Every person under a roof is a guest. There are no 'clients' or 'customers'.

I remember having read an old story about a Rabbi, when I was in school.
There was a Rabbi who lived a spartan life in a house that didn't have much of the comforts of a normal life. He had few belongings, mostly books. Once a visitor stayed on at his place for a few days. 'Where is the furniture in the house?' the curious visitor asked. He was met with another question 'Where are your belongings and your furniture. Where are they here, in this house?'.
The perplexed visitor said - "But I am a GUEST here. How can my things be here!" The Rabbi then went on to reply - 'My dear friend, all things must pass, and I, too, am a guest.'

What brought this story back to mind was this -

The japanese word for 'every' or 'each' is kaku written as 各 - a pair of  legs on a stone.


The japanese word for 'Guest' is kyaku or 客.
Kyaku has the kanji for 'each' or 'every' under the radical that stands for 'roof of a house'.


This word kyaku 客is the same kyaku in 'okyakusan' - お客さん。
'Every' person under a roof is a 'Guest'. 

As an interesting aside - There is no common Japanese word like 'customer' or 'client' - be it a big firm, a department store or a small shop; all are called okyakusan or 'Guests'.

Client comes from latin cliens (acc. clientem) "follower, retainer," perhaps a variant of cluere "listen, follow, obey" or from clinare "to incline, bend,".

Patron comes from middle latin patronus "patron saint, bestower of a benefice, lord, master, model, pattern," from latin patronus "defender, protector, advocate," from pater (gen. patris) "father." Meaning "one who advances the cause" (of an artist, institution, etc.). Used to mean 'customer' since about 1605.

In Japan, everyone is a 'Guest'.

Words. Leaves of thought.

話し言葉 or 'hanashikotoba' is a word that means 'spoken language'.
hanashi - say 言+ tongue(thousand 千　on mouth - 口)
koto - 言 - word
ba - 葉　- leaf

The spoken word is a mere leaf of the tree of the thought, the tree that comes from the desire to express, which lies at the root of that tree.  

The root, the proto-word condenses into langauge, language as we know it. Like vapor becomes rain. If you can work with vapor, you can become a rainmaker. Learn to work with proto-language, and you can then use any "language", or perhaps even do away with it.


The spoken language or 'common language' is vaikhari - the point at which vibration escapes the tongue and mouth as sound. There are deeper, more efficient levels of communication possible.

Search for the terms Para Pashyanti Madhyama Vaikhari
Here is a post that compiles interesting information about the Indian take on the spoken word.
Here is another.



Again, the interesting thing here, is that what is now relegated to esoterica in India, is still present in the common everyday language learned by children in Japan. (They might not realize or know it - but it is still -there- directly in the characters they learn, and the writing and speech acts at many layers - whether one is conscious of it or not.)

Sewa. Service. language of the world.

The sanskrit word Sewa or 'service' is present in the Japanese language as well. Not only does it retain the meaning but the pronunciation 'sewa' as well.

The kanji for sewa is even more interesting.
世話

The first character 'se' 世 is also the 'se' in 世界or world. 世also stands for 'generation' or 'age', being made up of 3 十　characters (the kanji for the number 10) if you look closely. (about 30 years is a generation and about 3 such generations (totalling about 90) live at a time.)

The 話 or 'wa' in sewa, made up of a mouth/speech 言 on the left and tongue on the right　舌　(which in turn has the character for thousand 千on the kanji for mouth 口 -thousand mouths saying the same thing make a 'tongue' - maybe as in mother tongue.) This radical etymology is a folk etymology and perhaps inaccurate - another precise explanation is in Shirakawa Shizuka sensei's works.

However, what strikes me as interesting is not the kanji etymology but the characters chosen for compound formation. Generation/Age/World + Language.
It suggests that if any language is to be used to communicate with, or to change the world, it must be service. 

Those who serve, lead and cause change. Service is a universal language.