Speaker 1: True speech. Truth is known by practice. Only. Without sincerity,
Speaker 1: there can be no knowledge of truth, and true speech
Speaker 1: is the beginning of all sincerity. Truth, in all its
Speaker 1: native beauty and original simplicity, consists in abandoning and not
Speaker 1: doing all those things which are untrue, and embracing in
Speaker 1: doing all those things which are true. True speech is
Speaker 1: therefore one of the elementary beginnings in the life of truth.
Speaker 1: Falsehood and all forms of deception, slander, and all forms
Speaker 1: of evil speaking, these must be totally abandoned and abolished
Speaker 1: before the mind can receive even a small degree of
Speaker 1: spiritual enlightenment. The lyre in slanderer is lost in darkness.
Speaker 1: So deep is his darkness that he cannot distinguish between
Speaker 1: good and evil, And he persuades himself that his lying
Speaker 1: in evil speaking are necessary in good, that he is
Speaker 1: thereby protecting himself and other people. Let the would be
Speaker 1: student of higher things look to himself and beware of
Speaker 1: self delusion. If he is given to uttering words that deceive,
Speaker 1: or to speaking evil of others, If he speaks an insincerity, envy,
Speaker 1: or malice, then he has not yet begun to study
Speaker 1: higher things. He may be studying metaphysics or miracles, or
Speaker 1: psychic phenomena or astral wonders. He may be studying how
Speaker 1: to commune with invisible beings, to travel invisibly during sleep,
Speaker 1: or to produce curious phenomena. He may even study spirituality
Speaker 1: theoretically and as a mere book study. But if he
Speaker 1: is a deceiver and a backbiter, the higher life is
Speaker 1: hidden from him. For the higher things are these uprightness, sincerity, innocence, purity, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, humility, patience, pity, sympathy,
Speaker 1: self sacrifice, joy, good will, love. And he who would
Speaker 1: study them, know them, and make them his own, must
Speaker 1: practice them. There is no other way. Lying and evil
Speaker 1: speaking belong to the lowest forms of spiritual ignorance, and
Speaker 1: there can be no such thing as spiritual enlightenment while
Speaker 1: they are practiced. Their parents are selfishness and hatred. Slander
Speaker 1: is akin to lying, but it is even more subtle,
Speaker 1: as it is frequently associated with indignation, and by assuming
Speaker 1: more successfully the appearance of truth, it ensnares many who
Speaker 1: would not tell a deliberate falsehood. For there are two
Speaker 1: sides to slander. There is the making of repeating of it,
Speaker 1: and there is the listening to it and acting upon it.
Speaker 1: The slanderer would be powerless without a listener. Evil words
Speaker 1: require an ear that is receptive to evil, in which
Speaker 1: they may fall before they can flourish. Therefore, he who
Speaker 1: listens to a slanderer, who believes it and allows himself
Speaker 1: to be influenced against the person whose character and reputation
Speaker 1: are defamed, is in the same position as the one
Speaker 1: who framed or repeated the evil report. The evil speaker
Speaker 1: is a positive slander. The evil listener is a passive slander.
Speaker 1: The two are co operators in the propagation of evil.
Speaker 1: Slander is a common vice and a dark and deadly one.
Speaker 1: An evil report begins in ignorance and pursues its blind
Speaker 1: way and darkness. It generally takes its rise in a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: Someone feels that he or she has been badly treated
Speaker 1: and filled with indignation and resentment, unburdens himself to his
Speaker 1: friends and others in vehement language, exaggerating the enormity of
Speaker 1: the supposed offense, on account of the feeling of injury
Speaker 1: by which he is possessed, listen to and sympathized with
Speaker 1: the listeners without hearing the other person's version of what
Speaker 1: has taken place, And on no other proof than the
Speaker 1: violent words of an angry man or woman, become cold
Speaker 1: in their attitude towards the one spoken against, and repeat
Speaker 1: to others what they have been told, And as such
Speaker 1: repetition is always more or less inaccurate. A distorted and
Speaker 1: altogether untrue report is soon passing from mouth to mouth.
Speaker 1: It is because slander is such a common vice that
Speaker 1: it can work the suffering and injury that it does.
Speaker 1: It is because so many not deliberate wrongdoers, and unconscious
Speaker 1: of the nature of the evil into which they so
Speaker 1: easily fall, are ready to allow themselves to be influenced
Speaker 1: against one whom they have hitherto regarded as honorable, that
Speaker 1: an evil report can do its deadly work. Yet its
Speaker 1: work is only amongst those who have not altogether acquired
Speaker 1: the virtue of true speech, the cause of which is
Speaker 1: a truth loving mind. When one who has not entirely
Speaker 1: freed himself from repeating or believing an evil report about
Speaker 1: another hears of an evil report about himself, his mind
Speaker 1: becomes a flame and burning resentment. His sleep is broken,
Speaker 1: and his peace of mind is destroyed. He thinks the
Speaker 1: cause of all his suffering is the other man and
Speaker 1: what the other man has said about him, and is
Speaker 1: ignorant of the truth that the root and cause of
Speaker 1: his suffering lies in his own readiness to believe in
Speaker 1: evil report about another. The virtuous man, he who has
Speaker 1: attained to true speech, and whose mind is sealed against
Speaker 1: even the appearance of evil speaking, cannot be injured and
Speaker 1: disturbed by any evil reports concerning himself. And although his
Speaker 1: reputation may for a time be stained in the minds
Speaker 1: of those who are prone to suggestions of evil, his
Speaker 1: integrity remains untouched and his character unsoiled. For no one
Speaker 1: can be stained by the evil deeds of another, but
Speaker 1: only by his own wrong doing. And so through all misrepresentation, misunderstanding,
Speaker 1: and contumely he is untroubled and unrevengeful. His sleep is undisturbed,
Speaker 1: and his mind remains in peace. True speech is the
Speaker 1: beginning of a pure, wise and well ordered life. If
Speaker 1: one would attain to purity of life, if he would
Speaker 1: lessen the evil and suffering of the world, let him
Speaker 1: abandon falsehood and slander and thought and word, Let him
Speaker 1: avoid even the appearance of these things. For there are
Speaker 1: no lies in slanders so deadly as those which are
Speaker 1: half truths. And let him not be a participant in
Speaker 1: evil speaking by listening to it. Let him also have
Speaker 1: compassion on the evil speaker, knowing how such a one
Speaker 1: is binding himself to suffering and unrest. For no liar
Speaker 1: can know the bliss of truth. No slander can enter
Speaker 1: into the Kingdom of peace by the words which he utters.
Speaker 1: Is a man's spiritual condition declared by these? Also is
Speaker 1: he finally and infallibly adjudged. For as the Divine Master
Speaker 1: of the Christian world has declared, by thy words, shalt
Speaker 1: thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned,