I am beginning today once again with our Ruhi course assignment: memorizing and internalizing the Bahá’í quote, "A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men". It took me several attempts to truly learn these words by heart, yet every time I reflect on them, new layers of meaning emerge.
Today, a fascinating linguistic parallel struck me: in both English and Russian, the noun for "tongue" carries an immediate double meaning. It refers not only to the physical organ we use to speak, eat, and taste, but also to the entire system of "language". In English, we speak of our mother tongue (alongside native language), and in Russian, язык (yazyk)—or its diminutive язычок (yazychok)—means both the physical tongue and language itself (as in мой родной язык—my native language). German preserves a similar echo in the idiom "to speak with a forked tongue" (mit gespaltener Zunge sprechen), and in the Middle Ages, draconian punishments like cutting out a person's tongue attested to the immense power attributed to this organ.
What does this mean for how we act and make decisions today? Quick, unfiltered impulses from the subconscious tend to skew negative. And negative statements, actions, and energy never act as a magnet—they repel people.
Speaking with a "kindly tongue" doesn't happen by accident. It requires deliberate thought: pausing to center oneself and organizing one's thoughts before speaking. If I want to build positive relationships and act as a magnet for others, I first have to cultivate a constructive relationship with myself—generating positive internal dialogue, ideas, and vibes. In many ways, it is just like sports: it takes willpower, daily discipline, and dedicated work, yet it brings genuine joy.
As human beings, we are born with highly evolved gifts we did nothing to earn: our brain, our language center, and our emotional capacity—our hearts. It is our responsibility to use these natural systems constructively. And this is precisely what separates us from artificial intelligence: whether it is Gemini Argon, Claude, or ChatGPT 6 Astra—or even a future version 16—AI will never possess emotional intelligence, and it will never be a magnet for human hearts.
