Can some words hurt us just as much as sticks and stones, or not?

"I'm rubber, your glue. Whatever you say, bounces off me and sticks to you." I like that one. I hadn't heard it before. "What comes around goes around" is another such saying, the consequences of our actions always come back to us, in other words. Are these ideas entirely right always though? The above sayings reflect the law of Karma, what you sow, you reap, says the Christian bible too. The rusticness (the unique simple quality of love that stretches towards you even as you exist within time) of life is only rustic in this way, because it has time attached to it, but time is also the mechanism which allows what happens now to come back to you later in a retrospective action, because when a seed is planted, it will grow into something within yourself, using hateful words plants such a seed inside yourself too, and if the other person takes in such a seed, there is a danger that it might then grow within him too.

@innertalks - and dont forget, " karma is a b!@#h !"

@Plethos Yeh, I hate the idea of punishment, using some type of a punitive law to try to change us, if God is love, why isn't his love sufficient to get the fixing done....LOL...that is if we really need to be fixed.

This is true, but I do feel it also when a total stranger calls me an idiot, or is rude and nasty to me, treating me like a non-person, with no respect. Feelings are part of an emotion in some instances, but in others they are ongoing parts of love. When a loved one hurts us with their words, these words feel as if they are barbed with wire spiky points on them. Yes, the hurt from a loved one hurts us the most, because we want, or would like, only ever love from them. I was also trying to examine the psychologist's idea that it is only ourselves who are really letting these words hurt us. They think that the words themselves carry no real power within them. Is it then more our own reaction to them that hurts us, or do the actual words contain hurt within themselves, as some type of a subtle energy, that enters us, and so hurts us?

@ms1864 You are from India, so I would expect that you might know of the power of chanting words, which they refer to as charged words. Words like Aum, or om for example, are said to contain actual power in the word, that passes onto the chanter in a way, when they chant them. If this is really true, I would expect that bad words, said in anger, would also carry such a charge that might enter a person and change their own positive vibration, to a more negative one, for example, in a subtle underhanded way, if they were not aware that this might happen. The word word, "Om," has been charged with a type of potential energy that can be released by repeating the word. This happens because the word is shaped in a way that it can hold energy for a time by being linked into the presently existing group consciousness. Some words carry power because this group consciousness has given them an associative power, whilst I think some other words can carry power because it's inherently within them. The word is formed in a certain way to hold energy which is released when it is spoken. The names of God hold such great power within them I think. On the other hand, as you say it is us who give the word its power. There can be power in our words then, or they can lack conviction. This means that some words do carry power inherently within them, but if we do not match this power with our own conviction, the word as we say it, will not broadcast this power to another person, as if we really mean it. We must fuel the word, from our own power of conviction. The power of saying ''no'', for example, to someone, must also carry a conviction in its message to the other person that we mean it, otherwise they will just try to ask us again at a later time, and maybe in a slightly different way. The power of saying ''no'', to someone, is also linked into our own ability to be able to say ''no'', to ourselves, as well. Saying ''no'', is embracing the positive within a negative answer, when you do it rightly. To say ''yes'', and then to be negative about it, is really still saying ''no'', both when you do this to yourself, and also to others. To be able to say ''no'', is about asserting some of our own rights to be a person for ourselves. It is good of course to be helpful to others, and to also serve them at times, but we need to also remember that there is a time to say, ''no''.

@innertalks well...yes...it is us who have given the words the power to hurt...but we have also given them the power to heal...so i don't think it is the words that are at fault...it is us who have given the words the power.

@innertalks I can relate to what you wrote there. I've wanted to walk away from loud people and I've noticed some people are louder than others. Not everyone makes a good diplomat either.

@Bluedoll The funny thing is that I hate people talking too loudly to me, but I myself have a very soft voice. People have trouble hearing me at times, and I don't like talking in groups much, especially if it's in a noisy atmosphere either...LOL

Some people are more sensitive to this type of hurting that others I guess, but when anyone yells at me, it always hurts me, even if they just raise their voice, it upsets me. Some people talk to you in a down-putting way, like that they are always right, and that your idea is just wrong, or plain stupid. This hurts me too.

Yes, I agree with that. Sometimes a physical attack can penetrate deeply too though, and it can also take a lifetime to recover from. I was bashed with a baseball bat about ten years ago now. The physical hurts are recovered, but the mental trauma is still there. I often feel a shiver up my spine if I see some guy that even looks just a little bit like my attacker. All my fears come up again. I would have been killed on that day, but believe it or not, some power entered me when I was semi-conscious on the ground, bleeding profusely, from a ruptured artery in my head. For the first time in my life, I spoke loudly, forcibly and authoritatively. Some inner power entered me, I just said the one word, "STOP!" The huge six foot six guy shook visibly in his boots. He looked at me in a funny way, some power had penetrated into him from that one word. He stopped from kicking me, turned around, and left me there alone, walking away from me. I still do not really know what really happened to me that day, but I lived to tell the tale.

@innertalks And that one word made the bully turn tail! siva

@Shiva49 Yes, but I think that it was some type of energy within the word that hit him, sort of like when we get an electric shock, from static build-up, and so we quickly withdraw our hand. Something made him withdraw and not continue with his attack. Something got past his dramas, into the essential him, so perhaps he really realised what he was really doing then.

Yes, I would tend to agree with you there. They can sometimes do more damage to us than what sticks and stones could ever do.

The law of cause and effect, and the fact that everything has an equal and a opposite reaction, do seem to apply in our World. When we are not totally loving towards each other, these laws come into affect, and so yes, we do hurt each other then, just as much as we do not love each other totally. Do they apply also to the words that we use in speech, and thought, though? Are these laws always perfectly right though, or is this just more our observance, in our dual world, at this time? At the highest level does everything still affect everything else, or not? Are words real, and do they follow these rules too? God apparently used words to create the world with, according to the bible. In the beginning was the word, whatever that means, does it refer to the law? The laws, I think, came after creation, and God, himself, therefore does not follow laws, but he makes them up for his creation, in order to keep them in line, so to speak, and so as they will not run too amok. The dual world is set up in this way because God wanted us to see that everything affects everything else, sometimes in a dual opposite type of a way, which is obvious to the eye, but sometimes this connection is occurring more subtly, more deeply underneath the outer surface of things.

Yes thanks, I also try to be careful with my own words, because having been hurt by them (somebody's words) as a young kid, I know how they can affect the hurt one, for many years afterwards. I have still not recovered from some of these words thrown at me when I was younger, and I am nearly 60 now. To be told I would never amount to anything, and that I had a mind of jelly, was schizoid, and without any natural affection, has coloured most of my life for me, right up until now. Any self-confidence that I might have had was lost at that time, and has never returned.

Good points here siva, and I wish we could all live that way. "Physical pain is real but we should not allow others to inflict mental pain." This is hard to do at times, but you gave us a clue how to go about it. "Finally it is up to us to defend ourselves the best way we can." What is the purpose of pain though? Creation creates from love, but the very creation then sometimes moves away from love and creates its own pain. This pain drains the love away, until the pain is so severe that a return to love is then made. The pain drives you back into the waiting arms of love. Is there pain in love? Yes, but you can be so busy only loving that you don't need to stop to focus on the pain so much anymore. The love absorbs the pain into itself, and you are even happy to experience this pain when you are also living at the same time from its side of love.

@innertalks Yes, pain is also part of love and the learning process; sort of tough love! Even in heaven there should be pain as it is pointless to tag along with god and be led without question. Pursuit of learning process involves pain in whatever form. That is why I feel heaven is right here - we are missing the forest for the trees! Once you conquer pain and disappointments we sigh with relief and fulfillment having overcome the challenges and proving our mettle. That gives a spring in our steps that we are made of sterner stuff and no more a softy! I recall how you made the bully turn on his heels! The duality of creation permeates every facet of life; pain is part of love - siva