Sunday, 13 November 2016

Significance of Speech

Each word as it is uttered makes a little form in etheric matter, just as a thought does in mental matter. Some of those forms are most objectionable. The word “hate,” for instance, produces a horrible form, so much so that, having seen its shape, I never use the word. We may say that we dislike a thing, or that we do not care about it, but we should never use the word “hate” more than we can help, for merely to see the form that it makes gives a feeling of acute discomfort. There are words, on the other hand, which produce beautiful forms, words which it is well to recite. All this might be worked out scientifically, and will be some day, I have no doubt, when people have time to do it. It may be said, however, in general that the words which are connected with desirable qualities produce pleasant forms, and those which are associated with evil qualities produce ugly forms.
Such word-forms are not determined by the thought which accompanies the word; the thought builds its own form in a higher type of matter. For example, that word “hate” is often used quite casually without any real hatred at all, when speaking, perhaps, of some article of food; that is a perfectly unnecessary use of the word, and it obviously does not convey any serious emotion; so that the astral hate-form is not produced; but the ugly etheric sound-form appears just as though the speaker really meant it. So clearly the word itself is not a good word. The same is true of the oaths and obscene words so often used amongst uneducated and uncultured people; the forms produced by some of these are of a peculiarly horrible nature when seen by clairvoyant sight. But it is unthinkable that anyone aspiring to be a disciple would pollute his lips with these. We often hear people using all sorts of loose slang phrases which in reality have no meaning or legitimate derivation. It is important that all these should be avoided by the student of occultism.

-C.W. Leadbeater, Masters and the Path

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