Introduction

My first encounter with this concept came somewhen about 1994 on a BBS, in one of the metaphysical boards. Someone had posted something about chakras, and a Hindu (I no longer remember if it was a male or a female) raised several objections to the concept being used, stating that none of us could possibly understand all that it meant, given our cultural backgrounds. As the discussion progressed (or perhaps "regressed" is the better word) opinions got heated on both sides, with one side saying "you don't know what it means, you're not Hindu you didn't study it" and the other side saying "Knowledge is knowledge and truth is truth, and you can't place boundaries on either."

It wasn't until years later that this discussion came back to me, and suddenly I understood what the Hindu was saying. We were using words to describe concepts that had nothing to do with what the words meant. It was like the lot of us had taken a single cooking class and were vociferously agreeing that orange sauce was a lovely stand-alone, all the while pointing at an apple to show the fruit making the sauce. Meanwhile an orange farmer looked on us in utter astonishment and tried to tell us it was *apple* sauce we liked, not *orange* sauce. Unfortunately we were marketing this stuff as orange sauce, and folks were buying it and believing it was orange sauce, so the real orange sauce wasn't being found (thus hurting the orange farmer).

It seems a ridiculous metaphor, and yet the very same thing occurs daily in the spiritual writings and teachings found both on the Internet and in publication. The problem is that we are part of a society that values scientific analysis and research, where with two or three studies we can consider something proven and move on from there. Unfortunately we unthinkingly apply those same standards to deeper subjects like Mystery, and expect a study or two will give a definitive answer on what something is. While this may apply very well to solid, provable facts, or suffice for a research paper, it certainly doesn't apply to things that may take years of study to understand, or those which can only be experienced.

So what then do we mean by cultural respect, and how is it related? In short, it means just what it says - treating cultures with respect, just as you would treat an elder of that culture, and not as some scientific fact to be proven or uncovered. This sounds almost trivial and yet it is far from it. The idea here is to treat the culture as a living being, one that can be injured, sickened, or sustained by our actions. It sounds ridiculous now, but I invite you to follow this thought-experiment to the end; perhaps it will help clarify a notoriously muddy concept.

Immersion

Step One: Suppose you've decided to learn about a particular group of people, called the Earth People. The first thing most of us do is to get a book or two, or read a few articles, about this People. Two possible mentalities result from this: you can accept what you have read as the facts so far, or you can decide to throw out those bits that you've read that don't match the romantic preconception that started your search. You'd be amazed how many people choose the second option without realizing it.

This is a potential stopping point for learning: you can choose to go on, or choose to take what you've learned and say you've done your research. If you stop here, you can simply move on with what you've learned and accept that you never went deeper, or you can go on to write a paper about the practices of these people, cite your sources, and say it's well researched. Many people choose to write this paper, then set themselves up as authorities. What is frightening is how this can propagate - suppose the paper read by you was written by someone who did the same thing you are about to do? How solid are your sources? How intellectually honest were you - did you allow your preconceptions to come through in the paper? And will the next person coming to your paper walk away with a good understanding of the culture of the Earth People, or will they learn more mish-mash, write their own paper, and further the cultural muddiness? The choice here is yours.

Step Two: Suppose you choose to continue your research, and you find out in your reading that the Earth People is really a blanket title for various tribes, the White Clay and the Red Clay for example, among others. And you learn that there's another very small group called the Tree People who live nearby and have some similar practices. Many people take this kind of scenario and label them all Earth People - White Clay, Red Clay, and Tree People alike. This takes us back into the issues discussed in step one however, and there is no need to go further in the discussion. Let's say you note the differences in the peoples, and in fact go on to learn all there is to know - based on the available publications that is. Do you truly know the Earth People? Or have you learned merely what other people have reported about the Earth People? Can you honestly call yourself an authority?

Step Three: You have decided at this point that the time has come to visit the Earth People. You pack up your van and go stay with the White Clay. You spend a year or two there, get to know several of the people, make a few friends, and learn from their elders. Can you now consider yourself an authority? Most would argue yes. However, there are a few points to consider:

• Did you stay in the tribe's huts and tough out the weather, or retreat to your van/hotel/other living arrangement when things got rough?
  
• Did you learn the tribe's language? Do you *think* in that language?
  
• Have you learned a craft, or whatever other means the tribe makes its living? Can you support yourself that way?
  
• Does the tribe look at you and see "friendly outsider" or do they see "tribesman?"
  
• Do you look at the tribe and see your future, or was this an amusing/educational interlude?

There are many other considerations involved as well, but by now the point should be obvious. If you've come to the conclusion that I am saying it is impossible to be a true authority on the White Clay people, you're close to the truth. What you have become an expert on is your culture's interpretation of the White Clay's ways. I will not say it is impossible to become an authority on White Clay, but that would be something only the elders of White Clay could confer on you. And even so, would you have the right to then go out and teach the White Clay's way to the world? Are you then, in your core of being, White Clay? Do you know what it was like to be raised as White Clay? Obviously not.

What you can do however, is take what you've learned of the White Clay and share it, not as "White Clay Wisdom," but as wisdom you have gained, from living with the White Clay.

Lost in the translation

How does one person communicate with another? In most cases, it is through language of one form or another. Is there anyone who has not experienced the frustration of trying to explain something to another person, and not being able to put to words that which you are trying to communicate? Even when we all speak the same language, comprehension is not guaranteed by any explanation. I think there are sufficient jokes available on the Internet showcasing various misunderstandings due to regional slang, that I needn't address that obvious factor. Another classic example is color - tell me, is teal green or is it blue? Are all bricks, brick red? Clearly, having a word for something is no guarantee of sense, nor is sharing a language a guarantee of clear communication.

How much worse then when wisdom attempts to cross language barriers. One play on words I particularly enjoy comes from the Spanish words for "to be:" Estoy que soy, y soy que estoy. Estoy translates to "I am." Soy translates to "I am." Thus, the literal translation of that phrase is "I am what I am, and I am what I am," which is almost so trivial as to be a nonsense phrase. I'll spare you the linguistic analysis, and supply the common translation (also somewhat of a misnomer) that "soy" implies permanence, and "estoy" implies "at the current moment." Suddenly the phase takes on a much deeper meaning - something like "I am at the moment what the core of my being is, and the core of my being is what I am at this moment."

Another point to consider is the proverbial arctic dozen-or-more-words-for-snow, another language cliche. So many of us wonder how you can have a dozen words for snow, and yet the cultures in which they exist found the distinction important. Learning a language helps you learn how a culture thinks, which further improves understanding. Not learning the language means you may not even be aware of the distinctions made in the language, and thus in the thought of the speakers. These distinctions may make all the difference in the world, in communication. Furthermore, unless you are able to think in that language, you will find yourself mentally translating back to your native tongue, once again missing the concepts.

How then, can you learn anything from the experts of a culture - the people themselves - without learning the language they speak? At best you find yourself relying on a translator, who may or may not have a grasp of the concepts involved in both languages. At worst you will miss out on any fine distinctions - which may be critical. Without learning the language of a teacher, can you really understand all that teacher attempts to impart, even if read from an expert translation?

Dropping (or adding) what doesn't apply

So many eclectics claim they "take what works and drop what doesn't apply" and call the result a complete spiritual package. I have no argument with that, until they start throwing around words that describe the entire package, and not just what was kept. Thus you learn of people talking about focusing chi with no concept of meridians, nor any interest in learning about them. They give the impression that what they speak of is the whole of the concept, without knowing or considering the rest of the package, and in the end cheapen the original concept. This folly is one I fell into quite often, taking the little I knew from martial arts and thinking I knew something about chi. Then I married a man who once studied Tai Chi, knew a little Chi Kung, and had some books on the subject (translations, though he was picky on his translations). As I read a single chapter in one of his books I realized that I had barely scratched the surface, and much of what I had understood not only was wrong, but wasn't part of chi at all, and was something else entirely! And yet I had spoken to others as though I knew what I was talking about, and potentially had my words carry weight. All because one who taught me decided what did and did not apply, yet called it Chi.

Sometimes you'll learn of things that make sense, and others that don't. Both will be tied together. You can attempt to untie the concepts and take what you want, but if you do so please understand not only that the result is not the same as the original, but that the piece that doesn't make sense was there for as much reason as the piece that you kept. Perhaps that piece truly doesn't apply to you - due to region, gender, or many other factors. Further, it just may be a coincidence that the piece you kept "worked" for you, and that piece may turn out to be one of the cultural irrelevancies to you. But understand then that what you take away with you is only part of the whole. Don't represent it as the whole, because it may come back to someone for whom that piece does apply. Things evolved as they did for a reason; you may be promoting the next evolution of the concept, but that doesn't make it the same as the original. The Soviet Union was not the Russia of the czars, nor is it the Russia of today.

One thing often ignored and either added or dropped is regional influences. The region in which a culture or tradition evolved often had a huge impact on the evolution of that culture or tradition. Would a culture that evolved in the arctic contain wisdom about plants in the amazon, or vice-versa? Do either apply to someone living in a temperate zone? Taking this further, some rituals, activities, or offerings, are focused at the spirits of place. Do they really apply to one living in another area, far from those spirits of place? How much learning about the culture does it take to truly be able to tell the difference? How often is "Part B" of something based in part off of an activity in "Part A" that was directed at a spirit of place? How will the spirits of your own place react to activities focused at other spirits - particularly if those two spirit groups aren't particularly friendly to one another? There are many factors involved here, and even assuming you are equipped to weed through all this and take what truly applies to you, what you have in the end is not the same as what you had in the beginning.

Damage from outsiders

All the issues discussed above contribute to making what we learn from another culture not-quite-the-same as what the culture is itself. Many people look at the changes and consider it "cleaned up" or "close enough" and call it the same thing. Often the argument is that "people will understand what it is" if they hear the buzzword they expect. The result is that people learn a thing, and come to understand this new creation, and yet call it the original name. Suddenly the original owners of their wisdom find themselves fighting for their own identity amongst a room full of imposters - students of people who followed their own vision, potentially created something wonderful, and yet used a label they were not entitled to.

So many cultures suffer from this. Native Americans, Gypsies, Bushmen, Aboriginals, Hindus - so many peoples have found pieces of their culture taken away by well meaning seekers, who then taught what they learned. What they taught however wasn't the original, but their own translation of what they learned. The very fact that they left the tribe they had learned from highlights the fact that these teachers are not actually of the tribes they learned from. In the end, the words become tied to the concepts that these seekers learned, as they learned them and not as they were. Subtleties are lost. People will learn from the seeker, learn the buzzwords and throw them around. Eventually more people know of the seeker's translation of the concept than the true thing as it is. Eventually the true thing as it is, is lost.

This sounds extreme, but think of how many people have heard of the Dreamtime. Can they even name the culture from which the concept came? Do they really understand the concept? Perhaps it is a good thing that so many speakers at least have heard of the idea. The only ones who can truly answer that question are the tribal elders.

One last point: if you do choose to take from a culture one piece and discard another, do it with the full understanding of what you discard. Do not do so under the aegis of cultural superiority. The culture which you study evolved that way for a reason. Likewise, the culture you are from evolved that way for a reason as well. There are no equivalencies. There are no superiorities.

Conclusion

So how does this all come back to treating a culture as you would treat a cultural elder? Quite simply, consider these four concepts as though the culture was an individual. For cultural immersion - do you know the culture well enough to be comfortable with it personified, as comfortable as you would need to be to speak for that person? For translation - can you really speak to those in that culture, as you would to that culture personified? For fragmentation - are you speaking for the culture as a whole, as you would be for a person as a whole, or are you speaking only for one quirk of the individual, where if you catch him in a different mood things will be different? Finally, have you said anything that could be harmful to that person, either physically or by reputation?

To give the culture the same consideration and respect you would give a person requires more effort on your part. If you want to learn about it, you must do more than scratch the surface. You must truly get to know it, learn to speak its language, learn the whole of it, and never presume to speak for it, nor do anything to harm it. The reward however is a true understanding - not just a knowledge - of the culture which you learn, which will lead to a more effortless acceptance and true understanding of its practices.

None of this is to say you cannot, at the end of your journey, share what you have learned. By all means, share it; no knowledge is wasted, and other interested parties may be inspired by your work to look deeper themselves. Do not however present it as "The Ancient And True Ways Of [X Tribe]," nor should you share anything that preempts the tribal elders' discretion in what is to be shared with whom. Those do not belong to you, and are not yours to share. The wisdom gained, however, is yours to share. You are free then to start your own path based on what you learned. After all, if you have left The People to return to your world with your newly acquired wisdom, then you're not really one of The People at heart, now are you?

You are yourself, a shining example of your own culture's perseverance in learning, interpretations of wisdom, and understanding of living. You need no jargon from another culture to explain to others in your own culture what you have gained. Don't sell yourself short, nor risk dishonoring your teachers. The only thing they will find mysterious about such betrayal is your need to do so in the first place.