356
Aptavani-4
(40)
The Nature of Speech
Speech Is Not an Attribute of the Soul!
Dadashri: Who is the one doing this talking?
Questioner: You, Dada Bhagwan, are speaking.
Dadashri: I myself am not speaking. I do not have the
energy (shakti) to speak at all. This is the ‘original tape-record’
that is ‘speaking’. If you wanted to, from this one, you could
record another ‘tape-record’, a third and fourth... and don’t you
believe, ‘I am talking’, when you speak? It is because you
speak yourself that you are in this ‘puzzle’, while I am sitting
here, after having ‘solved’ the ‘puzzle’. When you speak, you
have the ego of, ‘I am speaking’. Yours too is a ‘tape-record’
that is ‘speaking’.
The Atma cannot speak. The Atma does not have the
attribute of speech. Words are not one of the Atma’s attributes,
and neither are they attributes of the pudgal (non-Self complex).
If it were an attribute of either of them, then it would last forever.
But ‘this’ (the body) dies. In fact, the word is actually one of the
paryaya (phases) of pudgal (non-Self complex). It is a situation
(avastha) of the pudgal. When two parmanus (subatomic
particles) collide, they produce a sound. What happens when
you beep a car horn? Speech (vani; sound) comes out.
Questioner: If you have to press it for the speech (vani;
sound) to come out, then it would be termed as mechanical
speech (vani). But the Gnani’s speech is not mechanical, is it?