[MD] Uncertainty

[Arlo Bensinger]

[John to Mark]
However, the Allah that can be named is not the real Allah, so 
worship always evolves into idolatry.

[Arlo]
Just jumping in with agreement, John, and I think this is, in fact, a 
very important statement. Indeed, "the Allah that can be named is not 
the real Allah" is the same thing as what I said earlier, "the moment 
you speak you create incompleteness". The issue (for me) is not to 
abolish "idolatry", as this would entail perhaps the cessation of all 
human discourse, but the level of "looseness" or "playfulness" one brings.

In other words, so long as one keeps in mind always that the "words" 
are analogies of something always "more than words", that 
"wordifying" experience always brings incompleteness, then one can 
approach those patterns as "pointers". This is, however, not easy, as 
history has borne out that the "exoteric" has always found a more 
populous base than the "esoteric". Confusing the "pointer" or 
"analogy" with the "ineffable" has been, perhaps, humanity's longest 
and ongoing struggle. We prefer religion to spirituality, we prefer 
"God" to the void, we prefer "one book" to the unknowable riddle.

"The quality that can be defined is not the Absolute Quality." And 
yet Pirsig wrote two books offering a "definition" of Quality. 
(Paradox alert! Saying "Quality is undefinable" is itself a 
definition of Quality!)

The key, if you will, is to hold the "idolatrous" words as loosely as 
possible, while using them to point beyond themselves; use a 
definition to point towards the undefinable; use a statement to point 
to the analogous nature of language, and hope that others will bounce 
off your words and towards the void, while knowing that many will 
always get fixated on, and will never be able to move past, the words 
themselves.

Or we can all just stop talking entirely... an option, I suppose. :-)