The Language of Symbols

Symbolism

The pictorial expression of an idea or a thought. Primordial writing had at first no characters, but a symbol generally stood for a whole phrase or sentence. A symbol is thus a recorded parable, and a parable a spoken symbol. The Chinese written language is nothing more than symbolical writing, each of its several thousand letters being a symbol.
–H. P. BLAVATSKY

Let us examine together the fascinating subject of symbols. We of the twentieth century have become so matter-of-fact, we are so intensely practical, that the very terms myth and symbol arouse a feeling of doubt and of suspicion in our minds. We have become so scientific that poetry is supposed to be going out of favour. Epics and elegies, odes and sonnets are terms our boys and girls understand less than the terms of physics or of chemistry. Not that I am against scientific education, but there is poetry, there are symbology and myths even in the mechanical sciences and if our scientific students were truly scientific they would read the Hindu Puraanas, the Scandinavian sagas, the Jewish Book of Genesis, for in them there is knowledge of more than one science, pre-eminently anthropology and cosmology, and of the inter-relation between these two, knowledge not dreamt of by many of them. Even Aristotle, whose influence on European thought is greater than that of Plato, says that “a tradition of the highest antiquity transmitted to posterity under the form of various myths teaches us that the first principles of nature may be considered as gods, for the divine permeates all nature. All the rest, details and personages, were added later for the clear comprehension of the vulgar, and but too often with the object of supporting laws invented in the common interest.”

Here we reach a further point: just as our ordinary language deteriorates and gets corrupted by colloquialisms, etc., so also in ancient times the language of symbols and glyphs, then of myths and fables, legends and fairy-tales was corrupted by the vested interests of priest-craft and out of the wisdom, the knowledge and the science of the hidden were manufactured dogmas of sectarian creedalism. Writes H. P. Blavatsky:

Fairy tales do not exclusively belong to nurseries; all mankind–except those few who in all ages have comprehended their hidden meaning and tried to open the eyes of the superstitious–have listened to such tales in one shape or the other and, after transforming them into sacred symbols, called the product Religion!

Our task then is not to get bewildered either by the false exclusive claims made by the theologians of East or West, or by the materialistic scientists who opine that myths began in fetichism and barbaric ignorance. We should read myths, legends and fairy-tales first as good and entertaining literature with moral lessons; but intelligent readers will very soon come upon ideas which need something more for their understanding than the desire for entertainment. They will need, if they are real earnest seekers of knowledge, the understanding necessary for deciphering many a myth. The student of mythology, the researcher and the expounder of myths and legends easily perceives that myths of different climes and different eras bear a striking resemblance. By a comparative study of Hindu and Persian, Greek and Roman, Scandinavian and Germanic myths and legends we are able to deduce without difficulty that all of them have sprung from a common source and convey a common teaching, which teaching on many a point will be found to be at variance with modern knowledge.

But (and this is a new point) to decipher the true meaning of myths and legends, ancient carvings, picture writing and so on so forth, we need some comprehension of what the Language Symbols means. The terms symbols and symbology produce a smile of derision on many a lip and yet the whole world uses nothing else but symbols to express thought as to understand it. What is language? What are the letters of the various alphabets? What are vowels and consonant sounds? What are numbers? What is the belt of the Zodiac? All but symbols. Is there an equatorial line drawn on the globe or is the equator a symbol in the sciences of geography and navigation?

Let us begin by giving a comprehensive definition of symbol. Nobody could object to the Encyclopaedia Britannica as an authority; it says: “Symbol is the term given to a visible object representing to the mind the semblance of something which is not shown but realized by association with it.” But is there a single visible object which is not a symbol according to this definition? A tree is a tree, and when we use the word “tree” there naturally arises in our minds all that we have known about trees; but, please note now, the word “tree” brings up one kind of idea in the mind of a child, and a very different kind of idea in that of a botanist. Again, the painter sees the tree as the ordinary man does not; the poet sings of the tree again in a different way; the philosopher interprets the tree, endowing it with still another meaning; the mystic sees in the tree the process of life and that of growth and speaks of the Tree of Good and Evil and of the Tree of Knowledge. Therefore the definition or the Encyclopaedia Britannica, while comprehensive, is not complete.

Presently we shall have to seek a better definition, but before we do that we should note another aspect of universality as related to symbols. The same tree symbolizes different things to different minds. But this is equally true of everything without exception and, what is more, true of every type of human mind. The scientist symbolizes water by assigning to it mysterious letters and a figure–H₂O. Now H₂O conveys to the student, even to the tyro in his chemistry class at school, something more than the word water does, let us say, to his mother at home who may not have heard of H and O and H₂! Not only has modern science its symbols, the ancient science of mathematics has its symbols; in fact, can we not say with truth that each branch of knowledge gives us one facet or one aspect of any particular thing? Thus, in our examples of Tree and of Water, we do get partial knowledge about them by examining the symbols which the scientist, the philosopher, the poet, and the mystic respectively use:

To comprehend, and if we cannot comprehend to apprehend, the real definition of symbols, it is necessary to make an application, at this juncture, of the doctrine of Maaya, so much misunderstood. Maaya implies mis-valuation of objects, beings and events. There is no time for me to go into details and I must confine myself to that aspect of Maaya which is related to our subject of symbols. To the botanist the reality behind a particular tree consists in the place that tree occupies in his long and large catalogue. To him it is almost nonsense, merely an illusion, a Maaya, to speak, as the poet Keats did, of some fine specimen of the genus Quercusas:

Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.

And while our scientist may good-naturedly smile at the poetic license of Keats, we suppose he would show utter contempt for the ancient Greeks who believed in the Sacred Oak in whose luxuriant branches the Dragon of Wisdom dwelt, and from which he could not be dislodged. In the world of Maaya we see not altogether untruth, but relative truths; it is in the world of Delusion, that we indulge in falsehoods. The world of Relative Knowledge is the world of Maaya-Illusion. The separative tendency in acquiring knowledge which produces specialists keeps us in the world of Maaya; when we begin to synthesize bits and pieces of knowledge we are approaching the world of the Real and are leaving behind the world of Relativity. Each object symbolizes numerous things, and when all the symbols are correctly synthesized our knowledge of that object reaches completion.

Let me now give you the definition of a symbol in these words of H. P. Blavatsky: “A symbol is an embodied idea, combining the conception of the Divine Invisible with the earthly visible.” In the light of what we have been considering, every object, every event, every being is an embodied idea. Each human mind reading these millions upon millions of embodied ideas interprets them in its own way. Each human mind is an evolving, expanding, unfolding entity; therefore there are superficial interpretations, partial interpretations, false interpretations, as well as profound, complete and true interpretations of all the embodied ideas. According to the bent of the human mind are the milliards of embodied ideas evaluated.