"Do you understand me?" asks the grown up and means: "Can I feel safe in the relationship with you?" When the answer comes: "No, not at all," then the insecurity grows and the wish comes up to go on talking till safety is restored.
So language serves also serves as an instrument of the ego to reassure itself about itself, in an effort to reduce its fears. By talking and sharing it wants to create safety. This is why people like to talk so much and so often. For instance, when a few people attend a concert or a movie, everyone is focussed on oneself during the performance. Afterwards, the need for talking arises on how to create the understanding necessary for restoring a shared reality after a time of singular experiences, and thus restore social security. It is as if the storage of safety is used up after some time, so that we have to rebuild and reload it now and them. Our egos need the coordination with the other egos to be able to relax.
Thinking as Inner Talking
Large parts of mental activities are internalized talking. E.g., when I write a text like this, an inner voice talks the sentences prior to writing them down. Each change I want to make is first discussed in an inner discourse. Also here, thinking acts as protection as what I write should make sense for others. When someone told me that my writing is incomprehensible or silly, this creates an insecurity in my ego which I want to prevent by writing as clearly as possible.
It is obvious as well that I become unbalanced when reading a text which I consider as uncomprehensive or silly. By such a labelling I try to create safety again. By asking someone else to share my opinion I can even do more to it.
The sphere of speechlessness
We do not need language in the sphere of ultimate truth. Here, everything is crystal clear and does not need any explanation. We do not have any insecurity of doubts so we are not dependent on reassurement. We even cannot communicate what we experience as it cannot put into words, according to all mystics. To talk about the unspeakable is trying to translate the absolute into the world of the relative. In any, even the best translations from one conventional language to the other, lot of the original meanings get lost.
Yet in this case, even the undertaking of translation is bound to fail from the beginning. For it attempts to transfer nonlingual experience into language. This would mean to press the infinite into the form of the finite. Timelessness should fit into the framework of time.
So as soon as we are talking about the states of experiencing the absolute, we are already back in the world of conventional consciousness. Here, some share our understanding, some don't. Some affirm our view, others devaluate us. The more we talk the more we get entangled in the complex pitfalls of the conventional world, which are sodden with fears and mistrust.
The problem of esoteric
Mysticism lives in a communicative nowhere land due to the difficulties and misunderstandings connected with expressing mystical experience with the means of language. This is why mystics in all societies got into problems as soon as language became a media of accusation and justification in the course of history. To share experiences which question the conventional consensus and to state additionally that these highest insights are only available in a certain framework of experience, has been a scandal which caused prosecution and severe punishment. As a consequence, many teachers passed their wisdom only to inaugurated students which again fed the distrust of the outsiders.
The mystic would say, "When you want to understand what I mean you have to enter the same realm of experience in which I am." This realm is not easily accessible of anybody, so it is "esoteric" which means only open for insiders. Yet anybody can become an insider and it is not necessary to become part of a school, cult or secret society. Still, everyone enters this realm by his/her unique entrance.
The critic of esoteric might demand: "So tell me, what there is inside." The mystic might answer, "I cannot express it in words." This will cause the critic to frown and say, "What a nonsense. Everything can be expressed in words. How should I or anyone else otherwise understand what this is all about?" The mystic will reply, "You can find this truth only inside yourself. By closing your eyes and exploring inside yourself it will become apparent to you." When the critic follows the suggestion he will probably become a meditator, when he refrains from it he will stick to his skepticism and talk disapprovingly about the mystic and about mysticism.
This is the border between the rational and the transrational area, the border between the conventions and the ultimate. For crossing it, the conventions of language have to be left behind as well, including the ideas of general validity based on them. Spiritual insights gain their validity in the sphere of introspection and who knows this world can easily communicate with someone who is familiar with it without any need of conventional language. Those who do not know it will not have any use for verbal descriptions similar to explaining colours to a blind person.
The differing accesses
Some people need a teacher or guide, others find themselves suddenly and spontaneously in the sphere of the absolute. Some stick to a certain method for a longer period of time, others change from one practice to the next. Some collect the insights into the infinite like pieces of a puzzle, to others a gigantic door opens up at once. Some of the experiences are singular and fleeing, others return in a similar form, some stay permanently, others can be recalled by will.
Some reach the sphere of the absolute via language. They hear words or read texts which send them on the journey. But as soon as they have found a place where they know that they have arrived, they realize that they do not need language any more for being able to stay in this place, and that they do neither need language to return to it. So silence which is also the freedom from words, becomes a steady companion. Slowly and persistently, the power of silence becomes stronger than the talkativeness of the conventional world.
Some of the saints like to talk and like to talk a lot. They want others to take part in their experiences true to the quote: "For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." (Luc 6, 45)
Some of the listeners are taken away by such speeches as the words are soaked in a spirit which lets them make out what is meant. It is the clarity and power of the speech and not the words which convey the good message. They are permeated by a sense of not-wanting which comes from inner freedom.
There are ears used to only hearing what they expect and to reject anything challenging the habits of listening. They will have difficulties in being touched by the talk of a saint. They will perceive power instead of surrender, craving for approval instead of love and stubbornness instead of freedom. The tenser the ego is, the tenser its range of receptivity (chronical stress stiffens the muscles which move the auditory ossicles, thus limiting the ability to hear certain frequencies). The fearful ego only hears what it wants to hear, which is mainly itself with its anxieties and cravings. When hearing has been opened and expanded, it becomes easier to hear the frequencies of the final truth and to resonate with it.
Listening consciously to music (not just allowing it as a kind of background noise or just listening to one's favorite hits repetitiously) changes habits of hearing. So this can serve as a good preparation exercise for leaving the areas of convention behind and gaining a taste of the absolute. This is why many musicians feel close to the absolute.
There are mystics who do not talk at all or just converse about trivialities of daily life. They are only present with those who want to be together with them in silence. And there are others who only look deeply into the eyes of people and embrace them.
These are some of the possibilities of hinting at the great mystery, which beyond conventional talk awaits everyone who want to open up to it.
"These words are for someone who needs words to understand. But someone who understands without words - how would he need words? ... Someone who hears a low tone, how would he need talking and screaming?" (Rumi)
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