Finally, The Real Meaning Of This Amazing Song...

[Deftones]

REFLECTION by Tool, from "Lateralus"

The Lyrics:

I have come curiously close to the end, down
Beneath my self-indulgent pitiful hole,
Defeated, I concede and
Move closer
I may find comfort here
I may find peace within the emptiness
How pitiful

It's calling me ...

And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping
The moon tells me a secret--my confidant
As full and bright as I am
This light is not my own and
A million light reflections pass over me

Its source is bright and endless
She resuscitates the hopeless
Without her, we are lifeless satellites drifting

And as I pull my head out I am without one doubt
Don't wanna be here feeding my narcissism.
I must crucify the ego before it's far too late
I pray the light lifts me out
Before I pine away.

So crucify the ego, before it's far too late
To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical
And you will come to find that we are all one mind
Capable of all that's imagined and all conceivable.
Just let the light touch you
And let the words spill through
And let them pass right through
Bringing out our hope and reason ...
before we pine away.
____________

I did an interpretation of this song for a class project, and used the song as a tool (no pun intended) to help relate certain ideas from Rudolf Otto's book, "The Idea of the Holy," which is a book that attempts to pinpoint non-rational experience.

Notice how the lyrics to the song accurately describe a mystical experience according to the definition of Otto. Here are some supporting quotations from Ottos' book to complement and expand on the deeper meaning behind the lyrics. (Oh yeah and I got an A):

“I have come curiously close to the end, down
Beneath my self-indulgent pitiful hole,
Defeated, I concede and
Move closer
I may find comfort here
I may find peace within the emptiness
How pitiful”

The “end” that he is referring to is an end of resisting or failing to acknowledge a higher power. To “concede” means “to admit to be true,” so underneath all of his indulgence and giving into constant desire, he essentially gives up an old lifestyle or way of thinking in an effort to acknowledge something greater, in which he finds comfort. The “peace within the emptiness” refers to what Otto would characterize as a first experience of the “numinous.” Otto claims that one will find an empty feeling within upon first experiencing/encountering the numinous. “How pitiful,” in my opinion, likely refers to how ironic it is for him to finally find peace in such a simple way.

“It's calling me ...

And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping“

The line “it’s calling me” is eerie because something higher and more powerful is faintly (and perhaps increasingly) drawing him closer toward its being. “And in my darkest moment,” probably refers to what Otto would describe as “daemonic dread.” Though this phrase could be referring to a low point in his life, Otto points out that the period preceding an encounter with the numinous is one of utter darkness, or “daemonic dread.”

“The moon tells me a secret--my confidant
As full and bright as I am
This light is not my own and
A million light reflections pass over me”

Nature is often a key link to experiencing the numinous. Otto claims that the feeling of it (the numinous) may “at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship.” So in essence, the “moon tells me a secret” refers to this solace and understanding which can be found in nature. “As full and bright as I am” indicates that the moon is as much a part of him than he is of it; the moon and him are both reflections of God (the numinous) who encompasses the ultimate brightness, or light. “The light is not my own,” then, because the light belongs to God. “… For he is wholly a God of revelation,” says Otto. Or, “It’s not the ‘feeling of our created-ness’ but the ‘feeling of our creature-hood,’ that is, the consciousness of the littleness of every creature in face of that which is above all creatures.” “A million light reflections pass over me” probably refers to the idea that “Indeed the clutching force and violence of the emotion so far exceeds any impressiveness contributed by the circumstances of time and place that one can often scarcely speak of impression at all, but at most of an encounter, serving as cue or occasion for the felt experience,” says Otto.

“Its source is bright and endless
She resuscitates the hopeless
Without her, we are lifeless satellites drifting”

“Its source is bright and endless,” likely refers to a point in the book when Otto says “So is its bliss-giving character included in the God who over brims with pure goodness or brightness.” “She” either refers to a postmodern way of imagining God, or perhaps it just emphasizes that we don’t or can’t really know who or what the numinous is, as traditional religion assumes God is male. According to Websters Dictionary, “satellite” refers to a “celestial body that orbits a larger body.” In short, “without her,” we truly are lifeless satellites drifting.

“And as I pull my head out I am without one doubt
Don't wanna be here feeding my narcissism.
I must crucify the ego before it's far too late
I pray the light lifts me out
Before I pine away.”

“Narcissus” was a beautiful youth of Greek mythology who fell in love with his own image. In the song, he doesn’t want to become more and more infatuated with himself through self-indulgence and the like, as was noted earlier. “To pine” is to “long for something intensely; to lose vigor or health due to distress.” “So crucify the ego before it’s far too late,” then, refers to what Otto would point out here: “For one of the chiefest and most general features of mysticism is just this self-depreciation, the estimation of self, of the person ‘I,’ as something not perfectly or essentially real, or even as mere nullity, a self-depreciation which comes to demand its own fulfillment in the practice on rejecting the delusion of selfhood, and so makes for the annihilation of self.” Otto also states, “For ‘void’ is, like darkness and silence, a negation, but a negation that does away with every ‘this’ and ‘here,’ in order that the ‘wholly other’ may become actual.” And finally, another quote from Otto: “This aspiration for the ‘void’ and for becoming void … must seem a kind of lunacy to anyone who has no inner sympathy for the esoteric language and ideograms of mysticism, and lack the matrix from which these come necessarily to birth”

“o crucify the ego, before it's far too late
To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical
And you will come to find that we are all one mind
Capable of all that's imagined and all conceivable.
Just let the light touch you
And let the words spill through
And let them pass right through
Bringing out our hope and reason ...
before we pine away.”

This stanza is the culmination of the song. “And you will come to find that we are all one mind,” refers to Otto’s book when he says, “Once the numinous consciousness has been aroused, it is to be expected, seeing that it is a unity, that one of its ‘moments’ will be found to be inextricably bound up with the rest.” He is calling for us to figure this experience out for ourselves before it’s too late. It has been suggested by several philosophers and authors (such as Richard Tarnas or Riane Eisler) than our society is under going a pivotal transitional period though which we must emerge soon. Either we’ll make it though, or fail.




*i got this from a website*
# http://demonolatry.cjb.net/ #

[idontmind462]

“o crucify the ego, before it's far too late
To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical
And you will come to find that we are all one mind
Capable of all that's imagined and all conceivable.
Just let the light touch you
And let the words spill through
And let them pass right through
Bringing out our hope and reason ...
before we pine away.”

"Crucify the ego"
Stop thinking so much of yourself.

"To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical"
Referring to this world and the people in it.

"And you will come to find that we are all one mind"
Not literal. It means we were all created by the same and that we all complete each other in this program. "You will come to find" when you're ready." We should all help each other.

"Capable of all that's imagined and all conceivable."
Every single person has the ability to do everything conceivable.

"Just let the light touch you
And let the words spill through
And let them pass right through"
Obvious.

"Before we pine away"
Before our time is up.

STOP READING OTHER PEOPLES SHIT AND THINK FOR YOURSELF. MAYNARD NEVER USES STIFF REFERENCES, THEY'RE ALWAYS VERY LOOSE.

[paraflux]

Originally posted by All_One_Mind
Sorry to be such an asshole...

Dont be. I hate it when people say that shit too. Whatever is real to me may not be real to you.

[yllwcrystlstr]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Deftones
[B]REFLECTION by Tool, from "Lateralus"

The Lyrics:

I have come curiously close to the end, down
Beneath my self-indulgent pitiful hole,
Defeated, I concede and
Move closer
I may find comfort here
I may find peace within the emptiness
How pitiful[QUOTE]Originally posted by Deftones
[B]

actually i think that last line is the singer/interpreter calling itself pitful for desiring selfish peace so much....just wanted to add that

[eslupminoyler]

Deftones writing was excellent but even if Maynard described to us what this song meant, even his description of this description would be interpreted differently by everyone that heard it.
dynamic

[herarety]

I used a Tool song for an interpretation as well. Ambiguous lyrics are neat.

[eslupminoyler]

In reading over Deftones supposed absolute answer I found it to be the best I've heard so far. Not that it is right, in writing for entertainment as one would do for a teacher for a good grade, truth is never the first objective, interest and derived facts are all that matters. Too bad I'm not easily amused

[bohanman]

Ok, I believe Tool, if not all music, should be recieved by your own self and interpreted into what it means to you, not by what someone says it means, in other words I don't really think any song should have a meaning except the meaning that you keep for yourself, the meaning and emotion that rose in your soul when you blessed your eardrums with the sound. I like all of the above interpretations, yet a few friends and I were sitting around one night silently listening to this song in the darkness and we started talking about the meaning, now normally I don't like to get into these conversations, but I leap into this one. The way I view this song is:

Maynard makes reference to the moon, which we all know the moon reflects light upon the earth... Then he goes on, singing:

" As full and bright as I am
*This light is not my own* and
A million light reflections pass over me
Its source is bright and endless
She resuscitates the hopeless
Without her, we are lifeless satellites drifting "

Ok now, think about this... every person on earth is a reflection of someone else, more so a reflection of many people. The reason you have the knowledge you do is because someone elses knowledge was once reflected upon you, same with the disposition you hold. Naturally you look around you and unknowingly take in other peoples personalities, taking bits and pieces of their personalities in order to forge your own, as they have done with other people... its a giant circle, everyone is a reflection off everyone else.

" And you will come to find that *we are all one mind*
Capable of all that's imagined and all conceivable."

Now I'm not saying this is right by any means, I would just like some of you Tool fans out there to take a look at this and tell me what you think. It seems interesting to me and maybe it has already been brought up, if so I apologize for taking up your time.

[eslupminoyler]

Ok now, think about this... every person on earth is a reflection of someone else, more so a reflection of many people. The reason you have the knowledge you do is because someone elses knowledge was once reflected upon you, same with the disposition you hold. Naturally you look around you and unknowingly take in other peoples personalities, taking bits and pieces of their personalities in order to forge your own, as they have done with other people... its a giant circle, everyone is a reflection off everyone else.

that was quoted by that one person

First of all to be quite honest it is impossible not to interpret something all by yourself. Even the most crippled and vulnerable person cannot be influenced perfectly, therefore even he thinks and interprets for himself, even if he has no self-discrimination or subjectivity if that is possible. That is common sense once it comes into picture, though Im sure it could be worth debating.
Second of all, ok so I am a reflection of other humans because we all have one familiar chromosome so we all must have come from one mother this is correct though I doubt you knew about us all having one mother. This again about a human/reflection is rather arbitrary. I am a reflection of some pigmy/bushman in Africa because we both have darkhair, two testicals, and a knack for birth and death, who cares, I am a reflection of a dolphin because we are both warm blooded mammals.
Third and last my knoledge doesn't come from other humans that is too physical, I learn with or without them. I wake in a desert, I learn to find water because I must, not because someone told me I needed to find water in order to live. For me learning comes much easier when I do it myself, personal discovery is the best type of enlightenment, and if I choose not to share my discoveries how is that reflecting my knoledge base. My disposition comes from my surroundings and my abilities to adapt to them, not from another human.
When Maynard says we are all one mind, he means we are one because we are on the same astral plane, and are all energy trapped within a temporary shell. We are one mind becaue we are interdependent and our metaphysicality is joined during astral projection.
Look up the "One Mind Theory" from a couple months ago under the reflection post

[bohanman]

Not to disagree with you, but did you sit down with maynard and did he tell you that was what he means...
take the song as you want to, thats how it should be.

Maybe I didn't make my self clear, our ego's are built the way they are because of outer influences (social, etc), as well as other things. So no, I am not in anyway relating anything to what you are talking about, I don't know how you obtained that idea.
And to argue your "desert" idea...
You wake in a desert and you search for water because you know you need water to survive. But why do you know you need water to survive? Because previously you were told that you need water to survive, or you observed something of the sort which implied that water is neccesary for survival. Someone reflected that knowledge upon you during your lifetime. Now if you were meaning that if you are to wake in a desert with no prior knowledge, (since you did not make yourself very clear) such as the way an infant is born into the world with no knowledge of anything, living purely on impulse, how would you KNOW you needed water to survive if you didn't even know what water was?

[eslupminoyler]

I wasn't referring to the song, I was just disagreeing with your thoughts, what you said applies to much. Like I already said it is impossible not to think and interpret totally by yourself, taking what you wrote and telling you what you think is enforcing what you said about taking something as you want as an original thought. Just because I disagree or comment on your thoughts doesn't mean I don't acknowledge them or even disagree 100%, what we are doing now is reflecting, we are learning from eachother by analyzing. Even if Maynard told me exactly what the lyrics and music mean or represent, I could tell you, and most likely foul up his direct interpretation making it bias and leaving you to reflect my thoughts he reflected on me.
An infant doesn't live on impulse, it lives on instinct and opportunity, one instinct of an infant is to suck on its mothers breasts for milk. Im sure if the baby had the means to survive in a desert it would surely search for water.
For a better more infantile(no pun intended) way to display my disagreement with human reflection as a perfect distribution, take a person who lived in a cave with his family his whole life, he suddenly woke and ascended, once he reached the sunlight, he would look away from the sun, to block its temperence and shield his virginal eyes. How would he know how to do this? because of instinct and the human minds ability to form a collaboration with the body in both protection and perpetual growth, and yes reflection of other individuals is one facet of growth. The mind controls the body, so in absolution the greatest velocity of learning comes with desperation or necessesity.
Most of my information doesn't come from any sources, I have a large knoledge base, with comes from much reflection. Surroundings, intelligence, and personality all affect a persons ability and potency of reflection energy, i.e. brightness(double meaning).

[bohanman]

Ok I understand your point of view more clearly now... But with your last statement, claiming you have a huge knowledge base, which I don't doubt, dont get me wrong, but how can you say the knowledge you have was created by yourself? That is in essence what you are saying. That is impossible, there are ways to formulate new thoughts by yourself but one is able to do this because of the knowledge reflected upon him from others.

Oh and pardon my saying babies live on Impulse rather than instinct, you are correct. I should have said instinct instead.

[eslupminoyler]

That is perhaps the hardest concept I can think of to describe, I didn't say or mean that but now I am purplexed.
The question to ask is whether knowledge is created, or if is it like energy flowing and manipulated but also eternal and good. I suppose the best way to understand the possible creation of knowledge would be to look at it like a pyramid. The first levels are bases of knowledge, very ambiguous and culminating, very simple. Every brick could be a thought or a group of thought. As the Pyramid ascends the bricks become denser and heavier also more compact and attractive. The size of the pyramid correlates directly with the size of the base, the size of the base is scaled by the persons potential or i.q.
I suppose a thought is created by electrical synapses. When a new thought is created, it uses store thoughts for clues and the new thought is created. When this thought is verified, the storage is reininforced.
I am making this up.
Yes, it is impossible to create knowledge by yourself, sorry if it seemed like I meant that.
Is the knowledge I have created by myself? wow, that is like thinking of eternity. The Knowledge I have is not created by teachers, family, or myself. There is nothing that is not knowledge, I learn without thinking. Change is growth and death is the air above the last brick that creates the pyramid. Knowledge in essense is life and death, because everything in between is growth.

[bohanman]

ok this is taken straight from the interview done by Professor Christopher DiCarlo on philosophy. He asks maynard:

Prof: In Reflection you talk a good deal about losing or
getting rid of the ego in order to attain some further end.
What is it about the ego that prevents, or in some way,
blocks one from getting some greater end?

and maynard replies:

M: If you look at the cycles of the moon, it starts as a thin
crescent and then gradually waxes and becomes full; then i
gradually wanes back into another crescent and then is gone.
The moon reflects sunlight like humans reflect information.
We wax and wane and when we become full moons, are ego's
are full. We think we have this knowledge when in fact, the
information we have his pure. And it reflects or shines off of
us, is something we take credit for as though the moon could
take credit for the light it reflects from the sun. We have to
understand that we are ego-less just as the moon is without
light. It and we, are simply reflectors. The ego is not
respondsible for the information.

Go look in the articles section, date november 2001. Maybe maynard is kidding, what do I know?

[eslupminoyler]

I've read that already I really enjoy that article and I think he is right, I know that we reflect knowledge on one another, I never said otherwise.
I believe what I disagreed with was the idea we only learn by reflections of knowledge. Remember instint and adaption.

[kevork]

hello everyone,how r u?i just registered my nick,i couldn't read all ur posts,and i'm sorry for my english,cos it sux,anyways i would like to say what i think about reflection,maynard refers to reflection as enlightment ,the greatest step a human being can take is to kill his/her ego to reach to enlightment to get out of our unfortunate and materialistic world,and he says i may find peace with in the emptiness,cos emptiness is the only real place where someone can find peace of mind and stop leaving in doubts,and try to find himself and kill his ego,maynard is telling us the secret of life on his own way,to kill our ego,and i guess everything is very clear in this song there is no other meaning to it,everything is right infront of us..........and i would like to say again....killing our ego is the greatest thing we can accomplish........thank u.

[kevork]

and i would like to add some other stuff too,in that article of the interview of maynard with the professor,maynard is saying that we can gain knowledge from each other as the moon gains light from the sun,cos we r really all one mind we r related to each other in a way,we can gain information and new ideas about everything with meditation,and when we r full of knowledge and our ego's our full,that doesn't mean we can be egoistic,we can still kill our ego's,cos maynard mentions that our ego has nothing to do with the knowledge we have,cos a man of great knowledge can be an egoistic person and can not,we create our own ego,or the word "i" or we can kill it,and be greater,and wiser,and rach to a state of mind where we can find peace with in the emptiness,were we can embrace life as it was created without the materials that we r surrounded with right now,it is like going to the woods and living there alone to send positive energy to the world and killing ur ego to find peace within the emptiness.................u will find everything when u loose everything,specially ur ego.......i know this may sound a little bit awkward,cos someone might need sessions to understand it,and i hope some of u does,and find about the truth of our lives......................anyways thank u all.this was my idea about this wonderfull and divine song,this album is really a healing process,maynard didn't create this theories about life,he just expressed it in his own and beautifull way,trying to show his fans a further step in life that we can accomplish.....and again thank u all and take care....