Read Summary of '''[[Perfection Summary|Perfection]]'''
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=What Is Speech?=
==Speech as an Instrument of Expression==
The organ of speech is an instrument of the physical mental or expressive externalising mind. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-parts-of-the-body-and-the-centres#p7</ref>
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It [truthfulness] means first truth-speaking, but beyond that to keep the speech in harmony with the deepest truth of which one is conscious. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p50</ref>
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...human speech at its highest merely attempts to recover by revelation and inspiration an absolute expression of Truth which already exists in the Infinite above our mental comprehension.
We know that vibration of sound has the power to create—and to destroy—forms;
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/the-supreme-word#p6</ref>
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I use "word" in a literary sense—it is what is called elsewhere the creative Word. It is the origin of all speech and all thought.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/11-november-1953#p13</ref>
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Speech comes from the throat centre, but it is associated with whatever is the governing centre or level of the consciousness—wherever one thinks from. If one rises above the head, then thought takes place above the head and one can speak from there, that is to say, the direction of the speech is from there.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-system-of-the-chakras#p61</ref>
==Speech as Rhythm==
The Word has its seed-sounds—suggesting the eternal syllable of the Veda, A U M, and the seed-sounds of the Tantriks—which carry in them the principles of things; it has its forms which stand behind the revelatory and inspired speech that comes to man's supreme faculties, and these compel the forms of things in the universe; it has its rhythms,—for it is no disordered vibration, but moves out into great cosmic measures,—and according to the rhythm is the law, arrangement, harmony, processes of the world it builds. Life itself is a rhythm of God.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/the-supreme-word#p12</ref>
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Let the wise man restrain speech in his mind and mind in Self, and knowledge in the Great-Self, and that again let him restrain in the Self that is at peace.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/the-katha-upanishad-of-the-black-yajurveda#p206</ref>
==Spiritual Speech==
Spiritual Speech: all-powerful in its simplicity.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/control-of-speech#p25</ref>
===Speech in Relation to Silence===
...when speech itself is an expression out of the silence.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p76</ref>
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All speech and action comes prepared out of the eternal Silence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-277-278#p1</ref>
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To keep the tone of speech and the wording very quiet and calm and uninsistent.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p40</ref>
===Speech as an Instrument of Expression Higher Knowledge===
There is also a speech, a supramental word, in which the higher knowledge, vision or thought can clothe itself within us for expression. At first this may come down as a word, a message or an inspiration that descends to us from above or it may even seem a voice of the Self or of the Ishwara, ''vāṇī, ādeśa''. Afterwards it loses that separate character and becomes the normal form of the thought when it expresses itself in the form of an inward speech.
… The supramental word manifests inwardly with a light, a power, a rhythm of thought and a rhythm of inner sound that make it the natural and living body of the supramental thought and vision and it pours into the language, even though the same as that of mental speech, another than the limited intellectual, emotional or sensational significance. It is formed and heard in the intuitive mind or supermind and need not at first except in certain highly gifted souls come out easily into speech and writing, but that too can be freely done when the physical consciousness and its organs have been made ready, and this is a part of the needed fullness and power of the integral perfection.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-supramental-thought-and-knowledge#p16</ref>
==Speech in Vedas==
Earth is the substantial essence of all these creatures and the waters are the essence of earth; herbs of the field are the essence of the waters, man is the essence of the herbs. Speech is the essence of man, Rig-veda the essence of Speech, Sama the essence of Rik. Of Sama OM is the essence.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/chhandogya-upanishad#p4</ref>
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Speech is Rik, Breath is Sama; the Imperishable is OM of Udgitha. These are the divine lovers. Speech and Breath, Rik and Sama.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/18/chhandogya-upanishad#p10</ref>
=Importance of Control of Speech=