Akath kahani prem ki, kachu kahi na jaaye,
Goonge keri sarkara, khaaye aur muskaaye
The story of love cannot be told, there are no words for it. Similar to how a mute can taste the sweetness of sugar but not convey the taste in any manner other than by smiling.
And that is the simple thing. Think of it this way, we know sugar tastes sweet, but imagine there is a friend who has never tasted sugar and doesn’t know what sweetness as a taste is? How can we explain to her/him the taste of sugar? If we tell her/him its sweet, he’ll ask what “sweet” means. If we tell her/him “sweet” is a taste, he’ll ask how does it feel? And to that we can have no answer. We can tell her/him sweet is the taste of sugar, or cake, or jaggery, etc. But if he has not tasted any of these, there is no way to convey the taste of sugar and the meaning of sweetness to the other person.
So this situation, we’ll ask her/him to eat the sugar. And he may ask, is the taste of sugar so complicated that sugarcane needs to be melted, filtered, clarified, decolored and then crystallized in order to be able to taste it?
Or consider a different example. Someone is blind by birth, and asks us what light is. How can we explain? Light is a wave formed by electromagnetic interactions? Light is the thing that comes from sun? Light is what enables us to see?
None of these can define what light actually is. We need to see light to know light. If the man is given eyes (lets say by a surgery or some way), he just needs to open her/his eyes and look. He will know in an instant what light is.
Similarly, that is all the reason for Vedas, Upanishad, Geeta, etc. to exist. They are all the attempts of someone to define the taste of sugar and the meaning of light for us.
And everyone tries to explain in their own way. Just like everyone will explain to us the definition of light in their own way. One guy will say, light helps us see. The other guy will say light is electromagnetic radiation. A third guy will say light is the absence of darkness.
All of them are true, all of them are trying to say something to explain it to us and to help us easily grasp the concept. If we could, all it would take is a moment to open our eyes and see the light, and all the explanations and definitions will be put to rest. But since we can’t do that, others are trying their best to break down the meaning of light to us.
So in a way, Vedas, Upanishad, etc. are like Dumb Charades. There is just one simple, easy, the word that someone is trying to tell we. But they can do so only by actions. And so it may take hours before they’re able to explain the word to we by their actions. But throughout, the word is never complicated, it is the medium of delivery that complicates things.
Note: The above first appeared in the form of a Quora Post on October 28, 2019. https://qr.ae/pNecwx
