Originally Posted by
Scott R. Brown
In a sense you are correct, labels are arbitrary, however, once you define your experience you confine it to word descriptions.
While it is difficult to describe an indescribable experience, the words we use to describe it limit the experience and the memory of it. Therefore, it does matter what words one uses to describe the experience.
As an example, I will presume you have had the experience, but because of the way you have described it in your own mind, you could not recognize the simple truth of my statements. So, while it is possible you have had the same experience I have, your memory or definition of it has limited it so much that you cannot recall or perceive the principles of the experience as they actually were.
As long as one believes or interprets their experience as "silent" and does not recognize it is "relative" silence, they misrepresent the experience to others. Once this occurs, you are accidentally contributing to the confusion of others.
If they have a similar experience and they perceive the truth of the matter, that is, it is a relative silence, but you as their expert guide describe it as Absolute Silence, they will tend to reinterpret their experience to conform it to what they THINK it SHOULD be according to your expert opinion, which is not accurate. They may then continue to search for an experience that is impossible to have, thinking they have missed the mark! They will then be stuck until they learn to trust their own direct experience absent the definitions provided by others.
Therefore it is important to be careful how we define the experience to others. Those who have had the experience, absent artificial constructs used to define it, would have easily recognized the "simple" truth of my description as closer to the reality of the experience!