The Language of Love

I don't know much about postmodern stuff, but there's one thing I couldn't forget every time I hear that word. In a very homey Master's degree class, I was listening to my friend's professor who talked about a postmodern experience. He was on a bus ride in a busy city road in U.K. Onboard were all foreigners, speaking different languages. I can't remember much about what those languages are. Using a pinch of imagination, I can see speakers of maybe Hindi and Russian seated near the driver, and Italian and Mandarin at the back of the bus, while near the bus door were a couple of guys maybe speaking in Swahili, and of course, this young Filipino professor who might had a kababayan as a companion that moment. This is the most ironic part: no one speaks English, on a bus ride in a land where the English language was born. Such experience, according to this professor, is complex and difficult to describe. The lines that label and define our day to day lives are blurring, and expected outcomes become unexpected. He said this is a fitting example of a postmodern experience.

This multilingual bus ride is not anymore exclusive in cosmopolitan nations. I've had a similar situation some months ago. I was in an ESL (English as Second Language) class of about 10 students, four of them were Koreans, the rest were Filipinos. During breaks, Koreans would animatedly talk to each other in their language, while the group of Filipinos would watch them merrily, trying to decode their expressions through body language. I tried to imagine how both speakers of different language wonder on each others' way of understanding. What if I am a speaker of different language, how does Filipino language sound to me? Would it be strange? Would I be more curious? Certainly, I don't know. Nonetheless, every time I talk to a Korean friend, I am thankful that we can understand each other through English. Knowing that we are non-native speakers of English, it is a blessing that we have a medium where we can meet half way. We both translate our meanings so we can connect and share our human experiences.

Although the world is in convergence today, there is still a tower of Babel that crumbles before us, causing this incomprehensible language barrier. This barrier is an overwhelming debris of information overload coming from multitude of thoughts, each claiming as the main source on the nature of truth. Words become earsplitting noises, drowning out the silence that born from the truth within us. Spawned from these noises are questions that could short-circuit our sanity. A friend once fired me the same string of 'why' questions, such as why are there great opposites, why religions are different, why are there few rich and many poor people, why some people are saved and others are not, why are we here, why do we live, why do we suffer, why God doesn't show up, why evil exist, why is it hard to Love. Many established systems of thoughts and traditions have tried to provide answers using their specified forms of "language" then eventually labeled them as absolute truths. Apparently, easing the confusion has caused more mayhem than meaning.

There may be thousands of these languages, yet the very soul of their meanings has its lingua franca: Love. It is the language that speaks in many names and words, but, as Lao Tzu put it, cannot ever be named. Love translates hazy jargon into sensible insights. Religions founded in different doctrines speak the same essence of Love. Christianity calls it the Agape or Golden Rule, Buddhism calls it Metta or Intentions of Loving-kindness, Hinduism calls it Ahimsa or Nonviolence. Science has been using formulations and algorithms to lay down discoveries, attesting on the existence of invisible intelligence, the substance of the unseen Love. Love is Entanglement among quantum physicists; while many doctors, educators, psychologists, philosophers, state leaders and business magnates have proven the power of Love through prayers and healthy relationships with oneself and others.

These dimensions of our lives speaking different languages may have been speaking the same truth. We might not understand the language of each other, but so long as Love is inherent in each word, in each concept, we would remain deeply in touch even before we speak. Our desire to express this core of Love leads us to listen to its voice, reverberating across our inner, collective, cosmic consciousness. Today, the world is now listening to gifted, celebrated thinkers and luminaries, who are deeply moved by the realization of Love. As we listen, conflicting languages begin to make sense, because we can now translate them into Love as their singular underlying meaning. In turn, we as audience are tapping into our own power of speaking in tongues, where nothing but the spirit of Love can speak wisdom through us.