Ninety-six Words for Love
The first difficulty we meet in discussing anything concerning our feelings is that we have no adequate vocabulary to use. Where there is no terminology, there is no consciousness. A poverty-stricken vocabulary is an immediate admission that the subject is inferior or depreciated in that society.
Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty, Greek three, and English only one. This is indicative of the poverty of awareness or emphasis that we give to that tremendously important realm of feeling. Eskimos have thirty words for snow, because it is a life-and death matter to them to have exact information about the element they live with so intimately. If we had a vocabulary of thirty words for love ... we would immediately be richer and more intelligent in this human element so close to our heart. An Eskimo probably would die of clumsiness if he had only one word for snow; we are close to dying of loneliness because we have only one word for love. Of all the Western languages, English may be the most lacking when it comes to feeling.
Imagine what richness would be expressed if one had a specific vocabulary for the love of one's father, another word for the love of one's mother, yet another for one's camel (the Persians have this luxury), still another for another's spouse, and another exclusively for the sunset! Our world would expand and gain clarity immeasurably if we had such tools.
It is always the inferior function, whether in an individual or a culture, that suffers this poverty. One's greatest treasures are won by the superior function but always at the cost of the inferior function. One's greatest triumphs are always accompanied by one's greatest weaknesses. Because thinking is our superior function in the English-speaking world, it follows automatically that feeling is our inferior function. These two faculties tend to exist at the expense of each other. If one is strong in feeling, one is likely to be inferior in thinking -- and vice versa. Our superior function has given us science and the higher standard of living -- but at the cost of impoverishing the feeling function.
This is vividly demonstrated by our meager vocabulary of feeling words. If we had the expanded and exact vocabulary for feeling that we have for science and technology, we would be well on our way to warmth of relatedness and generosity of feeling.
Robert Johnson, in The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden. In 1945, he went to Ojai, California, as a student of Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian spiritual teacher. In 1947 he began his own therapy with Fritz Künkel. He later studied at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland, where Emma Jung, the wife of Carl, was his principal analyst. He completed his analytical training with Künkel and Tony Sussman. He established an analytical practice in Los Angeles in the early 1950s with Helen Luke. In the early 1960s he closed his practice and became a member of St. Gregory's Abbey, Three Rivers, in Michigan, a Benedictine monastery of the Episcopal Church.
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5 Past Reflections
On May 24, 2018 martinrael wrote:
Ninety-six words and all pure and clear. Very inspiring
On Feb 5, 2018 Saz wrote:
Writing about love in English is more about 'showing' rather than 'telling'. If you look at love poetry, it often describes what makes up the loving feelings rather than giving them a single name. In this way, English is an incredibly rich language when expressing love.
On Feb 4, 2018 Patrick Watters wrote:
T.S. Eliot also wrote in Little Gidding that we would "arrive where we started and know it for the first time". LOVE (God by any other name), Creator and Lover of all souls, beautiful Mystery. Perhaps Robert Johnson's Journey is not unlike my own? The "object" of all my own searching, the Divine LOVE I desperately needed to know was finally revealed to me. By grace alone and in my vulnerable, humble longing, I saw that LOVE has a face and a name. I am now content and at peace amidst the brokenness and violence, able to simply be the Presence of LOVE with others. }:- ❤️ anonemoose monk
On Feb 4, 2018 Dr Tanis Day wrote:
I think all the following are words of Love: kindness, generosity, compassion, tenderness, loyalty, devotion, grace, hope, trust, sincerity, honouring, respect, etc etc etc... It isn't that we lack the words. It's that our culture is so ignorant of love that it collapses it all into one idea. Love is the energy of the universe, it sings from every blade of grass and every feeling. We do have words for it if we have eyes and hearts that see it and resonate with it and celebrate it!
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On Aug 25, 2024 Teerath Bheel wrote:
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