A lot of people are talking . . . a lot.
People in power who are saying scary, weird, and wildly inappropriate things.
People out of power (and past their expiration dates) who are trying to sound defiant yet reasonable.
People talking about the what’s going to happen, what won’t happen, what might happen, what should happen, . . .
Talking heads talking about what all the talking means.
Talk, talk, talk: is it only talk?
A lot of it is, but not all of it.
I’m hearing some people saying some things that are true and substantive. I think the substance of what we say matters.
And, just as importantly, how we say it matters.
It’s not just a matter of being polite or civil: how we talk to one another reveals our intention.
For example, there are three kinds of discourse in the Vedic yoga tradition: vāda, jalpa, and vitaṇḍā.
The Sanskrit word vāda indicates a collaborative effort to find the truth through a meaningful conversation that’s comprised of both dialogue—an exploration of possibilities—and discussion—coming to a conclusion.
Vāda requires humility, openness, and intellectual honesty; a willingness to question your own positions. And you may ask yourself “Am I right? . . . Am I wrong?”
Vāda discourse is characterized by a mood of mutual respect, reliance on evidence rather than opinion, looking at multiple sides of a proposition, and clarity about what position is being championed versus what position is being refuted.
In Vedic culture, vāda is regarded as the highest form of discourse.
Jalpa and vitaṇḍā, on the other hand, describe variations of a lower form of discourse: debate.
According to Columbia University Professor Julia Sloan, author of Learning to Think Strategically,
Jalpa is the kind of debate where the objective is to successfully defend a preconceived position, with no intention of considering any other possible position. This inferior brand of discourse is typified by indifference to inconvenient facts and an attitude of “never give up, never surrender, and always go for the win.”
Vitaṇḍā is an even lesser form of debate, where the objective is to defeat someone else’s position without establishing a position of your own; argument merely for the sake of contradiction and, perhaps, for the sake of making the other person look foolish.
In yoga philosophy, these distinctions apply to discourse about the meaning and intentions of spiritual literature. However, they apply to just as well to conversations about social issues or political positions. As Tamsen Webster of Message Design Institute explains,
How can we avoid such useless tête-à-têtes?
Which is to say that If you’re talking to someone who wants to collaborate with you in a search for the truth, great, but If you’re talking to someone who only wants to prove that they’re right or you’re wrong, then you may decide that’s not a conversation you really need to have.
A footnote: the word vāda is also used as a suffix to indicate a doctrine or philosophical school of thought, such as śakti-pariṇāma-vāda, which proposes that the material world comes into existence by way of a transformation of spiritual energy. The doctrine of transformation of spiritual energy stands in opposition to vivartavāda, which proposes that the material world is an illusory superimposition on Ultimate Reality (Brahman) or, to put it another way, that the material world only appears to exist but actually doesn’t.
For the record, I think śakti-pariṇāma-vāda is the correct explanation for how the material world comes into being.
Prove me wrong.
Wishing you all good fortune,
– Hari-k