The Phenomenology of Language Unfolding within the Awareness Field
By Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. A.B.P.P.
Language is not simply about signs and signification. There is a tension between wording and word signs. Language is not simply the issue of signs and signification, but the emergence and manifestation of Being within human beings. The field of Being is unceasingly manifesting within human beings. The field of Being’s manifestation of being within human beings may eventually become articulated as signs and symbols. The energetic manifestation of Being unfolds into
signs and symbols of signification. Being manifests experientially as the felt sense of sublime vibrations and pulsations of energy becoming sound, sound becoming letters and letters becoming words and signifiers. In mind alone there is only the emphasis on the play of signification and the unfixed relations between signified and signifier. This is language as representation. This is also the language of reification. The language of awareness begins as the language of sublime vibrations, pulsations within the direct felt sense of inner experience. Mind alone is language as information. On the contrary the languaging of awareness within the awareness field is informing us and bringing us into the experience of beingness within the field of Being.
Language within the field as the field expresses and manifests the energy of the word. The word, both written and spoken, is the energy of the field of Being embodied within us and expanding within us. The energetic field dimension of words and letters gives us and invokes within us the felt sense of Being. Language is the manifestation of Being within beings. Language is the medium of the field, just as the body is a medium of the field. Language and embodiment are co-
emergent mediums of the field. Language arising within the body is a medium of the field within human embodiment. Language invokes the field, communicates the field and rides within and through the field. Sound is the vibration of field. Articulated sound is the field becoming words. As sounds are spoken, sound becomes syllables and letters arising from within our embodiment of the field. Our embodiment manifests configurations of the field. We are configurations of the field of awareness embodied in time and space. Sound and articulated syllables manifest the field within beings as Being.
By giving Being to beings there is an opening for the symbolic signification and signifier. There is a felt difference in the relation and character of signifiers to significant within mind alone. Within the continuum of the awareness field, there is the self-manifestation of non-discursive experience becoming discursive experience. In mind alone signifiers are the representation of mind’s ideation. Words arising within the embodiment of the field of awareness symbolize awareness. The symbolization of awareness experientially brings forth the sense of awareness in depth and breath and expresses the vast range of psyche. Language symbolizes awareness and language manifests awareness. Words symbolize the experiencing of the field within the field of Being as beingness. Words and beingness are in fluid intermingling oneness.
Words as signs alone reflect language through the doorway of meaning and signification of the mind as the representation of ideation. In this context words and letters are mentalistic. Do not confuse ideation with thought or thoughtfulness. The mental representation of ideation is not within the dimension of non-conceptual awareness or non-conceptual thoughtfulness. Non-conceptual awareness is direct understanding. The felt sense of language as the medium of mind alone is profoundly different then the felt sense of language through the medium of awareness.
Word is the direct expression of embodied experience. The embodied experience of the field is the way in which language traverses the space and energy within humanness. Such language is direct communication and direct experience simultaneously within duality and within non-duality. You and I can communicate through mind by the use of differentiated signifiers. In the field of awareness we communicate through our indivisibleness within the field as the field. You and I are the field of awareness becoming singularity.
The languaging of awareness arises out of the non-duality of non-discursive preconceptual experience. Language unfolds from within this non-conceptual, non- dualistic dimension into the dualistic dimension of discursive speech and thinking. Words as signs of mind alone arise out of duality of mind and remain in duality of mind. When you focus within the experiential field, deep within the embodied field, you can experience the unfolding manifestation of the sublime
vibrations becoming sounds and words. Within the field of awareness you can speak from within the non-dual experience into the duality of phenomena. The self-arising articulations and the experience of expression as words will bring forth the field of Being within your own being and within those around you. Speech
within awareness brings forth and deepens the experience of the field of Being within you and between you and the others who are in the field with you. Non-duality opens in you and through you. You and others are brought into the non-duality of experience within the duality of a me and a you. Sublime vibration leads to words, which results in signs and signification all taking place within the field of Being, which is the field of awareness. Thus energy and signification are both experienced simultaneously. Both energy and signification are felt within us and felt beyond us. The felt sense is both prior to signification and simultaneously within signification. The felt sense opens us to bring forth signification from with the field of Being.
Conceptuality arises out of the non-conceptuality of innate awareness. Non- conceptuality and conceptuality are indivisible. Conceptuality cannot be separated from tonality. The field and tonality of the field sustains relations that are directly experienced through the field. The wording arising within the field, eventually brings forth the signifying – signification. The pre-conceptual and non-conceptual spaciousness gives space and opening to the realm of conceptual thinking. There is a tension between words and signs (meaning). Within the field words as pulsation and words as signs (meaning) arise within us simultaneously.
There is the self-arising within the field of awareness from within the experience of non-duality unfolding into the experience of duality of a speaker and hearer. This self-arising is co-emergent between experience and meaning within the field. There is the co emergent experience of energy and meaning within the field of pulsation and signification (meaning) within the mutually held within the field of awareness. This is the poetic momentum of language. The sense of being is poetically felt and known co-emergently. As Heidegger expresses, humans dwell poetically.
This description of phenomenological languaging is another way of describing the phenomena of the approach to words as expressed by the Shavism’s Matrika Shakti. This is the energetic dimension of language, of vibration and words and of words and signs. Pulsation becomes vibration. Vibration becomes sound and sound becomes the meaningful language of sign and syllables. The experience of languaging is not simply within us but reflects our being in the situation. Matrika reflects both the internal experience as well as the arising of external circumstances. We are embodied in circumstance. This is true of archetypal fields, for they are both within us and within the manifestation of situations and circumstance.
Body, Speech and Mind are doorways into the Beingness of our Being.
Language, as an event, is expressed by Heidegger as Eriginis. Language as manifestation is an event of space. The event is the energetic opening of words and letters. The language is not prior to the event. The event is the opening of language, the place of languaging. This approach to language is not through signs alone or a conceptual meaning alone. The event happens through the showing, or shining, or sounding of awareness as the radiating of awareness. Languaging is the Radiance of Being. The event happens through the radiance of awareness manifesting as event. This showing and shining manifest through the opening and the
clearing that is the space and time realm of embodiment. This sphere of embodiment is the place of the self-arising of words as meaningfulness or signs. This unfolding of language is within the field; the mutually held field. The force of this manifestation is the silent force of potentiality or possibility. This event has the momentum of showing, of manifesting the sounding, or shining, or radiating of experience. There is this radiating as the inception word, the
breaking open of language, which symbolizes the sense of Beingness itself. The event is the opening expressed as the inception word. The unfolding event comes into word and signification. It is within the event of speech that wording becomes manifest. This experiential wording is different then from the intellectual representational speech of free association, of mental mind alone. The event as it is happening is not limited to language. The happening of events within events is everything and anything manifesting cities, people, animals, wars, babies and so on. And of course, words and letters are happenings. All actions are events manifesting. Languaging is an action and an event of place, the place of awareness becoming.
The source of language is the silence or stillness of radiant awareness, the space of awareness. The space of awareness is also the space of phenomena. The source is the Field as potentiality self-arising, self-manifesting. Innermost experience becomes language. The event is being manifesting itself as embodied being, which takes place within the beingness of words and letters. There is the translation of this saying movement into signs and syllables. Language is given by Being itself and is the manifestation of Being as the movement of being. This movement Heidegger calls swaying. There is this movement of coming into being,
and human beings are the place of the unfolding of this event. The movement of Being into beings is eventful. The place of the unfolding of events is the person as the place of awareness. In this unfolding of events, everything and anything including words and language arises out of Being itself. All events are the manifestation of Being, including words and letters, feelings and thoughts as well as actions. All are the self-arising of Being as beingness. Signs are energetic symbols, which can re-invoke the experience of the Beingness of our being. Realization is living within the Beingness of our being which is Being itself.
Symbols are pulsations, as the various symbolic manifestations of the pulsations coming forth from within the non-duality of awareness into duality of appearance. Through the duality of appearance there is the ever present opening, the ever present potentiality for entering into the non-duality of gnosis. The duality of appearance and the non-duality of gnosis are indivisible. As the Gospel of John declares: “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.”
The Washington Center for Consciousness Studies and The Washington Center for Phenomenological and Existential Psychotherapy Studies
