If art can be called the re-creation and formal expression of
reality through the medium of human experience, then the creation of
language may be called the greatest achievement of art. Each word
originally was a focus of energies, in which the transformation of
reality into the vibrations of the human voice -- the vital
expression of the human soul -- took place. Through these vocal
creations man took possession of the world -- and more than that:
he discovered a new dimension, a world within himself, opening upon
the vista of a higher form of life, which is as much beyond the
present state of humanity as the consciousness of a civilized man is
above that of an animal...
Thus the word in the hour of its birth was a centre of force and
reality, and only habit has stereotyped it into a mere conventional
mean of expression...
In this age of broadcasting and newspapers, in which the spoken
and the written word is multiplied a millionfold and is
indiscriminately thrown at the public, its value has reached such a
low standard, that it is difficult to give even a faint idea of the
reverence with which people of more spiritual times or more
religious civilizations approached the word, which to them was the
vehicle of a hallowed tradition and the embodiment of the spirit.
-- A. Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism
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