I re-post it today as a reminder that, more often than not, what we say in gossip to our friends and neighbors does permanent harm to everyone concerned.
Gossip is manipulation.
Gossiping damages and halts your progress and growth.
It can even end your inner work permanently.
Repairing this error is extremely difficult and many do not make it.
Worse yet, this lack of spiritual self control on your part also seriously damages the possibilities for the awakening of those you are gossiping to if they believe your gossip.
Even if they do not - you have planted negative seeds, which feed their own stories and fears - making their journeys more difficult.
You alienate them from what could save them.
This is especially true when these people are just beginning to know for themselves that they sincerely wish for something higher.
Nothing created in negativity produces anything useful - except very hard lessons (if you can See and Hear) in what comes from intentionally directed negativity for your own selfish ends.
You banish yourself and your listener(s) to illusion.
You are stealing their opportunities to enter into a true spiritual realm of study.
... and giving in to your ego impulses to gossip takes from you what you have worked so hard to earn.
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From the Movie: Doubt
After being accused of heinous acts, a priest, Father Brendan Flynn, tells the following story to his congregation:
"A man was gossiping with a friend about a man he hardly knew." Father Flynn looks into the eyes of the congregation sitting before him as he speaks, his intense gaze lingering on the faces of his two accusers. "I know none of you have ever done this." People squirm in their seats.
Father Flynn continues: "That night he had a dream. A great hand appeared over him and pointed a finger down at him. He was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day he went to confession. He got the old parish priest and told him the whole thing."
"Is gossiping a sin?" he asked the old man. "Was that the hand of Almighty God pointing a finger at me? Should I be asking your absolution Father? Father, tell me, have I done something wrong?"
"Yes!", the old priest answered. "Yes! You ignorantly badly brought up man! You've born false witness against your neighbor! You played fast and loose with [her] reputation and you should be heartily ashamed!"
"The man said he was sorry and asked forgiveness."
"Not so fast," said the old priest. "I want you to go home, take a pillow off your bed, take it up to the roof, cut it open with a knife and return here to me."
"So, the man went home, took a pillow off his bed, got a knife from the kitchen, took them up to the roof, and stabbed and cut the pillow open. Then he went back to the priest and told him he'd done what he asked."
"Did you gut the pillow with a knife?" the old priest asked."
"Yes, Father."
"And what was the result?" he asked."
"Feathers." he replied."
"Feathers." the priest repeated nodding his head up and down, yes"
"Feathers everywhere, Father." the man said, not yet getting the point."
The priest then told him: " Now, I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out on the wind."
"Well," said the man, "it can't be done, I don't know where they went. They flew all over"
"And that," said the priest, "is GOSSIP!!"
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If you can take this story into your heart with the appropriate attitude, be you the one who gossips or the one who is "innocently" listening to the gossip, or both, live with it for awhile. You will come to truly understand what it means on a higher level through higher consciousness. If you do that sincerely and are honest with yourself before God, you will be freed from that which causes you to gossip. It is difficult, but the Freedom you earn is worth it in the end.
I once heard, when I was a very young gossip fiend, that gossip kills. As I delved deeper and deeper into inner work in the following years, I discovered it was a lawful truth. Gossip kills.
Know that I Love You,
BE At Peace
Do No more Harm to yourself or to others
EVERYTHING IS Sacred
BE
I AM
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