Meaning of meaning
Meaning is a central concept for any translation theory. No
matter what our understanding is about the nature of translation, it
usually includes an assumed relationship of meaning correspondence—whether
partial or complete, distant or even too close—between a translation and
its original. For the purposes of translation and interpreting studies
(henceforth, TIS), we can define meaning as any mental experience prompted
by perceptual inputs associated with a stimulus, when such stimulus is
conventionally expected to yield some information in a communication
process. That is, meaning is what happens in our minds as we process signs
that we perceive through the senses in any communicative intent. Meaning is
thus not a thing, it is a process; and meaning happens in our heads, and
only in our heads. It never leaves. Words have no meaning, books and
libraries have no ideas, only people do . That is why we invented natural
languages and other communicative codes: we needed some tool to prompt
other people to build meanings reasonably similar to the ones we have in
our minds. When we do, we communicate. Etymologically, we share. This view
of meaning implies that it is both an individual and a social phenomenon.
Meaning is individual in that each one of us infers what inputs mean from
their use. In your L1, you were never told what yellow means . You just
learned it by looking at yellow things while hearing people describing them
as yellow. You may have learned many words in your own language through
formal means, like looking them up in a dictionary, but your understanding
of new words rests upon many other words whose definition you have only
vaguely considered, and you are only partially aware of. Furthermore, your
first words in an L2 or an L3 often came as the foreign counterparts of L1
words you knew. Our communicative history is very personal. Even though, at
high levels of abstraction, our experiences are similar and patterned, their
details and their combinations make each person unique. What knowledge we
have and use to assign meaning to texts and speech is distinctive in its
minute details and in the ways we intertwine and perspectivise it. That
means that interpretations are personal and differ from each other,
although mostly only in their nuances. Even more, since we are constantly
building and reorganizing our knowledge, every single reading yields a
slightly different interpretation. You cannot step twice into the same
river. Understanding—building meaning—really is a one-off, continuous
experience. At the same time, meaning is a social phenomenon. We are able
to share our thoughts for several reasons. First, humans tend to think in
similar ways and accumulate life experiences that are essentially akin.
Second, language underspecifies meaning; that is, our mental experience is
far richer than what natural languages codify. When we read the word
bicycle, we often represent it visually in our minds. Even if no specific
bike was meant, it still has a shape, a colour, a size that often match
those of a bike we know. Of course, such characteristics were not intended
to be conveyed: they just belong together in our experience. Third, we
adjust and fine-tune our language use through trial-and-error. We correct
words we mis-pronounced, learn meanings we had got wrong. New realities
bring new words and names, something we really notice when we move far away
from home. Each generation favours certain ways of talking, certain
idiomatic expressions. And we not only enlarge our vocabulary; it may
shrink through lack of use in a process known as language attrition.
Fourth, we constantly adapt the ways we use language to our addressees, and
that includes negotiating meaning—agreeing on what words and expressions
mean. Each act of understanding is unique, and so is the meaning each
participant constructs in a communication event, but that does not belittle
the fact that most acts of understanding overlap, that the meanings we
build are similar. Let us consider how this happens with some detail.
Language units first activate representations in our minds, corresponding
to their visual or auditory characteristics, perhaps followed by the
activation of amoral (mainly, lexical) representations. Then episodic and
semantic knowledge—information related to our previous experience of such
units and what they mean, and what we have abstracted away as constant in
them—may become activated. There are no limits to the knowledge we
activate. When we read a bouquet of flowers, we may evoke a certain smell,
a touch, the colours and names of certain kinds of flowers, together with
the last time we gave somebody flowers, the vase we have for them at home,
or of a beautiful landscape in spring of which we are very fond, etc.
The mind is an important part of our personality. While the body
has been ours only since the time we were born, the mind—the same mind that
we have now—has been with us life after life. In every life we get a new
body, we don’t get a new mind. So it makes sense to take greater care of
the mind than of anything else. The mind, we are told, is a part of the
problem—and, oddly enough, it is also a part of the solution. Listen to
this seemingly enigmatic statement from the Amṛtabindu Upaniśad:
मन एव मनुष्याणां कारणं बन्धमोक्षयो: ।
Mana eva manuṣyāṇāṁ kāraṇaṁ bandha-mokṣayoḥ.
“For human beings the mind alone is the cause of both bondage and freedom.”
The mind is a subtle part of our personality. It is so subtle that no
surgeon can find it when the body is cut open. If the body is the visible
outer instrument, the mind is the invisible inner instrument (antaḥ=inner,
karaṇa=instrument). When this inner instrument weighs the pros and cons of
things, it is called mind (manas). When it takes decisions, it is called
intellect (buddhi). Often it is viewed as a repository (citta) that stores
feelings, emotions, memories, and thoughts. Since it provides the sense of
“I,” it is also called ego (ahaṁkāra). These different names merely point
to the different functions of the inner instrument. Because it coordinates
the information collected by the five senses (of sight, sound, smell,
touch, and taste), it is sometimes called the “sixth sense.” While “inner
instrument” is a more accurate way to describe it, it is popularly called
“mind.”
Discernment (viveka) separates the good from the bad, the
right from the wrong, the real from the illusory—and detachment (vairāgya)
takes us away from the bad, the wrong and the illusory. It should have been
easy then to embrace the good, the right and the real. But that is not how
life necessarily unfolds. The mind plays a major role here. Both
discernment and detachment occur in the mind. If the mind is erratic, its
discernment lacks focus, its detachment is feeble, and the will becomes
wayward.Sri Ramakrishna said that
“truthfulness alone constitutes the spiritual discipline of the Kaliyuga.
If a man clings tenaciously to truth he ultimately realizes God. Without
this regard for truth, one gradually loses everything.”
Putting this into practice involves not only living honestly and
truthfully, but also being kind and considerate while doing one’s duties
selflessly. In other words, moral and ethical values should guide our
lives. This is spelt out beautifully in the list of moral “restraints”
(yama) and “observances” (niyama) found in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra (2.30,
32).
The “restraints,” which are qualities essential for moral living, include
the following:
“Nonviolence” (ahiṁsa) means we should abstain from injuring any being at
any time in any manner. This implies absence of hatred, malice and jealousy
expressed through thought, word or action.
“Truthfulness” (satya) means our words and thoughts should be in harmony
between what has been seen, heard or inferred.
“Non-stealing” (asteya) means not appropriating—actually or mentally—what
we are not entitled to.
“Chastity” (brahmacarya) means sexual responsibility.
“Non-receiving” (aparigraha) means not accepting things if they take away
our freedom.
The “observances,” which define moral conduct, include the following:
“Cleanliness” (śauca), both physical (daily bath, healthy food) and mental
(freeing the mind from arrogance and greed).
“Contentment” (santoṣa) means being happy with what we have and free from
hankering for what is not ours.
“Austerity” (tapas) is the ability to endure hardships and not get upset by
physical discomfort.
“Self-study” (svādhyāya) includes both study of spiritual texts and
repetition (japa) of mantra.
“Worship of God” (īśvara-praṇidhāna) includes ritual worship and mental
worship, as also prayer and meditation.
Striving to follow these moral rules of living and conduct earnestly, day
after day, year after year, is the best method of disciplining the mind.
One helpful way to do this is to make a set of vows every morning, as a
form of self-reminder, and try to live up to them:
Aware of suffering caused by the destruction of life, I vow to cultivate
compassion and learn ways to prevent injury to others.
Aware of harm caused by falsehood, I vow to abide by the practice of
truthfulness in thought, word and deed.
Aware of pain caused by exploitation, stealing and oppression, I vow to
respect the property of others and protect my own as well as others’
freedom.
Aware of damage caused by sexual misconduct, I vow to cultivate
responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of others.
Aware of weakness caused by greed, I vow to limit my needs to what is
essential for a healthy, wholesome life.
We can also affirm our determination every morning to abide by the rules of
moral conduct:
I am determined to maintain physical and mental cleanliness.
I am determined to be content with my environment and my situation in life.
I am determined to practice forbearance without complaint and anxiety, and
learn to be in control of myself.
I am determined to learn the truth through study and prayer.
I am determined to reach out to the Supreme Being, whose existence defines
mine.
Such reminders and affirmations create a strong incentive to live according
to dharma.
The seemingly impossible task of taming the mind is what baffled Arjuna. He
asks Krishna in the Gita (6. 34):
चञ्चलं हि मन: कृष्ण प्रमाथि बलवद्दृढम् । तस्याहं निग्रहं मन्ये वायोरिव
सुदुष्करम् ॥
Cañcalaṁ hi manaḥ Kṛṣṇa pramāthi balavad-dhṛḍhaṁ
Tasya-ahaṁ nigrahaṁ manye vayor-iva suduṣkaram.
“O Krishna, the mind is indeed restless, turbulent, strong, unyielding. I
feel that it is, like the wind, very difficult to control.”
We can easily identify with Arjuna’s experience. Every spiritual seeker
knows what struggle with the mind feels like. Krishna acknowledges the
difficulty, but also shows us how it is possible to restrain the mind (6.
35):
असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् । अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च
गृह्यते ॥
Asaṁśayaṁ mahābāho mano durnigrahaṁ calaṁ
Abhyāsena tu Kaunteya vairāgyeṇa ca gṛhyate.
“O Son of Kunti, there is no doubt that the mind is restless and difficult
to control. But it can be restrained, O mighty-armed, through practice
(abhyāsa) and detachment (vairāgya).”
The way to discipline the mind is clear. It is to (1) live a moral and
ethical life, and (2) let go of everything that takes us away from the
spiritual ideal. When the mind is thus disciplined, it can be restrained at
will. The ultimate truth is beyond the reach of an uncontrolled,
indisciplined mind (see Kena Upaniṣad, 1.3). But when the mind is
restrained, it becomes a useful instrument, so powerful that it can lead us
to the ultimate truth (see Kaṭha Upaniṣad, 2.1.11).
There is symbiosis between the practices of discernment, detachment and
restraining the mind. On one hand, discernment leads to detachment and,
together, they prepare us for the practice of restraining the mind. On the
other hand, a mind that is disciplined deepens discernment and strengthens
detachment. These practices depend on one another and each fulfills the
others. This holds true for all the Four Practices (sādhana-catuṣṭaya) that
we are presently studying.
Hence meaning of meaning change either way as knowledge do expand due to
thinking process. Those attributions rule the roast on that date
inevitably. We are bound to accept them all even though we beg to differ
consciously, but we are inexpressible out of the majority.
NB: Mr YMji yesterday expressed views expressed giving the meaning of
the meaning differently, distorted his mind. So, I decided to refrain from
getting away from his thinking mind. I shall write it separate within a
shell only, so that different views are expressed on a subject.
KR IRS 26925
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