You would have seen when musicians perform, the flute, the violin,the tabla,
they all weave together like a conversation.
Perfectly in tune to each other, leading or following.
What happens if one of the instruments is not in tune?
It becomes painful to listen. Same thing is with communication,
because every communication is subtly shaped by who we are with, at the time.
Pranams ji.
Many of you have now adopted Heartfulness meditation practices,
where you do morning meditation, evening Cleaning, offering night time prayer.
It is wonderful. As I mentioned in the previous sessions,when we meditate
it is really helpful to try to retain within ourselves, during the entire day,
the peaceful condition we have gained.
A deep meditative state can be the foundation for effective communication.
This is what can give us the inner centeredness and open-hearted way of being
that supports us to relate harmoniously with others
and with ourselves also. Communication is actually an energy exchange
Imagine, if you are not communicating with words,
like toads, or like snakes, or like flowers, or like trees and bees, how would you communicate?
It is actually an energy exchange, a tuning of vibrations.
Every interaction is simultaneous flow and interchange between systems
But it is not like a table tennis match,
or taking turns and ping pong, back and forth.
It is more like dancing, or creating music, together
You would have seen when musicians perform, the flute, the violin,the tabla,
they all weave together like a conversation.
Perfectly in tune to each other, leading or following.
What happens if one of the instruments is not in tune?
It becomes painful to listen. Same thing is with communication,
because every communication is subtly shaped by who we are with, at the time.
For example, we do not communicate in the same way with our neighbour as we do say with our child
A joke we share with our colleague may not go down so well with our elderly parents.
We speak differently with our spouse from how we might speak with our boss,
unless of course your spouse is your boss. That situation has its own unique challenges.
Today, I want to speak about the importance of listening
I have often said that we hear in one ear and it goes out from the other ear
whereas when we listen with our heart, it sinks in.
Through Heartfulness meditation supported by pranahuti
we tune into the heart’s radar.
Learning to listen means focusing on what people mean
and what they might be feeling, that is unspoken, not just what they actually say.
We know that facial expressions, the eyes, the whole body, the hands, they do speak too
So, can we become sensitive to this language also?
It requires our mind to be quiet, so that we can make space for the other
give some room for what they want to share
We need to become empty,
silent within, to let go of our agendas of our judgemental
to let go of our agendas of our j udgemental thoughts and our prejudices
Listening without any prejudices and expectations makes us empty.
It is this emptiness that creates the real magic.
This is the power of the presence in action. Inside, we are silent, but our heart is open.
Silence connects us with our deeper self. So, we can see how regular
silent meditation cultivating this inner peacefulness is such a
powerful tool to help us to listen to ourselves and to others.
Lastly, here is an interesting fact.
The word ‘Listen’ contains the exact same letters as the word ‘Silent’.
Prayer and meditations are the ways to listen to our inner self
and have inner dialogue with God. In silence, we connect and are ready to listen to God.