Practical Metaphysics by Eric Butterworth

Lecture 4 — The Spoken Word

"Oughtness to Isness"

Eric Butterworth Practical Metaphysics The Spoken Word

Summaries:

046 - "Life and death are in the power of the tongue" Proverbs 18:21; "Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man." Matthew 15:11.
047 - "And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. " Matthew 12:36-37
048 - Overlooking the matter of speech is like driving a car with the brakes on. What we say counts. "Casual" words and "causal" words. The unconscious mind can't take a joke.
049 - The creative power of the spoken word. The creative logos creates through us. Pythagorean mathematics deals with the idea that all numbers proceed from unity and resolve back to unity.
050 "In the beginning was the word." John 1:1. should be translated "in principle" the word was God or "in Principle was the creative Word." "Our words are a visible showing of a creative flow within you that is connected with the root process of the universe."
051 - Therefore do not put into words that which you do not want to see manifested in our life.
052 - A good rule is "let something good be said." Let something of the logos, the God principle be said so to keep the creative flow.
053 - "Oughtness to Isness" statements. Keep a notebook about "how do I think things ought to be?" Then turn the statement around to an "isness" statement, or how it would be said if it were actually true. It may not be true in life, but it is true in divine realism.
054 - "Not my words but the words of Him who sent me." Affirmations are not to make something true, but rather articulating that which is true in a spiritual appraisal of life. We are letting spirit be outformed in mind, body and affairs.
055 - "Don't listen to what you're saying, but rather say what you are listening to." We must take time to listen before we speak. "Don't ask, listen!"
056 - Words do not have power, but they can be imbued with power if they are tuned in to the divine logos. Affirmations have power only because they are spoken from a spiritual consciousness.
057 - Before every conversation, we should prepare ourselves with a moment of inner listening. Get in tune with the Divine Mind counterpart. "All good communication comes from inner communion."
058 - We must practice verbally promising and creative speech. We must be disciplined in speech. Do not be verbally permissive!
059 - Profanity frustrates the creative logos. Poor vocabulary is poor communication.
060 Summary of this lecture. Voice and intonation. Does your speech properly represent you?
061 - Homework assignment: seven day verbal diet.
062 "Let something good be said" meditation

Audio

Transcript

046 Life and death are in the power of the tongue

One of the most remarkable statements of the entire Bible is the Word, "Life and death are in the power of the tongue." This is an especially startling idea because most of us, if we're really honest with ourselves, have given very little thought or attention to our words. To the things we say. We've simply taken speech for granted. We learn to speak, for the most part through no conscious effort. By the time we're old enough to understand these strange powerful and dour-full noises that we call speech, it has become simply reflex behavior, such as eating or chewing or breathing or coughing. We just talk. What is there to say about it? You just say what you want to say.

So it hardly occurs to us that there is anything about speech to be understood. Most of us never really come to understand the power of speech all through our lives. We talk a lot about the art of conversation. This is considered to be especially good manners for a social situation. The person keeps up a perpetual babble of nothings without giving any serious thought to what he's talking about or whether the things he says have anything constructive or creative to add to the world or to the situation at all.

In America we have seen a great swing all the way from fad to serious preoccupation concerning dieting. An awful lot of folks are on a diet right now, and I wouldn't even ask for a show of hands because you probably wouldn't be surprised at how many are. It depends on the time of the week. Sometimes we go on a diet on Monday and we're off it on Tuesday. But a watch word has been the nutritionist's axiom, "You are what you eat." Certainly this is a very important realization, that whatever we put into our bodies has a tremendous influence on our health and well being. I'm sure all to of us are giving much more serious thought to that than we did in previous times.

The student of metaphysics comes very quickly to agree with Jesus and his rather startling words when He says, "Not that which enterith into the mouth defileth the man, but that which cometh out of the mouth." In other words, what comes out of your mouth is really more important than what goes in. At first this seems to go against the grain with the diet faddist, but it really doesn't at all. It's an added thing. It's a supplementary consciousness, something that is equally important. So we might better, or at least also, engage in a diet or a fast from negative words. That's probably a little more difficult than a fast from carbohydrates and sweets and various other things that we're trying to cut down on.

047 Every idle word give account in the day of judgment

Jesus also said, "And I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof on the day of judgement. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thou words thou shalt be condemned." Every idle word will be of account on the day of judgement. This of course has been misunderstood because we've had this old idea that the day of judgement refers to the time when the roll is called up yonder and you'll come up before God and He looks in the big black book and says, "Well, now you said some terrible things down there." This isn't it at all. This is not talking about a point in time. The day of judgement refers to a point of reckoning. The reckoning process of the law. The day of judgement is constant, because law is inexorable in it's results. So every day is a day of judgement, and every day is a day of salvation. The day of judgement in terms of your words is when you pay the piper. If you make some negative statements such as, "Every time it rains I catch my death of cold," then you catch the cold and that's the day of judgement for you, you see. In other words, you get the results in body and affairs of the words that you have so idly spoken.

048 Overlooking the matter of speech

It's amazing that in the teaching of metaphysics there's a tendency to deal with the power of thought, the work of the subconscious mind, the self-image psychology with the imagination and feeling, and all these things, which are all very important and very helpful, and yet to completely overlook this very important matter of speech. In other words, a person may deal with truths of mystic power and still allow a steady stream of negations to fall unchecked from their lips. In a very real sense it's much like trying to drag your car with the brakes on. You can do it, but it's not very effective, and you'll certainly burn out your brakes. And it's not very good for energy either.

How often the sincere student of truth at work on some annoying problem will be praying and treating and affirming, affirmations and words that he uses diligently and repeatedly, and he seems to feel that what he says at other times really doesn't count. In other words, he may have a statement, "I'm a child of God. I'm one with life, vitality, and spirit now," and 10 minutes later he's saying, "Boy, I sure feel pooped." It's like saying King's X, this really doesn't count. The only thing that counts is the positive truths that I'm muttering. But as we say so often, there is no King's X in the verbal expression of truth. The subconscious mind does not discriminate. In other words, your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between your causal words and your casual words, or your causal thoughts and your casual thoughts. You may insist that you were only kidding when you said, "That just burns me up," or some similar cliché, but as we say, the subconscious mind can't take a joke, and it somehow registers this consciousness, and it assumes that this is a serious projection of positive power expressed in a negative way.

Jesus says we will give account in the reckoning process of law for every word, even idle words. I doubt if any of us really takes this serious enough. Because we assume that the only thing that really counts in terms of this power of the creative word is when we're sitting in the silence when we sit down in a quiet place and we have our truth books before us and we begin to deal with metaphysical things. And we close the book, like when you leave the church and go home and take off your Sunday meeting clothes and you can get back to your normal vernacular, your four-letter words and all the clichés that are so much a part of everyday speech. That really doesn't count, because after all this is not really what I'm seriously involved in in metaphysics. We're talking about practical metaphysics, not the kind of metaphysics that is very abstract and abstruse that you deal with in books. Practical metaphysics means the practice of metaphysics, practicing every moment of your life. With all the words that we speak, even the idle words, Jesus said, we give account for. In other words, we have to pay the piper for, and that's something that is certainly challenging.

049 The creative power of the spoken word

Man is a creative creature, and as we've said, the cutting edge of this creativity, the cutting edge of this whole involvement in metaphysics is the power of the spoken word. Emerson tells us, "Man is an inlet and may become an outlet to all there is in God." All there is in God. More than we know we body forth the divine essence, the whole creative power of the universe, through our words. Through the consciousness in which we express ourselves.

The Hebrews were taught early that, "The word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart that thou mayst do it." And this word, in terms of the true metaphysical aspect of this Biblical teaching, is the creative logos. The creative logos creates us and creates through us. It is the one. It is the infinite eye. In Deuteronomy we find the sacred crown of the Jews in the words, "Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one." Those of you who have a Jewish background realize that this is the ancient Shema. Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one. One God, one Lord, one power, one presence, one force, one dynamic activity. This is the fundamental unity realization that actually we find way back in the time of the Pythagoras. The Pythagorean system of mathematics deals with the idea that all numbers are reversible. They precede from unity and they're resolvable back into unity. They all come out of one and they're all resolvable back into one. It has been said that if we had a full knowledge of the one, of this unity of this wholeness in the spiritual and the fundamental physical one, that we could dispense with all learning, with all mathematics, with all physics, because we would have the whole all wrapped up in this consciousness of one. This is the Pythagorean system.

In metaphysics the same premise holds. That all things begin with the one. The Lord our God is one. One presence, one power, one dynamic activity. We live in the one and we are projections out of this one, that which we call being, infinite mind, God, divine love, etc.

050 In Principle was the creative Word

This is the meaning of John's powerful statement. And we read, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. All things were made through him." In the original, this word was the fundamental concept of logos. In the beginning was the logos. Also, to understand this, you have to realize that the word beginning is in a sense a mis-translation, because the word is in principio, so the translation which his more accurate is in principle. In other words, a beginning not in point of time, but a beginning in point of foundation. In principle the word was God. The word. The logos. So if we put this in terms of a practical realization today, we know that that says the root of your being is the creative word, the center lie, the basic one, from which you become an outlet. You're an outlet from this fundamental basic consciousness of oneness, which is the root of your being.

So your words, more than you know, and certainly we must know it if we are going to make any heads or tails out of this fundamental metaphysical process, your words are the visible out showing of a creative flow within you that is connected with the very root process of the universe. Your words are the outpouring of that consciousness.

051 Do not put into words that which you do not want

So, therefore, you see, it becomes logical that it is simply not good sense to put into words or to formulate into verbalisms that which you really do not want to see manifest in your life.

Just stop and think a little bit about the typical conversations that pass between us and the typical expressions that come out of us in exasperation or in moments when we're off guarded. The things we say, the things we put into words. Things we haven't the slightest desire to see manifest in our life, but we go right on saying them anyway. In other words, it's like playing Russian roulette, and every once in a while the bullet comes into the chamber, and pow! Then we say, "How could this happen to me? God doesn't like me anymore."

Since we're verbal creatures, constantly involved in communication one with another, it's vitally important, as the Proverb says, to "set thou a seal upon my lips," to really watch the words that come out of our mouths. This takes a lot of discipline, because most of us have been totally verbally permissive. We talk about the permissiveness of young people in our day, and people have always talked about this of course. Back in the days of Socrates they were complaining about the permissive young people. But most of us are more permissive in terms of the kind of things that we say, the kind of statements we make. The kind of self-limiting cliches that we utter. We're simply going to have to become a little more concerned about what comes out of our mouth, and it takes a lot of discipline.

In other words, we must be watchful that we say the kind of things that we really want to say. The things that we really want to see manifest in our life, not the kind of things that we impetuously say out of force of habit. And these habit patterns run deep. Most of us have a long list of cliches and habit patterns of speech that we utter over and over and over again. If we could take a tape recorder, listening to ourselves during one day, we would be shocked if we would really objectively analyze the kind of words that we are expressing in terms of the positive power of words, we would be shocked. We would almost wonder how we could have possibly survived when there is this principle that the power of life and death are in the power of the tongue. Obviously, there is the grace of God involved, or else if all the words were held against us, we would have a rough time in our lives because we say so many negative things. A constant stream of negatives.

It's almost as if we compete with one another to see how negative we can be. As a matter of fact, some people say, "Well, after all, I think you've got to be realistic." Usually the word realistic to the average person means to be negative. Let's be realistic. Let's be negative. Let's say some terrible things about one another. Let's be realistic.

It's time we came to understand that true realism goes deep beneath the outward manifestation of life. If you're really going to be realistic about yourself, you're going to see yourself not by appearances, as Jesus said, but by righteous judgement. You're going to see yourself in terms of the divine potential that is within you, see yourself in terms of this divinity process which is fundamental to you. If you're really going to be realistic, then look beyond the appearance, see the truth. Don't be negative. Of course, that takes a lot of commitment to make that kind of change.

Now I'm not saying we should simply mouth a lot of platitudes and be the so-called Pollyanna and always have something nice and pleasant to say about everything, refusing to look at things as they really are. Obviously, we have to face up to certain needs. We have to be willing to recognize that occasionally I hurt, occasionally I need money, occasionally there's something in my life that's not working as it ought to work.

052 Let something good be said

A good rule that I use, and many of you have heard me express this so often, is let something good be said. In other words, no matter what else you may be required to say, let something good be said. Let something of the God principle, something of the creative logos, something of the one, be articulated, so that you can keep your flow and keep your so-called realistic appraisal of things, at least in the spiritual realism that keeps you related and in focus with this divine process.

One of the ways that you can turn your expression from negative to positive is to accept your responsibility in achieving the good you desire. In other words, one can usually feel pretty outside of it all when he's sitting in his office and he looks around him and he sees how negative people are and how confused the office is, and how outrageous is the kind of performance of the coworkers and how excessive are the demands of the employer and so forth, and he can say, "Well, this is a terrible place to work." He can say this as if he's on the outside looking in, you see. But the important thing is to accept your responsibility in such a situation. For instance, if there's a lot of tension, a lot of pressure, a lot of bickering, and a lot of un-productiveness in your place of work, you are there. You're a part of it. And so as we say so often, you make the difference, or you can. Let it begin with you. Let the answer begin to unfold through your consciousness.

So let's be realistic, but let's be realistic in the sense that if this is ever going to change, it has to start somewhere, and it might as well start through a change in my consciousness, in my attitude. This is true whether it's in your office or whether it's talking about the world or the crime in the city or the confusion in neighborhoods, or whatever. Let it begin with you.

053 Ought-ness to Is-ness statements

One of the ways you can do this, and a lot of good positive Christians have worked with this particular process, take time when ... Maybe in the midst of your morning situation at the office when you're still incensed about how terrible things are going around here, take a moment, just a timeout. Take a little notebook that you keep purely for your positive thoughts, and do a little scribbling. On this, write down as a rebuttal to how terrible things are, how do you think things ought to be in this office. How do you think the boss ought to treat the workers? How do you think workers should perform in terms of their productivity? How do you think the whole system should be working? If you really could have the kind of thing that you feel should be there, how do you think it ought to function. Quite often we've never really thought about that. We're always outside picky, picky, picky about everything.

It's like they say about politics. It's easy to throw stones. It's the ins against the outs, but when the outs get in, then the ins begin to talk about the ins that were and were now out, and they're all throwing stones at one another, but nobody seems to have any positive solutions. So when you're sitting in your office griping about everything, take your little notebook out and write down a series of thoughts of how you think the situation ought to unfold. How do you think it should function? How do you think people should act? How do you think workers should perform? When you say it in terms of an ought-ness, then you can turn these statements around. We suggest this often as a way of creating an affirmative, positive approach. Turn the ought-ness statements around to is-ness statements. In other words, now say them as if they are actually true. In other words, you could say, for instance, "This office should be a place of cooperation and mutual trust, leading to effective work and good business." Okay. This is the way it ought to be. Now how do you think it is, in terms of divine realism? So now you rewrite that, and you put it down, "This office is a place of cooperation and mutual trust, leading to effective work and good business."

This is Pollyanna, some would say, because that isn't really what it is, because, after all, everybody can see all this terrible stuff going on. But in denying realism, you're looking beyond the appearance and you're trying to get yourself in tune with the creative flow so that you can be a part of the emerging solution rather than remaining as a part of the problem. That's always true. You're going to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Which shall it be? As the Bible says, "Choose ye this day whom you will serve." And you have to decide. But I must tel you this, and I feel it very strongly, that if you continue to gripe about it and complain about it and say how awful people are and how awful the boss is and so forth, you're just as much a part of the problem as the people you think are doing all the dirty work. So it's one or the other. Make up your mind you're going to be part of the solution in a divine realistic approach, and begin to affirm the kind of positive things that you would like to see manifest in that office. Then suddenly you'll become a part of a creative flow.

I think of that in a more personal sense, in terms of your physical condition. Instead of blurting out, as all of us are apt to do occasionally, "I feel simply terrible today," the question is how do you think you ought to feel? Now as a student of practical metaphysics, you know that you ought to feel good, because you know that we're dealing with this power of creative life within us and so forth. There should be a way to release this positive power. Quite often metaphysical students feel guilty and are even afraid to admit that they have any problems and so forth, because they know that they ought to feel good.

So when you find yourself blurting out some sort of a negative, take your little notebook again and write a few thoughts about how you think you ought to feel. Very quickly, you know, "Well as a spiritual being I ought to experience health and wholeness," right? Obviously that's the way it ought to be. Now rewrite that in terms of an I am realization, so that you say, "I am a spiritual being. I am established in health and wholeness now." This is something you do within yourself. You don't let other people know this because they wouldn't understand. They might think you've gone off half-cocked in some religious kooky organization.

We're dealing with the realistic appraisal of life from a metaphysical point of view. Not a physical point of view, from a metaphysical point of view. So you're referring to yourself, "I am a spiritual being. I am established in health and wholeness now." Now you're dealing creatively with your problem rather than simply indulging in the problems. Now you're going to be solution oriented rather than problem oriented. As long as you keep saying over and over again, "I feel terrible, I'm never going to get well. Oh, I don't know what's going on within me. I can't seem to get a decent day ahead of me." Begin to see it in a positive way. See yourself in positive light and affirming the truth for yourself. I am a spiritual being. I am established in health and wholeness now. And then not only say that as a spiritual treatment, which is one thing, but let that be the basis of the kind of communication that is going to utter forth out of your lips in terms of the things you say about yourself and about life and so forth. You're dealing creatively with our problem.

054 Not my words but the words of Him who sent me

Now let's be clear on this, because it's so easy to lose what is involved. When you affirm "I am a spiritual being and I'm established in health and wholeness now," you're not saying this to make it true. And it's not going to be true just because you say it, you see. This is not what practical metaphysics is all about. It's not saying a lot of platitudes and if you say them long enough they're going to become real. You're actually articulating that which is true in a spiritual realistic appraisal of life. You're getting your speech into the universal flow and you're letting the creative logos be out formed in your mind and your body and your affairs.

Remember the time that Jesus was out with the disciples on the sea and there was this tremendous storm, and they awaken him in the middle of the night because they were all very fearful, which his indicative that it must have been a terrible storm, because, after all, these were hardened seamen. They said, "Master, Master, save us, we perish." He looked and he very quickly took appraisal of the thing, and then He spoke the word of peace, and the winds stilled and the disciples looked at one another and said, "My God, what kind of man is this? Even the storms obey him." So it was called a miracle. Down to this day we put this application of a miracle upon all the things that Jesus did, such as he spoke the word and the 5000 people were fed. He spoke the word and people were healed. They got up and walked. The blind suddenly saw. He spoke the word of truth and Lazarus even came forth from the dead after being three days in the tomb. A miracle. Unbelievable things.

Jesus gave us a key, and it's a key that is rarely uttered. It's a key that I have hardly heard mentioned, even in metaphysics strangely enough, because it's a very dynamic and very important key that takes attention away from the thought of speaking a lot of magic words so that things happen as a result of my magic words. He said, "The words I speak are not my words, but the words of Him who sent me." See what he's pointing to here? "The words I speak are not mine. Not I, Jesus, say Lazarus come forth, but when I say Lazarus come forth, these are not my words, but I have gotten myself out of the way and I am allowing the creative logos to express through me and to be articulated in the form of my words," you see. So the ego is not involved. I'm not saying this to make it true. He didn't have to say, "Lazarus come forth, come forth, come forth. Please come forth so I won't look like a fool before all these people." He didn't say that at all. It says he lifted up his eyes to heaven.

This is startling because we've always thought of heaven up there somewhere, but he says the kingdom of heaven doesn't come with observation. It's neither here nor there. It's within you. So when he looked within, looked away from the experience, got himself in tune with the realization that he was a creative expression of infinite power, as he got himself totally out of the way and allowed this creative logos to be expressed and articulated through his own words as he said, "Lazarus come forth." And the power flowed forth through his words, through his consciousness, to accomplish that whereto it was sent. This is a very vital point. I'm not saying that we should all go out and try to raise people from the dead or to feed the 5000 or to walk on water. We've got a lot more practical mundane things to take care of in our own lives, in terms of getting employment, in terms of keeping our body sound and whole, in terms of getting along with our coworkers, and so forth. These are vital things that can be accomplished if we know that the words I speak are not my words, but the words of Him who sent me.

So often the student begins to use affirmations and metaphysical treatments, and he mouths them dramatically. He says, for instance, "I'm a child of God, I'm a child of God. I'm healthy and whole now," and it's almost as if he says, "Hey, I'm doing pretty good. I can really say that fine." It's like the little boy. Somebody was complimenting him on the fact he said his prayers so well. He said, "That's nothing. You ought to hear me gargle." In other words, it's something we've learned and we feel so very good. We pick the affirmation out a book. We get it out of a daily word or out of a religious science magazine or whatever. We get this affirmation, this treatment, and we say it over and over again. We say it dramatically, and we say, "Oh, I'm really proud of myself. I've really learned how to say affirmations now."

055 Say what you are listening to

But this not what it's all about. As a matter of fact, one of the ways we can check up on ourselves is a little cliché that I use. Don't listen to what you're saying. Say what you're listening to. Don't listen to what you're saying. If you listen to what you're saying, you're flattering yourself because you're saying positive words. "Hey, I'm really saying some positive words. This is great. This metaphysics is real neat. If I say this over and over, something great's going to happen." But saying what you're listening to, which means first of all you must listen before you speak. You see, we speak impetuously. We speak reflexively. We just allow the words to come forth, and we even try to learn by rote all sorts of positive statements so we can exude positive phrases instead of negative cliches, which is a step in the right direction. But this is not the key. This is not the fulfilling of the power of the positive word, you see.

First of all, when you face any kind of a situation where normally you would come forth with some kind of a statement, negative or positive, the important thing is to listen. To listen. And this is something that many of us have ... We need to discipline ourselves to do. It's like the old axiom of counting 10 before you blurt something out. Take time to turn within and to listen and to see what the infinite process is saying through you. See what your body is really saying. See what your consciousness is really reflecting at the deepest possible moment, and then speak the creative logos. As way say, remember there's always a divine mind counterpart within you to anything that you experience.

Jesus says, "The Father knows what things you have need of even before you ask." So I say don't ask. Listen. Don't ask God for help. Listen. Because the Father knows what things you have need of, and He's already of the desire to lead you forth into the fulfillment of those things. This is a process that's already there. So listen. Listen. It's the missing link. It's the missing link in metaphysics, in practical metaphysics, because so often we pick up treatments and affirmations, and we start, "Da da da da, da da da da, da da da da. God is good. God is love. I am now one with perfect life," and so forth. We say these things before we've ever taken time to listen. To tune ourselves in. So that we can really fulfill this consciousness. The words I speak are not my words, but the words of Him who sent me. The words of the divine process within me.

056 Power in the Divine Logos articulated in words

So we're not dealing with auto-conditioning. We're not dealing with saying a lot of things to make them true. We're not dealing with any kind of metaphysical abracadabra, the magic words that accomplish great things.

Unless we understand this, we tend to feel that metaphysics is like the adult counterpart of the young person's trading baseball cards. The adults trade affirmations. Do you have a good treatment for arthritis? Hey, I'll trade you my treatment for heart ailments, okay? So we trade treatments, and affirmations, and we get the feeling that this little treatment, this little card that has these magic words, this can really change your life. Well, I don't want to cause anyone to be disturbed, but .. Maybe I do. But the fact is that no statement of truth, no word of itself, has any power in itself. Words do not have power.

Now this is startling, because it goes against the grain of everything we've ever read or taught, even some of the things that I teach. But we're saying this for a very particular effect. The words do not have power, but the words can be imbued with power if they are tuned in on the creative nonverbal word. The word is that which is nonverbal. It's the divine creative logos. So your words have power according to the attunement of the power that flows forth from within you. So the affirmation doesn't have the power, so there's no point in taking this affirmation and saying it over and over and over and over again, and something's going to happen. If you take this affirmation and it is a very powerful device, certainly, the whole affirmative approach is a marvelous metaphysical approach to prayer, but you take this prayer or treatment or affirmation, and you speak this word, but you speak it reverently and quietly in the consciousness that this is not your word.

It's the word of truth and you're tuning in on it, and you're allowing it to flow like a water faucet is flowing, and you allow the flow to manifest through you. You don't speak the word powerfully and with great effect and authority and repetitiously. Remember Jesus said avoid vain repetitions. A certain amount of religious people have overlooked this, and a lot of metaphysical people have, too, because there's something about metaphysics that somehow seems to capture the consciousness of a lot of persons that if you say the thing over and over ... In fact, I've heard some teachers say, "Speak this word 10 times over and it will change your life." I don't care how many times you speak it. In fact, don't speak it at all. Just think it, as far as that goes. But get yourself in tune with the creative flow and then the word has power because it is imbued, as the scriptures would say, it's imbued from power on high. The divine process flowing through human consciousness, articulated through your words. It's a very subtle thing, you see.

The important thing is the creative logos is a non-verbal process that we articulate in words. You see, if the word itself had the power, and if I used a word in the English language and somebody else uses it in the German language, it's a different word. You say, "But it means the same thing." Well, of course, a lot of words mean the same thing. So we're not dealing with the word. We're dealing with the consciousness which we project into the words that have meaning to us. So the particular phrase or statement will work for you that won't even have any effect upon someone else, because you're thinking something separate and distinct and different when you use it.

057 Get in tune with the Divine Mind counterpart

Before we have any kind of conversation, then, whether it's in just a one-to-one relationship with people or you're in a business meeting or you're talking before a group of people or you're trying to sell something, if you're a salesman, we should always prepare ourselves with a moment of inner listening. A time when you get yourself in tune. Get the realization of the divine mind counterpart, that in divine mind there is an awareness of this particular meeting. These two people that are gathering together. If you're a salesman trying to put across a program to a perspective client, in divine mind it's already prearranged, not in the sense that it's all done, but before they call, I will answer. There was already a positive experience and a positive potential that can be brought out of that if you tune into it. So you get yourself in tune by readying yourself, by preparing yourself, by listening. Listening. Listening. Getting into the flow of creative mind and getting into the realization of the basic oneness.

All good communication comes from inner communion. There is no way that you can ever really have good communication between people except that there's a communion, an acknowledgement of the one within yourself and a recognition of and a tuning in on the one within the other person, so that your communication becomes one to one. This is what real one-to-one communication is. It's from the basic one in yourself to the basic one in another. When you're in that consciousness, there will always be understanding. There will always be loving relationships. And, if you're a business person, there will always be sales. There will always be a happy positive solution to your projections because it's one to one. You're tuning in to that basic one, which is the key to the creative process of the universe.

058 Do not be verbally permissive

How important it is then that we discipline ourselves to practice this matter of listening, readying ourselves for all communication processes. Last week we talked about people who are very careful to ready themselves for the day by being physically accoutered, and yet always remain mentally disheveled. We could add not only mentally disheveled, but we could add verbally permissive. It's important that we see the need toward self-discipline and commitment to be verbally positive and creative. Recently an executive turned down a promising applicant for a position. He said that this young man was ambitious, was aggressive, had a degree in business, seemed absolutely made to order for the position that they were trying to fill, but when the young man opened his mouth to speak, out came a lot of, "You know what I means," out came a lot of negative clichés, out came a lot of four-letter words, because he thought this was the way to be macho and to appear that he was really hip, he's with it this day, you see? So the executive said this man will be representing my firm before the public, and I simply cannot afford to hire anyone with such slovenly and completely negative speech. This is something that is probably not recognized enough. It may not be taught enough in college or in success motivation courses. What you speak actually bodies forth your whole consciousness and tells an awful lot about what you really are inside.

We need to make a concerted effort to brush up on our speech, and this covers a lot of things. To eliminate all the negative clichés of which we have so many. The tendency toward self-effacement. "Oh, I always do this. I always make this mistake. This is terrible. I'm such a nincompoop." Many of us have a long battery of such self-effacement concepts. And the pessimistic proclamations, such as, "Oh, the recession will never get over, and probably I'll be fired from my job because everybody's being laid off." We don't really want this to happen, and yet somehow in consciousness the negative seems to come out. Even though we sing songs like 'Accentuate the Positive,' yet somehow it seems that the only way to be popular in conversation with people is to be the most negative of all.

059 Profanity frustrates the creative logos

All right. One of the things, and this may shock you a little bit, but if you're really going to get serious about the power of the spoken word and about dressing up your speech, we need to learn to express ourselves without profanity. Now I'm not being moralistic. Many people say, "Well, here goes the preacher. He's gone to meddling again." Because we lived through a generation where people would say, "Well, tell it like it is. Let it all hang out," and that usually means to hang out all the dirty linens you can think of. Hang out all the dirty words that you can dream up. The words you learned when you were a little child on the back fence and so forth. Let it all hang out. But I'm saying, and I say this very sincerely, that it's not simply a matter that four-letter words misrepresent you and indicate a lot of bad breeding, but that's not what the important part is. They indicate a very low level vocabulary, and when you have a poor vocabulary there is always poor communication.

I read something recently that's rather startling. It was a study that was made, I believe, at Harvard University relative to communication and advanced speech. They found out some rather interesting things from studies they made over a long period of time. They discovered that people who used profanity excessively, people who did not have good vocabulary to express themselves, who are always saying, "You know what I mean, this is the way, you know that's the way it is man," and so forth. These were people that did not have the words to really articulate what they wanted to say, so they would always say, "You know what I'm trying to say, don't you?" And of course the other person doesn't know what you're trying to say, because you're thinking one thing and he's thinking another.

They discovered that among this kind of person, and this was not simply people of under-privileged groups, because they found that college graduates quite often have the same bad speech manner that other people have, but they said that among these people who speak very poor English and use a lot of profanity and a lot of clichés, among these people was the greatest degree of violence. Because this says what the words cannot communicate, violence will take over. If people cannot actually say things in words, they will use clubs. They will use fists. This seems startling, and we might even say, "Well, that's kind of ridiculous," but this was a very serious amount of study. Then he went on to say, and I question the total conclusions of this phase, but I'm willing to acknowledge that it's possible, that the reason for a lot of violence in America as against lesser level of violence, for instance in great Britain, is basically because we speak such poor English. Now again these are semanticists speaking, but it's interesting. It falls in line with the very important need to dress up our speech. I'm not talking speaking positively, I'm talking about speaking articulately and saying things that really communicate.

You see, profanity basically, over and against the immorality and the judgmental aspect that the preacher might be expected to articulate, profanity, the four-letter words, and so forth, are just bad communication. They just don't really say anything. If we're really trying to be positive and we're really trying to get involved in the practical metaphysical approach to life, then we need to dress up our speech, to brush up our speech mannerisms. Because certainly I believe very strongly that profanity of all kinds, along with a lot of other negations, are an effective frustration of the creative logos without which the spark necessary to happiness and health and prosperity is almost totally lacking. It's something to think about. You may take that phase of it with a grain of salt, but I throw it in as a very vital part of our lesson this morning.

060 Summary of this lecture

In dressing up our speech there's another aspect, too. Because, as I said, the creative logos is basically non-verbal. We articulate it in words because we are verbal creatures, but another aspect of it is to pay real close attention to the voice and to intonation. I don't mean putting on oratorical affectation, but simply so that your speech properly represents you. In other words, when Paul says, "Stir up the gift of God within you," I think it might also apply to the animation and the vitality of the voice. For instance, just not how quite often the voice comes across the telephone when you dial a number and a person says, "Hello" (spoken in a dour tone) Now what kind of a response is that? What kind of life does that seem to suggest? What kind of a self-image does that seem to indicate in terms of the individual? I'm not saying that one should be effected, but I think quite often we do not allow our voices to really come up to the standard of what we really feel within ourselves, and the voice is a tremendously important part in the life that we project.

How would you sound if you really were in the flow of life and love and power? How would you project yourself if you really did feel that you were alive, alert, joyous, and enthusiastic about life? So this is something that I think we need to consider very seriously in this matter of setting a watch on our lips and stirring up the gift of God within us and dressing up our speech. Prepare yourself for all conversation, all kind of communication, and certainly with prayer and treatment or whatever. Listen within, identify with the inner light, and then with a glow on your face and a sparkle in your eyes and enthusiasm in your manner and tone, let something good be said. Let the positive power of the dynamic creative logos within you be projected into your words. Get the idea of communicating with people, with situations on a one-to-one basis. The one, the dynamic, the divinity within me, salutes and relates to and does business with the one, the dynamic divinity within you. Depth to depth, life to life, and in this way your words will be a part of the divine flow, but your words will never get in the way.

You see, sometimes even metaphysical words can get in the way if the words are expressed out of a feeling of a rote learning process and I don't really understand what I'm saying, but if I say them enough something's going to happen. Sometimes the words will get in the way of our own creative flow. So get this idea of dressing up your speech and letting the positive power of the creative logos be expressed through you and all that you do. Discipline yourself to speak the creative words and say the kind of things that you want to see manifest in your life.

061 Seven day verbal diet

Now I'll give you a homework assignment for today, and this is not going to be an easy one. It's very simple, but it's not easy. Dieters and religious communicants quite often go on periods of fasting, so we're going to suggest that you go on a fast. I'm going to dare you, I'm going to challenge you to go on a verbal fast for seven days. I shouldn't say a verbal fast, because that means you're going to say nothing. I'm not going invoke silence for you. That would probably be a helpful way to do it, too. But we're going to be chiefly concerned with a mental diet in terms of carefully choosing the kind of words that you express during this week. It's going to take some effort. It takes effort to do any kind of a diet. You give up sweets and carbohydrates and fats and various other things, it's not easy to overcome the tendency to run to the ice box or to eat the second piece of pie or to choose the kind of foods in a restaurant that you know are not the kind of things that are a part of your diet. It takes discipline. It takes commitment.

So I'm saying challenge yourself to go on a seven-day verbal diet, where you're going to think before you speak, you're going to listen before you articulate things, and you're going to try to put into words only those things that you want to see manifest in your life. You're going to try to keep yourself from the negative clichés, from the profanity, from all the words that have no meaning whatever or a negative meaning, and to say only positive creative expressions and to say them in an effective and positive way. That's going to take some effort.

I've also wondered ... I do a lot of dreaming about things, I guess, because I'm an idealist. I've often wondered what would happen in our country if everyone would fast from negative words for one whole day. In other words, it's not hard to believe that we can go on a fast, because after all holidays seem to attract an awful lot of people to go on a special fast of things that are important to that holiday festivity. So we think of this in the terms of one day when every single person in the population of the country would speak only when they have something important and positive to say and could express it in a creative way.

I believe, I really do, I believe that because of the articulation of the creative logos that would flow through this type of consciousness, I believe that we would begin to experience a whole new positive healing vibration in our land. I think that hospitals would see patients getting well quicker. I think offices would see an experience of an upsurge of harmony and productivity, and because of increased productivity, I would see our inflationary processes begin to reduce themselves. I would see the whole economic system of America right itself. I would see marvelous results, even in the interaction processes between nations in terms of peace in the world. Of course, some would immediately say, "Well, it's nice to dream about, but it will never happen." So we're right back to the negative clichés.

So we're not concerned with whether it can happen out there any more than if you're trying to bring a new energy into your office that it will never happen in the office. The important thing is is it going to happen in you? You're one. Remember [inaudible attribution, but the quote is from Edward Everett Hale] used to say, "I'm only one, but I'm one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. But I can do what I ought to do, and what I ought to do by the grace of God I will do." So the question is, would you allow yourself to be a channel for positive power in terms of one week of a mental and verbal diet. We are thinking in terms of only those things that are positive and expressing them in creative and positive and meaningful ways that are important to see manifest in your life the kind of things that you desire. The kind of world that you would like to see unfold. The kind of physical conditions you would like to have in your own body. The kind of finances you'd like to experience. All of these things. But to allow your verbal expressions to relate to and give articulation to that kind of expression in your life. Are you willing to do this? Are you willing to make an effort at it?

I can say one thing, and I can say it with sincere belief and conviction, that to any person who will work on this, you will not only become a part of the solution of a better world, a better neighborhood, a better office, but you will also find that just by the very act of your own discipline and your own participation in this positive flow, things will take place in a marvelous way in your life. You will see a change of the vibrational patterns that influence your whole life in a way that some would call miraculous. The question is are you willing to do it. It's very simple. Just say you're going to go on a diet. A verbal diet for seven days. Are you willing? I'm not going to say do you promise never to go off the thing and split the negative word, because as the AA people say, maybe it's one day at a time, one step at a time. But let's see what we can do during this one week, in terms of making a change in the vibrational patterns in our life, and certainly you'll not only see a great change in your own experience, but you will become a part of a change in your office, in your home, in your neighborhood, because it all begins with the individual. You make the difference.

062 LSGBS Meditation

Let's be still for just a moment, and let's get this whole thing back into a true spiritual context. All things begin with the basic one, the creative logos. It's not just that we like to say to ourselves that we're spiritual beings, but that we like to remember at the ground of our being that each of us is spirit being us. This is always true whether we know it or not, whether we articulate it or not. So when we listen before we express ourselves, we listen to this vibrational pattern of the universe, which is expressing itself, articulating itself as us. Dynamic, wonderful, powerful, beautiful, fulfilling, and loveful. So you are a dynamic spiritual being. This is your basic identity in the universe. Make the commitment now that you're going to allow this to be the ground, the foundation, the underpinning of all that you think and feel and articulate in the seven days ahead. You're going to keep coming back to this. All things come out of the basic one and are resolvable back into it says the Pythagorean system, and in practical metaphysics it's a vital realization that all positive powerful things come out of this basic one at the root of our being and are resolvable back into it.

So we begin with this. We listen to this consciousness before we go to work, before we face people, before we get involved in any kind of relationships, we remember who we are, and then we allow this consciousness to be bodied forth. As Emerson says, "Man is an inlet and may become an outlet to all there is in God." The outlet is the cutting edge of our spoken words. We project this spoken word in positive power and the words I speak are not my words, but the words of Him who sent me. I allow them to flow forth through me in faith, in creativity, in love. And let's project ourselves in imagination now, see ourselves going forth from this place, doing the normal little confrontations that we have, such things as buying subway tokens, talking to cab drivers, ordering food in a restaurant, talking to people, conversing around the water cooler at the office or just the general conversation at a cocktail party, and see ourselves through mental imagination as projecting positive power, as keeping a seal on our lips, and saying only those things that are positive and creative, and saying them in a loving harmonious way, and always remembering as the watchword just as important as you are what you eat, we'll say, "Let something good be said."

I use the slogan LSGBS just as a remembrance. LSGBS. Let something good be said. Let it be said positively, let it be said lovingly, let it be said with animation, let it be said in a way that truly represents us in the fullest powerful way. In this sense we go forth in this week, committing ourselves to the practice of fundamental metaphysical principles in a very simple way. And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Amen.

This concludes A Course in Practical Metaphysics, Volume 1.