Posts Tagged ‘Bible’
Jacuzzi For The Mind: The Sound Of Transformative Communication
I get to chant my rounds!
The morning after a 3-day transformative communication course I conducted in Brooklyn, I encountered a woman who had just completed the seminar. She was excited and had an experience she was eager to share with me. In the spiritual community where she lived she had taken a vow to chant daily a prescribed number of mantras on beads. She exclaimed, “This morning I realized that I don’t have to chant my rounds! I don’t have to chant my rounds!” Her exhilaration filled the air with a sense of liberation. Seeing me puzzled as to why she was happy to give up her vow, she went on, “I get to chant my rounds! I get to chant my rounds!” She then explained how that morning she had begun to finger her beads and chant a few mantras. For the first time in her decades of experience tears flowed from her eyes while chanting. For the first time her attitude wasn’t “I have to chant my rounds.”
Authentic mantra chanting and high-level communication practices are two complementary vehicles through which we can utilize sound vibration to realize our spiritual identity and connect with the innermost stratum of the living soul.
A genuine mantra is a potent transformational vibration. “Mantra” means spiritual sound vibration that extricates the mind from material entanglement. Jill Bormann has conducted research on mantra meditation with various populations including military veterans. She describes meditative time with a mantra as a “Jacuzzi for the mind. It’s something you can use to focus and calm yourself at a moment’s notice, …it doesn’t require money, and it’s non-toxic… a person just needs to make it a part of their lives.” My personal favorite mantra for meditation is one of India’s most beloved, the Maha Mantra. Studies have shown that this 16-word mantra reduces stress and depression and increases qualities such as balance, fulfillment, and sense of life purpose.
In our programs we focus on transformation through communication. Awareness of how we use sound to influence our consciousness and environment is a powerful approach to personal and interpersonal development. In the beginning was the word. Just as the divine creates with sound, we can productively examine what we generate in our life with our sounds.
For example, to what extent do we build roadblocks to effective communication through responses that convey messages of invalidation, disempowerment, or self-absorption? This might take the form of unnecessarily advising or warning, shallow praise, avoidance of vital issues, or prematurely giving solutions. Effective listening is essential for the creation of the sacred space that is crucial for life-enriching relationships. Such listening focuses on what the other person is saying- not what we’re saying to ourselves about what the other is saying. In our expression we can consider the degree to which we communicate from fear, neediness, and insecurity, as opposed to purpose, joy and inspiration. Through three days of intense immersion in transformative communication the mantra yogini shifted her consciousness from “I have to…”- burdensome, obligatory, and mechanical- to “I get to…”- vibrant, inspired, and fresh.
CREATING WITH OUR WORD
In The Beginning Was The Word
Just as the supreme creates with the word, we too create our lives with our word. Self-reflection is a core principle in personal growth, and it can be especially illuminating to consider our relationship with our word. In the Vedic tradition there is a literature called Upadeshamrita, or The Nectar of Instruction. The book concludes with a depiction of the most elevated spiritual consciousness, and it starts with a description of the importance of effective management of our words, for anyone interested in spiritual progress.
In the transformative communication seminars that I conduct we ask participants to examine the effects of kept and broken agreements. Typically, experiences and feelings connected with violated agreements include hurt, embarrassment, anger, betrayal, confusion, lack of clarity, disappointment and feeling devalued. Agreements honored are usually related with experiences such as trust, gratitude, responsibility, fulfillment, security, clarity, and respect. The purpose of such examination is not to moralize about the importance of keeping our promises. It’s about realizing how our relationship with our word affects our experience of life.
In this regard I suggest that there aren’t big or small agreements. Consider, for example, that I say, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” and I don’t call. We may think, “It’s no big deal.” With respect to our relationship, however, will the consequences noted above be in effect? Probably they will. At some level, your trust for me will likely diminish, and our relationship will be less whole.
Commitment is essential for self-development. Without it, we’re likely not going to significantly expand our possibilities and comfort zone. When we make agreements, we’ll probably find that, despite our best efforts, we sometimes don’t follow through. A strategy for handling broken agreements with integrity is a valuable tool for restoring relationships.
The Five As
An effective approach is the “five As”, which are 1) Acknowledge, 2) Accept responsibility, 3) Account, 4) Apologize, and 5) Amend. “Acknowledge” means to recognize that we have a broken agreement, and to express this to the person whom we transgressed. Accepting responsibility, the second of the As, denotes realization that I responded in a particular way that caused me to not honor my word. The third A is Account. Expression of accountability consists of genuinely explaining what happened. Apology is the fourth A, and it’s noteworthy that it’s fourth, not first. Oftentimes we act like apology is the first and only step in effectively handling a broken agreement. “I’m sorry” can be more about my need to restore my image, than about sincerely reinstating the soundness of the relationship. Amend is the fifth A, and consists of actively redressing the situation.
A Culture Of Trust
‘Tis a season for making resolutions, when we consider things we can do to better our lives. This is a powerful opportunity to enhance the culture of trust in our relationships, and within ourselves. My proposal is that we invoke special awareness of the effects in our life and relationships when we make an agreement and keep it.
