What determines the effect of our actions and words?

Question from the Internet:

“What are the potential consequences of my actions or words?”

This depends only on the intention behind those actions and words. This is what most people do not know.

And, to be fair, we can’t recognize the intentions behind our words and actions even for ourselves, not to mention for others. We usually take it for granted that our intentions are good; this is why we act and say words.

This is how our inherently self-serving, self-justifying, subjective nature and calculations work.

From our own point of view, we speak and act “for good” — the only problem is that this good is 100% egocentric and subjective.

In truth, driven by our original nature, our intentions are always egocentric, self-serving, and self-justifying; whatever we say or do always serves our own interests.

And since the true effect of everything we do is exerted through our intentions — since intentions act behind words and actions as the true force and software, while the words and actions are the images appearing on the computer screen or words on printed paper — we all inevitable cause harm to everything and everyone in the fully integrated and interdependent system we live in.

The only way out of this dead-end is learning how to exist on the plane of intentions — as if behind the scenes — and modifying and controlling our intentions so that instead of our own benefit and sake, all our words and actions will work for the benefit of others and the whole system.