I’ve been thinking today about the benefits of speaking no evil. You see, I was writing a post for my Examiner column on the topic, and, as often happens, that got me thinking in much more general terms. Let me back track a bit.
How often do we each speak badly of others–which basically constitutes speaking evil? How often do we gossip and, in the process, slander those about whom we speak? How often do we criticize or judge without a second thought to what we are doing?
Most of us do this a lot…every day…some people every hour. In Judaism, we call this lashon hara, or the evil tongue.
I know I’m at fault. I’ll say something bad about a person I know while telling someone else about my day. I’ll relate a story about their behavior, which I didn’t like. I’ll talk about how someone cut me off in traffic. I’ll discuss some one’s work practices with which I don’t agree. I’ll criticize the government. I’ll complain that the waiter moves too slowly. I’ll tell my husband that our kids are lazy because they leave dishes all over the house.
What about you? How often and when do you commit lashon hara or speak evil of others? Be honest now…
Here’s the problem with doing so: Our words have a creative energy. What we focus on expands. If we focus upon all those things we don’t like, if we judge and criticize, we’ll create more of all those things. Yuck! What a horrible fact of life! None of us want more of the things we complain about. So we must stop complaining, judging, criticizing.
And we must stop talking about other people. This negativity just begets more negativity. It doesn’t help us in any way. It simply makes us and our lives feel dark and heavy, because the energy around this type of language is just that, dark and heavy.
Instead, we need to speak using positive words. These will create light and uplifting energy patterns in our lives. They will help us focus on the things we want and help us create them.
I took a metaphysical class recently, and we told to put money in the jar each week for our negative thoughts and words–a dollar for each one! We were told to add money for negative attitudes in general. We ended up with a lot of money in that jar. We then donated it to charity.
Get a jar and put a penny, a dime, or a dollar in there every time you catch yourself speaking badly about someone. See if you can break the habit of lashon hara. Commit to speaking no evil.
Remember, speaking evil is a habit. Habits can be broken.
