KNOWLEDGE SHEET BY SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR Posted: 18 Apr 1996

WORDS

We attach meaning to words and we distort them, too. For example, the word "brainwashing." Like your body, your brain needs washing sometimes. You don't want to walk around with a dirty brain, a dirty mind. What is wrong with the word "brainwashing?" It indicates a clean brain, a clean mind, but it is used in a derogatory manner.

Like that, the word "disillusionment." It is good that you are disillusioned. You have come to reality. Like purana. It means "that which is new in the town, the most modern." But it is used in the sense of being old. In the course of time, meanings of words change. The word "enthused" comes from the Greek which means "God is with us." Then it came to mean crazy, and now it's changed again.

Don't be stuck with the words. Your worries are words. Your ideas are words. Wisdom is beyond words. It is the very Being. It is the essence of all words. See and relate beyond words. Then there is no lie in your life.

If you manipulate words, it is a lie. If you play on words, it is a joke. If you rely on words, it is ignorance. If you transcend words, it is wisdom. JAI GURUDEV