Think as we will and speak as we think

"So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
~ Isaiah 55:11

To think as we will and speak as we think requires courage; but courage has many faces, and its true face lies hidden in the dark alleys of our mind: a mind that forever is, held to ransom by and is, wrapped around dormant thoughts of impurity. To be fearless, one requires purity of thought and a mind free of frustration.

As humans age with time, they let their mind age as well in spite of having an ageless mind. Their adolescent urge for heroics wane; and only the grumble of suppressed anger remains: an anger brought about by, none other than their lack of courage to think as they will and speak as they think. In youth, thought had no novelty; and in its absence, heroics become cheap and commonplace, if not foolish. However, the converse is not necessarily true.

With age also sets in a general numbness; an indifference generated through, the decline of courage. Deficiency of courage brings about an absence of will.

The mind of man is set to, easily forget the painful past; the daily humiliations by the failures of those in whom we placed our trust; grinding poverty and pangs of hunger of those around us; and to remember only the little moments of happiness where painful things remain hidden in the shadows and long forgotten happiness glows once again. Yet, it is always when everything appears dream like and life seems to possess a never-ending charm, that foolish thoughts and dangerous aspirations, take birth in the minds of humans.

Very few are the men who with age are able to soak in the beauty of the world around them; hear the soft whisper of the sea and the rustle of the leaves in the wind; appreciate the rhythm of the orchestra set up by the crickets; the cooing of the cuckoos and the chatter of the squirrels. This is because, life and living has sapped so much of his vitality and removed the vital spark in him; man has forgotten that he is not a momentary whim, of a careless creator experimenting in the laboratory of life.

Thus, he spends so much time living in the 'what if' that he has forgotten the 'what is' and drifts through his entire life - one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time.

It happens so gradually he is unaware of how life has slipped away.

Finally, when realisation dawns, usually but not necessarily at the fell hour, it is always too late. At that point, in a void, he stands alone; his head and hands empty, watching everything he wanted disappear. His self image, his definition of who he thought he should be, the people he thought he had, the things he thought were so important to collect and surround himself with, the job he was certain was his, the place he thought he would live in all his life; all becomes, but an illusion. Thus, most of his life, due to the frustrations of his failures, he keeps alive the pleasurable pain of nostalgia, a yearning for things lost forever, things that could have been but did not; a dusting of secret hopes and sweet frustrated longings. Instead, had he had the boldness to think as he will and speak as he thinks, life would have been so much sweeter.

The way we choose to think is so important, because it forms the world around us. As we think so should we speak; as we speak, so should it be.

Instead, out of cowardice, with blunted emotions, we seek to withdraw into our holes of lonely bitterness and await unholy death in a terrified spectre of suppressed fear - fear of the holy truth. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits, says an old proverb. Hence, dare to think as willed, to speak as thought, and do as spoken. It is the hallmark of nobleness. When one is noble, the nobleness that lies in other men, dormant but not dead, will rise in majesty to meet your own. We may think that our body is free, but our heart is in a prison.

To release our heart, all we have to do is, simply reverse the process that locked it up. Begin by listening to the inner voice, for messages from our heart - messages we may have been ignoring since childhood. Next, we must take the daring, risky step of expressing our heart to the outside world.

To do so may be a hazardous venture in the modern world; but there is the risk we cannot afford to take and there is the risk we cannot afford not to take; and to think as willed and speak as we think, is one such risk that falls in the latter category. As we learn to live by heart, bold in expressing its expressions, every choice we make will become another way of telling our story.

It is how we are, meant to live. If we stop and listen, we will realise that our heart has been telling us all along to see the miracle of life. "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.

"The other is as though everything is a miracle," said Albert Einstein. To live by the latter, requires courage.

A bird does not sing because it has courage; it sings because it has a song and has the courage to sing. Hence, be bold and think as you will and speak as you think. Mighty forces will come to your aid when you do. In my personal life, whenever in the past, if I had fallen short in almost any undertaking, it was seldom because I had failed. It was always because I had let fear of failure stop me from trying with confidence.

What it meant was I lacked courage to face failure. Then I realised that life does not end even if I failed; but that, it will fail to begin if I lacked the courage to try. There are many wonderful things in life, which we will never do because we lack courage. If we do nothing, nothing happens. The same may be, said of thought. Fearlessness in thought and fearlessness in speech defines human character and enables one to own oneself.

The privilege of owning yourself is the highest privilege in life and no price is too high to pay for that privilege. Faith and courage are, the only twin characteristics that will make you truly own and be master of yourself. It is our choices that determine what we really are; far more than our abilities.

There are some men who are, so busy worrying about the next life that they have never learned to live in this one. All of us have been dying, hour by hour, since the moment we were born. Realising this, let us place all things in their proper perspective.

Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live, so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.

What frustrates us and robs our lives of joy is, this absence of meaning brought about by our fear to think as we will and speak as we think. If we live in fear, does our being alive matter?

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