N said this kind of discipline about active listening was a very good one, because it made him not interrupt, but rather to let people finish exactly what they had to say before he came in. He also refrained from jumping in, leaving a few seconds after someone had finished speaking, in order to respond. He noticed also when he talked with them, if he looked into their eyes, he got a very strong connection at that stage, and people could sense it. It was an interesting result and it added to the quality of the communication, to the feeling about two people meeting on a human level rather than just talking in a utilitarian or practical way with each other. There was much more of a connection, rather than just an ordinary communication. He had also opened his palms as suggested in the Challenge. He thought it was an interesting experiment in terms of how to be a better listener, and how to get more from his experiences of talking to other people, and being present in talking to other people. People felt they had been heard.
| Every day, when you notice that you are talking at somebody, or being spoken at, engage with the person by talking with them or empathically listening. At the moment of engagement, open your palms. Consider whether you are taking on board the emotional quality of what is being said. Are you just wanting to jump in there and express your own opinion? Afterwards consider modifying your views and observe if you do so. |
L had usually forgotten about opening his palms, but he did often monitor his communication and try to listen with empathy, speak with empathy more, and that made the conversations much more meaningful - and more real. So that had enhanced his life, and he would keep doing it too. He had also observed, looking at interviews on television and online, that some hosts had the skill of empathising with the other person, whereas the others were talking at the interviewee. The ones who were purely listening produced a much better interview and product.
T had had one experience at work. There had been terrible noise from drilling, which she was not in a position to stop, and she became angry. Afterwards she spent a long time writing an email about it, trying to be restrained. While doing this, somebody burst into the room and was very apologetic. That was when she had remembered the challenge. She wanted to say how much she appreciated the apology, but could not get a word in, and at that point stopped trying. Then she remembered the rest of the Challenge, and wanted to open the palms. She tried three times, and just could not do it.
N asked T if she felt the apology she had received was genuine, and what her feelings were about receiving an apology in that way. T said that authenticity can sometimes be very hard to hear - it was full of emotion, and got mixed up with her emotions as well, because she was battling with feeling angry but appreciative at the same time.
The reading then continued from Chapter 30 of Beelzebub's Tales.
... each large or small part of the whole totality of the planetary body of a being has exactly proportionately increasing or diminishing dimensions in relation to his other parts.
For a clear understanding of what I have just said, the face of any three-brained being can serve as a good example.
The facial dimensions of every three-centered being in general, and also the facial dimensions of the three-centered beings of the planet Earth who have taken your fancy, are the result of the dimensions of seven different fundamental parts of the whole of his body, and the dimension of each separate part of the face is the result of seven different dimensions of the whole face.
RM said this meant to him that we had to look at the whole, not the part. Body language was so integrated with feelings. L was wondering if Gurdjieff was really serious about the seven-fold symmetry he specifically describes, or if it was just put it in the words of one of the characters of the book, because it was an appealing and seductive idea which might, however, be a Procrustean bed in which people tried to force everything to fit.
On Saturdays—the day-of-mysteries, or the day-of-the-theater—the demonstrations produced by learned members of this group were the most interesting, and, as it is said, the most ‘popular.’
I personally preferred these Saturdays to all the other days of the week and tried not to miss one of them; and I preferred them because the demonstrations arranged on those days by the learned beings of that group frequently provoked such spontaneous and sincere laughter among all the other terrestrial three-centered beings who were in the given section of the club, that I sometimes forgot among which three-centered beings I was, and that being-impulse manifested itself in me which is proper to arise only in one-natured beings like myself.
L said the text talked of being one-natured. That suggested some degree of attainment which most people did not get. So he might be three-brained but one-natured, particularly integrated, perhaps. T had picked up on the spontaneous and sincere laughter, which was about authenticity. Was it not being in the moment? L said that on Radio 4, you got the canned laughter which was not sincere, but in great comedy, you did get sincere laughter. Stand-up comedy was more likely to be sincere, because it was not entirely rehearsed, and was live. B asked what point Gurdjieff was trying to convey. L said Gurdjieff was describing experiences which come from somewhere very deep. So in terms of laughter, in English usage there was the phrase, belly laugh, indicating it came from the gut. So he was talking about experiences which came from somewhere deep inside our psyche, and which were not pre-planned or mediated through the superego. B cited the Ukrainian president, who used to be a comedian, and was in the middle of a tragedy - she was thinking about how to connect these things. L said we can think of comedy as waking people up. It makes us think again. An old friend from long ago had spoken of the image of God laughing, and that had always stayed with L. Laughter was also considered important in Hasidism. Maybe Gurdjieff was talking about sincere laughter as being a way of affecting personal change.
