Thoughts on speech vs. actions.

A person who has chosen to follow their Heaven Path will find that they still must interact with other people.

Interacting with people can both help and hinder ones travels on the Heaven Path.

The most frequent problem I encounter in interactions is that of misrepresentation. People say things that are not consistent with there actions, or they say things that are intended to change the meaning of their actions.

And this frequently goes unnoticed.

If you ask someone to assist you in some endeavor, they will typically verbally respond in one of four ways. They will say that they will, say that they won't, they will check to see whether there is a way to help within the scope of their existing duties, or they'll explain why they can't help within the scope of their existing duties.

But action-wise, there are only two possible responses, either they help or they don't.

The problem comes when they say that they will help, but then do not. And they may try to use use words to make it so they can get credit for helping without actually helping. This usually comes in the form of an excuse.

One example would be if you asked someone to help you move, and they agreed to do so, but then when the time came to move, they didn't show up and called and said that something had happened that if it happened to you you would have to have begged off as well.

The idea is, of course, that they were all ready to help but had been prevented by a situation beyond their control.

This may, in fact, have been the case, but without verifying you can only go on what they have said as if what they said was true.

If that person has a long standing history of agreeing to help and then showing up to help, it is probably safe to assume that something really did happen.

On the other hand, if the person has a long history of agreeing to help and then having circumstances come up that prevent the help from arriving, one should assume not just that they didn't want to help. but that they also wanted to get credit for helping even though they had no intention of helping.

This is a very simple example of how speech and action often interrelate.

In order to avoid being misled in this manner, one must look at the actions independent of the accompanying speech, and make sure that the speech isn't taking the place of the actions, or otherwise being used to hide the truth of the actions.

For ourselves, it is useful to ask how we would perceive others, and be perceived by others if we judged and were judged only on our actions.

Perhaps the opportunity will present itself for you to discontinue speech for a period of time, and then see how your relationships look after the ability to explain or make excuses goes away.