake and rope,

Absolute and Maya. That is your concern with the Absolute being said to

be imagined. Imagination, as I use the word, has nothing to with

factuality. Imagining means to form in the mind a notion or idea, a

mental image, to conceive of something. This has nothing to do with

positing non-existence. As far as the lexicon goes think of it this

way: Affirmation and negation of words do not make words exist or not

exist. These are merely word treatments. For example, the word

non-existence is the negation of the word existence. And by definition

the word existence negates the word non-existence. Both words remain

side by side. Both are. Affirming or denying either, both or neither

over another is treating words and nothing more. Believing one word to

exist and the other not is a symptom of DECA. Existence and

non-existence are only words pointing to other words.

 

Kumaraswami: And what of perceptions and sensations of the body and

experience of matter? Are these imagined? Can you really say that it is

all imagined? If a car hits the body there is great pain experienced

and visible physical damage to both the body and the car. Can you pass

through a concrete wall? Are these all imagined?

 

Dr. Theo: Yes. What you have asked is an imagining. All is imagined. As

long as words and all that is attached and chained to words are

incorporated in any form, implicity or explicity, imagination operates.

It cannot be avoided. So the very question you ask is based on your

assumptions and conceptualization of a physical reality that is

experienced through perceptions and sensations. All of these are word

compositions and descriptions trying to explain other word compositions

and descriptions. None of this denies nor affirms what is imagined. The

description and report of a car accident or an attempt to pass through

a concrete wall is simply a description and it may be described in as

many different ways as imagined. Some would say there is no wall or

body and that that is an illusion hard seen through. Others will say,

" Damn right it is wall. Just try, to run through it and you will meet

reality. " A physicist studying quantum phenomena will provide a

different imagining, saying at the quantum level there is no solidity.

It makes no difference what the imagining is. They are all possible and

each is used as it goes. It is all words arranged to convey sense and

meaning and to order these meanings to frame, form and describe

experiences and memories, thoughts and so on. Both the sense and belief

that there is some thing beyond words is the core of DECA.

 

Kumaraswami: It seems to me you are also caught in a web of words. Is

that not so? DECA is simply your imagination at work.

 

Dr. Theo: Yes. Indeed it is. As I said above, as long as I speak or

write or symbolize I am within the limits of the conceived and imagined

worlds of my making and those possibly made from all other lexicons

available. And caught is not the word I would use. I would say that I

am free in the web of words to imagine freely any that comes of

interest. DECA is an imagined syndrome. I imagined it, created it as

you re-create the Absolute.

 

Kumaraswami: Why did you imagine it?

 

Dr. Theo: No particular reason or purpose. Just a spontaneous lark of

imagining about something that I wondered about and that has ended with

the writing of the book. My interest now is to explore wordless

behavior like home alone dancing.

 

Kumaraswami: I see. Well, it has been a pleasure to dialogue with you

and good luck on your new interest. Namaste.

 

Dr. Theo: Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/14/05 6:01:25 PM, Nisargadatta writes:

 

 

> An Interview

>

> Hinduism today is discussed in an interview with Dr. Janssen Theo,

> Visiting Professor and Researcher of Applied Linguistics at the

> Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas and the International

> Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas. (May 13, 2006)

>

P: Well, why do I get the impression that Dr. Theo (quite a name

considering his book) is throwing the baby out.... One thing is to

point to language's mine fields for the unwary seeker, another to dismiss

it as pointless as a pointer in the search . What do you think, Lewis?

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , Pedsie2@a... wrote:

>

> In a message dated 5/14/05 6:01:25 PM, Nisargadatta writes:

>

>

> > An Interview

> >

> > Hinduism today is discussed in an interview with Dr. Janssen Theo,

> > Visiting Professor and Researcher of Applied Linguistics at the

> > Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas and the International

> > Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas. (May 13, 2006)

> >

> P: Well, why do I get the impression that Dr. Theo (quite a name

> considering his book) is throwing the baby out.... One thing is to

> point to language's mine fields for the unwary seeker, another to dismiss

> it as pointless as a pointer in the search . What do you think, Lewis?

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , Pedsie2@a... wrote:

>

> In a message dated 5/14/05 6:01:25 PM, Nisargadatta

writes:

>

>

> > An Interview

> >

> > Hinduism today is discussed in an interview with Dr. Janssen Theo,

> > Visiting Professor and Researcher of Applied Linguistics at the

> > Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas and the

> > International

> > Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas. (May 13, 2006)

> >

> P: Well, why do I get the impression that Dr. Theo (quite a name

> considering his book) is throwing the baby out.... One thing is to

> point to language's mine fields for the unwary seeker, another to

> dismiss

> it as pointless as a pointer in the search . What do you think, Lewis?

 

 

Hi Pete,

 

Yes, his name is interesting isn't it considering what he says....

 

It does not seem that Dr. Theo is throwing the baby out with the bath

water. Both the baby and the bath water remain. He is not dismissing

language or language products and the effects generated in their use.

He is simply saying there is no thing beyond words. This does not mean

words are pointless. They point to other words and and this feature is

used to do things within the realities created with those words.

Physical reality and the phenomena within that reality is created with

words. Ultimate realities, realities seen to underly other realities,

are also created with words. When the words end, what is?

 

Lewis

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , " Lewis Burgess " <lbb10@c...>

wrote:

> Nisargadatta , Pedsie2@a... wrote:

> >

> > In a message dated 5/14/05 6:01:25 PM,

Nisargadatta

> writes:

> >

> >

> > > An Interview

> > >

> > > Hinduism today is discussed in an interview with Dr. Janssen

Theo,

> > > Visiting Professor and Researcher of Applied Linguistics at the

> > > Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas and the

> > > International

> > > Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas. (May 13, 2006)

> > >

> > P: Well, why do I get the impression that Dr. Theo (quite a name

> > considering his book) is throwing the baby out.... One thing

is to

> > point to language's mine fields for the unwary seeker, another to

> > dismiss

> > it as pointless as a pointer in the search . What do you

think, Lewis?

>

>

> Hi Pete,

>

> Yes, his name is interesting isn't it considering what he says....

>

> It does not seem that Dr. Theo is throwing the baby out with the

bath

> water. Both the baby and the bath water remain. He is not

dismissing

> language or language products and the effects generated in their

use.

> He is simply saying there is no thing beyond words. This does not

mean

> words are pointless. They point to other words and and this

feature is

> used to do things within the realities created with those words.

> Physical reality and the phenomena within that reality is created

with

> words. Ultimate realities, realities seen to underly other

realities,

> are also created with words. When the words end, what is?

>

> Lewis

 

 

devi:i was reading about some different samadhis the other day in

the commentary of the yoga sutras that my guru wrote...

 

there is a samadhi..when one concentrates on an object deeply enough

the word and meaning dissappear and only the object is left in its

pure form..real nature....maybe in order to bring an object into our

own consciousness we need to use the name and meaning....

 

a cow will always be what it is ..with or without the word and the

meaning...

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , " devianandi " <polansky@m...> wrote:

> Nisargadatta , " Lewis Burgess " <lbb10@c...>

> wrote:

> > Nisargadatta , Pedsie2@a... wrote:

> > >

> > > In a message dated 5/14/05 6:01:25 PM,

> Nisargadatta

> > writes:

> > >

> > >

> > > > An Interview

> > > >

> > > > Hinduism today is discussed in an interview with Dr. Janssen

> Theo,

> > > > Visiting Professor and Researcher of Applied Linguistics at the

> > > > Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas and the

> > > > International

> > > > Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas. (May 13, 2006)

> > > >

> > > P: Well, why do I get the impression that Dr. Theo (quite a name

> > > considering his book) is throwing the baby out.... One thing

> is to

> > > point to language's mine fields for the unwary seeker, another to

> > > dismiss

> > > it as pointless as a pointer in the search . What do you

> think, Lewis?

> >

> >

> > Hi Pete,

> >

> > Yes, his name is interesting isn't it considering what he says....

> >

> > It does not seem that Dr. Theo is throwing the baby out with the

> bath

> > water. Both the baby and the bath water remain. He is not

> dismissing

> > language or language products and the effects generated in their

> use.

> > He is simply saying there is no thing beyond words. This does not

> mean

> > words are pointless. They point to other words and and this

> feature is

> > used to do things within the realities created with those words.

> > Physical reality and the phenomena within that reality is created

> with

> > words. Ultimate realities, realities seen to underly other

> realities,

> > are also created with words. When the words end, what is?

> >

> > Lewis

>

>

> devi:i was reading about some different samadhis the other day in

> the commentary of the yoga sutras that my guru wrote...

>

> there is a samadhi..when one concentrates on an object deeply enough

> the word and meaning dissappear and only the object is left in its

> pure form..real nature....maybe in order to bring an object into our

> own consciousness we need to use the name and meaning....

>

> a cow will always be what it is ..with or without the word and the

> meaning...

 

 

 

Nope.

 

 

 

The 'thing' is its name.

 

 

 

toombaru