35. Your Words carry Power🔗

When you continuously apply the same logic to your life, when you use the same words to yourself again and again, that becomes a reality for you! Paramahamsa Yogananda describes very beautifully about the power of words in his book, 'Autobiography of a Yogi.' He describes an incident where he uses a particular word with a strong concentration, and the words simply come true! He says that he was having a conversation with his sister. His sister was trying to apply some medicine on her body to heal a boil. Yogananda said something like, 'That medicine will not work, tomorrow that boil will be twice as big!' He also says, 'I will also have a boil in my hand tomorrow.' His sister says, 'What are you talking, you don't have any problem, why do you say such things?' And the next day, it happened exactly as he said! He says that he was shocked by the power of a mere word. Please understand, never utter negative words, violent words, to yourself or others. The more you utter them, the more you will start believing the same words, the more you will start strongly feeling the same words, the more they will become reality in your life.

A small story: A yellow journalist who lived his whole life by creating and sustaining rumors dies and goes to the court of judgment. St. Peter is standing there. When he sees this guy's credentials, he says, 'Oh, a tabloid journalist! No, no, no, we can't allow you inside heaven, you have to go to hell.' The journalist says, 'Give me just one day, I will go around heaven and come back, I want to see heaven just once.' St. Peter says, 'No, you have no business here, because nothing newsworthy happens here! All you will see are the saints happily sitting on the clouds singing hallelujah. Go to hell, you will find a lot of news there; all the famous people are there. You will have enough news there!’

This journalist is a very intelligent guy. He says, ‘Give me twenty-four hours’ time. If I can convince any one of your journalists here to go to hell instead, will you let me stay here in their place?’

St. Peter says, ‘Okay, come in.’ So this guy enters heaven.

In heaven there are only ten journalists, because nothing much happens. God comes and sits in the court in the morning and judgments are given. In the evening He goes back, that’s all. All the saints are there, it’s the same routine. And they have only ten journalists.

This guy goes around heaven and starts a rumor that in hell, they are starting a new magazine and they need an Editor. He speaks separately to each of the ten journalists, and tells them, ‘Being a journalist, how can you just sit around without news the whole day? Have you ever visited hell? I tell you, hell is a happening place! After all, so many celebrities are there, and almost all politicians are there!’

The journalists are shocked! They are already too bored in heaven. Without news, even heaven is like hell to them. So each of them thinks, ‘Let me go to hell right away. Hell is the place for me, and there is a vacancy for an Editor also! But I need to get there before the others come to know about it!’ So each of them secretly escapes from heaven and runs away to hell.

At the end of the day, the journalist comes running to the pearly gates. He tells St. Peter, ‘Let me out! I want to go to hell!’

St. Peter asks, ‘Why? Why do you want to go to hell? Just this morning you were begging to be here in heaven!’

The journalist says, ‘No, no! Now I want to go to hell!’

St. Peter says, ‘No, now you cannot go back. You have to be here, because you are our only journalist. All the other guys ran away, believing your rumor about hell.’

The journalist says, ‘I started the rumor, that is true. But if so many people are believing it, there must be some truth in it! There must be something happening in hell; I also want to go to hell and see!’

So, understand, don’t use the wrong words even in a jovial way - you will be caught by your own words. I have seen many times, people casually create the wrong words in their relationships: ‘He is bad’, ‘She is torturing me’, ‘They are cheating me’ - very simple words, based on one or two incidents; but those words become a deep pattern inside them, and they start thinking that it is the truth.

Don’t think that your words are working only on others - they are working on you also. With every word you utter, you are creating a new reality for yourself.

What are some of the negative words, about yourself and others, that you frequently catch yourself uttering?

Bring your awareness to such words, and consciously drop them.