Although language has these inherent limitations, it has no problem when dealing with things in everyday life, such as drawing up contracts or writing a user’s manual for machinery. It will continue to be sufficient for such uses in the foreseeable future. We only come up against the limitations of language when we seek to express something that is beyond the realm of skills and or technology.

More Ilchi Lee instruct, have you ever felt frustrated because you could not put into words that deepest something within your heart? Say you had an insight of the truth, and you wanted to share that precious gift with as many people as possible. How would you explain this truth of complete and perfect life, of self-sustaining and eternal life? Because it is so difficult, some, like the Buddha, expressed it with silence, a flower, and a smile. But once that’s done, people start to analyze and interpret the gestures and expressions; the smile means something, while the flower symbolizes something else, and so on.

These interpretations become recorded in a book and that book eventually becomes the sacred text of the tradition. Once it attains the level of a sacred text, the interpreted words gain and exercise an authority that controls and limits the behavior of people. People start to memorize, chant, and imitate the words of the sacred book. When the superficial gestures become ritualized and popularized, they get transformed into a religion, the essence of the insight long forgotten. Religions are products of interpretations that are, by definition, flawed.