Mind Watching: Field Notes from Wilderness Solitude – Day 35

50 days of observations, insights, and contemplations...

by Tyler Volk

Tyler Volk’s “Mind Watching” Series Table of Contents

Day 35 - The Indescribable

In her history of the concepts of god across the classic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Karen Armstrong describes the way in which all these religions had (and have) their mystical orders (sub-groups), in which God was described as . . . well, indescribable. The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, for instance, called God “Nothing,” not meaning absence but rather a presence so huge that it can never be pinned down to any particular thing: “He lacks any form known to us.” No-thing. But, “he”? OK, times were different. 

The Jewish mystics, the Kabbalists, claimed, according to Armstrong, that the essence of God was “unknowable, inconceivable, and impersonal.” This hidden God had no documented name but was referred to as En Sof, “without end.”  Finally, for the Islamic mystic Rumi, of the Sufi order, God was ultimately a subjective experience. That sounds like consciousness!  

Mystics in various religions had (and have) in common not only a general conception of an ineffable God but practices for realizing this truth. Imagination is crucial, as are emotions, and these are coupled into a quest for altered states, via solitude, fasting, ecstatic dance, and other means of creating visionary awe.

When I was a child there was a candy described as “indescribably delicious.” This slogan might even still be in use. (I don’t want to check, I might start salivating.) So delicious it cannot be described—what a great ad gimmick. You can’t learn about it through words, you have to try it, just  . . . try it. 

The philosopher Wittgenstein thought similarly about the aroma of coffee. “Describe the aroma of coffee. Why can’t it be done? Do we lack the words? . . . Have you tried to describe the aroma of coffee and not succeeded?” He is exploring language and deep issues about public communication versus private experiences. But the candy ad does not attempt to joust with Wittgensteinian metaphysics. It simply pointed the way to a sugar-coated peak experience. 

If a term is good enough to describe both God and candy, then it’s good enough to describe me. I am indescribable. Try it on yourself. I submit that it feels good. This doesn’t mean we are God or candy, but the analogies do seem to produce some beneficial effects on mood. Calling yourself “indescribable” frees you from the burden of an ultimate answer. That call helps reach a state of contentment—an way of arriving at a kind of answer that might not even exist in the form of language, because it’s more like a taste of the ultimate reached in ecstatic dance. 

Compared with the rationalists and literalists in the history of attempts to discern God, those called the mystics within the various traditions have tended to be more tolerant of other views and ways of reaching truth. They also generally have practiced their personal quests with more humility. As I move into deeper awareness of the whirlpools and take on the imperative to develop a better evaluator, I will be changed. It is likely that the change will be from one indescribable state to another. I do claim that the new indescribable state will be preferable, at least in part because the new state will be less of a cry for help and less that of an automatic cognitomaton. The new state might be more indescribable. . . and thus closer to candy or God.

References

Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 1993 (paperback). The specific materials cited about Eckhart, the Kabbalists, and Rumi are from pages 253, 244, and 241, respectively.

Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations, §610; at multiple sites online. For an exploration, see H. O. Mounce, 1989, The Aroma of Coffee, Philosophy, 64, 159-173. 

© 2025 by Tyler Volk

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