Oh yeah… THAT feeling

They may not admit it, but I have never met anyone who doesn’t know THAT feeling. It is an inner thing, like a gulp - the same kind of gulp that forms a lump in the throat when we’ve been found out. But this lump usually forms deeper than the throat, felt instead in the chest, the solar plexus or the gut.

It usually creates anxiety, and it happens when we are challenged. Sometimes the challenge is not all that deep, but inevitably, if you keep going deeper and deeper inward, you are going to encounter it. Got a tough change or improvement to make? It’s always there. Getting bit by the same thing over and over? It will easily defeat you. And typically, when it flares up and exposes itself, the recoil occurs. “I’m outta here,” we say. Placed there like a traffic barrier, its presence detours us from going further down the inner road.

Putting on a happy face on the outside, but life’s not quite right on the inside? This inner recoil is one of the greatest problems we face. And we nearly always deny we are recoiling.

the tiny, little door

I certainly understand the frustration with blogging and the compulsion to give it up. I gave it up for seven months, resumed with renewed vigor for several months, and lately have been very sporadic. However, I am not ready to give up on blogging. I still believe blogging has potential, although not in its current form.

Understanding the limitations, less then a week ago my teacher made some comments about blogging. He had previously commented that it seems everyone is very eager to state their understanding, and often state it as if it is THE understanding. His more recent comment was a continuation of his earlier observations. “What I see happening is something I see everyone doing. “

“First, some people will come on and state that they do not understand the issue being discussed. Then, after saying that, they will give their opinion, but the opinion is stated in a tone of being factual. Now, I do not have a problem with someone saying they don’t understand; nor do I have a problem with someone saying they don’t understand, and then giving an opinion from the perspective of being someone who does not understand. But, I do have a problem with someone who doesn’t understand, who then gives an opinion as though they do understand.”

“Second, sometimes someone will be right on the point, but then they lose it, or it drifts away, with no one picking up on it. People will connect to the point for a moment, and then they will drift off course.”

Maybe we don’t see the problem this way, but my teacher’s insights suggest that discouragement with the medium is because we either don’t know what the point is, or we don’t recognize it when we see it, or we lose it once we have it. Of course, it is very easy to apply this to our own lives and frustrations with how to make a deeper connection, the one we are yearning to make. So why all the frustration? It is because we don’t understand the next step.

The reason we are having a problem is because we are cutting into the unknown. Last night I heard a teacher describe the door into understanding as being very tiny. He said it is the teacher’s job to show us that tiny, little door.

Two nights ago I personally met a fellow blogger for the first time, Jon Zuck. I have known Jon for a couple of years and it was great to finally meet him. After a night of getting acquainted face to face over dinner, we agreed to get together the next night so that I could attend a class with Jon’s teacher. This master is dedicated to the Way; it is his profession and life’s work. Born in 1948, Kitabu Roshi is an author, teacher and martial arts master. He recently started a new website. After the evening class, in which he discussed the importance of a teacher and the importance of learning how to ‘get out of the way’ and let the ‘One’ come through, there were refreshments and informal chats. Among other things, we briefly discussed the web as a teaching medium. While I sensed in Roshi a hopeful optimism, he also sees its limitations.

E.R. Spruiell and Kitabu Roshi

As bloggers we are touching people, but we are sometimes hitting barriers within our blogging and within ourselves. Spiritual blogs and websites can help and inform us, but words only take us so far. Using our intellect only gets us to a certain point and then we start regressing or at best doing lateral development. Essential to deeper development is the need for actual deeper experiences. How is the web going to get us to the next point? How is the web going to give us deeper experiences? We don’t know the answer to that.

If we want to open up, in a truly meaningful and substantial way, we need a teacher (in whatever form that takes) to guide us through the unknown. Yet, we are often way too quick to define what the unknown thing looks and feels like.

With respect to a person as a teacher, many people resist the notion of a spiritual teacher. They don’t want to give up their personal power, or they have been taught that everything is already in them. Everything is in us, but if we glibly dismiss the need for a teacher because ‘everything is already in me,’ we are denying our salvation. If everything is already in us, then why don’t we demonstrate and live the ‘everything’? This is one of those many paradoxes that can confound us when we are on the outside of the door looking in. Actually, we are not looking in the door, because we don’t even know what the door looks like. We wouldn’t recognize it if it was staring us right in the face.

Teacher’s who are genuinely capable of being a guide along the inner path are hard to find. But they are much easier to find than the point inside of us that we find to be so elusive. Meanwhile, the teacher stands patiently, ignored as he continuously, 24/7, points to the tiny, little door.

Communication and the Art of Giving

Take a jump over to Transforming Communication where James Souttar applies the concepts and principles of The Art of Giving to the process of communication, discussed in his post Communication and Giving.

We have been discussing these principles here for the last month or so. The best way to learn deeper principles is to both study them and to also apply them to our everyday life situations. The principles discussed on this site are universal principles that have enormous power to transform lives and life. The more ways we find to apply and integrate principles, the quicker we learn and the deeper and more comprehensively we can become aligned to their power. Application is the key.

The Art of Giving Series

_________________________________________________________

James Souttar is a communications consultant and designer based in Great Britain. For over twenty years he has worked with organisations ranging from government departments to entrepreneurial start-ups, banks to charities, universities to trades unions, integrating new thinking from the sciences as well as ideas from traditional psychologies.