Kinda funny… I noticed this picture of a Hindu god come up in my feed. It came from the account of one of those people who posts a lot of that stuff, all in the proclamation of being spiritual. It had a few sentences in Sanskrit below the image. In reading it, it looked kind of off, however. So, I decided to pop it over to google translate. Here’s what it actually, said, “The real courageous decorator owner. The game will be played for sure, the chair has been rented.” Of course, this made me smile.
 
I remember back in the days when there were all these people selling promised martial art rank and rank certificates out of magazines like Black Belt. FYI: That’s where and how a lot of the old-schoolers got the high rank they possess, via pseudo-businesses like that. But, anyway… Every now and then, it would be brought to the attention of the greater whole how the words on those certificates, oftentimes in some Asian language, were totally wrong. They got them from somewhere, put them on the certificates, and who would know the difference, unless you knew the difference? I remember one time it was revealed the Chinese characters on this one companies certificate were actually taken from a Chinese restaurant menu. Pretty funny…
 
I guess all of this comes down to knowing what you know and/or believing what you believe. I know, in my lifetime, I have witnessed some people going to all length to back a lie they were told, or the lair who told it. They did this will all vigor. But, that did not change the truth of the lie. Then what?
 
I suppose what do words really mean anyway? Have you ever been in a situation where you are surrounded by people speaking a language you do not understand?  They know what they’re talking about. But, you do not. How does that change your experience?
 
Yet, think about it, all of these people from the West who have turned to Asian culture for art, inspiration, the martial arts, or religion, but they don’t speak the language. Are the truly understanding anything?
 
Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t? Yet, it goes on all around us, all the time. People believing something presented from a language, a culture, or a time in history they do not truly understand.
 
From a much more Zen perspective, what do words mean anyway? If you take out the context. If you don’t care that the person who posted that posting was trying to appear to be all knowing and all spiritual, in someways, don’t the words that he (or she) posted provide a pathway to some deeper truth, just like a koan? “The real courageous decorator owner. The game will be played for sure, the chair has been rented.” Think about it.