Adapted from Beads of Truth, Winter 1983 #12
by Siri Singh Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji 

The art of speaking is very simple. You should only speak to communicate your honesty. Otherwise you should never speak.

If you cannot communicate, what is the purpose of speaking? The purpose of speaking is to communicate yourself. I want to carry myself to you and I want you to carry yourself to me. What is the purpose of Naad? Why did God give you a "mouth"? To create a sound?

If you are a dragon you can shoot fire out of your mouth. If you are Indra, you can let water go, a blast of water. The police use it these days for controlling crowds. They have learned from Indra. Napalm is nothing but dragon fire which burns for miles and miles. Understand that your mouth can shoot flames out and it can also shoot water out. It can create a breeze and be soothing and healing. Or it can create something upsetting and nonsensical.

My expectation is that my students must be successful. That's all I know. I don't know anything else. I don't believe in failure. I believe failure is anti-God. It is Satan. You know I am from the Sacred Heart Convent and my first education was in Christianity. I believe that failure is Satan and to fail is to worship Satan. To fail is to believe in Satan. Everything else is God. That's how I have divided the universe.

You say you worship God. I say you don't. If there is anything, directly or indirectly, in your consciousness which accepts failure then you are more attached to Satan than you are attached to God. I believe success is my birthright.

Success with a woman, success with intercourse, success with the physical intercourse, success with the intercourse of communication. Everything in this universe is nothing but intercourse. God didn't know anything more than one thing - intercourse. Communicative intercourse is the very, very beginning of everything. Physical intercourse is later. Cyclical intercourse is later. Projective psyche intercourse is later. Electromagnetic field intercourse is later. Projective field intercourse into the psyche and reversibility is later. Intercourse of reversibility of the cycle into the psyche of another person in emotions and commotions is later.

The science of Naad, the science of communication, is very old. The entire scriptures that people used to read were written on bamboo strips. They were written in liquid gold. I asked one person why? He said that this is the only way to preserve the teachings. Otherwise everything gets eaten up. That stack of knowledge was beautifully done and written in liquid gold, on very well balanced bamboo.

Normally, we want to talk. The question is - why do we talk? There are many reasons why we talk: to express ourselves, to relate information, to blend two beings, to release pressure from the mind, to persuade, to convince, to win, to get, to grab, to project our personality.  To cause changes and adjustments.

Change is a heavy word when you use it. There, the language has to be corrected. If you say, "I want to make a change" then you are creating a challenge. You want to change but I don't want to change. To make adjustments is also a heavy word. But it is politer and it makes more sense.

To raise the consciousness of ourselves and others is another reason we talk. If you want to know something, read about it. If you want to learn something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it. If you do not know how to raise the consciousness of another person, you can never raise your own consciousness. You may know the whole world, the entire knowledge of the universe may be with you but you will not achieve an effect.

Story-telling is the most powerful purpose for talking. Story-telling and humor are two ways of communicating where you normally don't get burned and have a loss. Two ways to win in the world are to tell stories and to talk through humor.