Naming is Not Learning

Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness.  Yet accept them not as your reality.
-ACIM, W-184:11:1-2

Is naming learning?

We name every thing and when we name it we assume we know it; we assume we are learning. We name objects we share.  We name concepts and thoughts.  We name the world around us and we name ourselves and each other.  Everything we name we separate  and surround it with space from other things.  We draw a circle in the sand around it, isolating it, and we point at it saying, "I know that!" "I leaned that!"  'That's a cup!'  "That's a tree!"  "That's a mathematical theory!"  "That is Sally Sue!"

It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more.  Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared. (ACIM,w-184: 5: 2-3) We communicate separation and distinction but are we learning?  Yes we can share ideas and images of things in this way but do we really know them, do we truly know ourselves?  Is the ultimate learning knowing who we are and why we are here?

By giving something a name we create an idea of reality that isn't real.  We seldom look beneath the name once it is placed on someone or something.  They/it becomes that name. When they/it are a name they are attributed to a thought form, a mental picture or an idea.  The essence of what it is gets covered by that name.  We do not see it for what it really is when we assume we know it just because we named it.  We are doing the opposite of knowing when we do that, are we not?

There is no meaning in naming.

Learning that stops with what the world can teach stops short of meaning. (ACIM W-184:7:4) Naming something that has no meaning is not learning...it is simply creating confusion and illusion.  That which is real cannot be named. Or if it is named...that name has no meaning.  There is One Thing  that means everything yet that One Thing has no name, therefore everything has One Name. Confused yet? lol.  I am.  

Knowing God?

"God" is everything.  Yet God is a name used by a select few to describe that Everything. According to tradition "God" may have different names and regardless of what that name is, It is a name when God is so much more. Even the Bible has many different names for "God". Yet God describes the  namelessness in Exodus 3:14-15.  God says to Moses, "I am Who I am"...basically saying...I have no name, I don't need one  because I am is Everything.

When we use that term, "God" we connect This Everything automatically with an idea, a mental picture and assume we know God in whatever form we were conditioned to believe we know.  How can we know God when we know so little...when we are lost in a world of names and separation?  We know a name, an idea, and have a mental picture as vague as it may be but we do not know God!  

Learning and Communicating in the world of form

So yes we need to use symbols : words and names while we are here.  That is how our world operates but the trick is to not be deceived by them.  To know that which we look at is so much more than a name. We have no true knowledge of the thing we point to and label.  We just made it in to a thought form.  True knowledge is not thought form, it is experience.

The only learning; the Only Name

The only thing we really need to learn here is what God is.  Our learning objective  here is to know God (and I use that term as I was conditioned to) .  "Be still and Know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10).  The only name we have to know in whatever form we utter it in...is that One Name, That Name that has no name and that is Everything.

Until we get that we can use names but we  must recognize that they are only a means of navigating through this world of darkness ( a world without true knowing of That which is Everything).   Names do not make Life real.

ACIM

https://www.allaboutgod.com/names-of-god.htm