Do you ever get tired of hearing people talk about stuff? Tired of the evening news, talking about this, that, and the other — the current president, the opposite party, whatever it is. Are you tired, perhaps, of friends talking about friends. Maybe even tired of your own mind chatter, going on and on about what is happening, getting self-critical, critical of others — all that self-talk that goes no place.
I think we all feel an urge not just to be talking about life, but to be speaking life — speaking from someplace deep within ourselves and communicating something of life itself to other people. You might be talking about ordinary things, and yet what imbues all of it with energy and reality is that you are accessing something deep within yourself and expressing it, communicating it, embodying it.
It is so satisfying when we do that. Sometimes we do it deliberately; sometimes it just happens. In some moment we are reaching a deeper part of ourselves and communicating that to another person — through a word, a hug, a glance, an action, a simple deed of kindness. We are not just talking about life. We are expressing it, embodying it, living it.
It is a simple thing — so simple that it can seem to escape us, as if it were almost nothing. If we speak in erudite ways about what is happening in the world and in the human experience, we can make ourselves sound very important — at least to ourselves, and to anyone who wants to buy into it. And yet when we simply say something that expresses who we are deep inside, we are expressing the creative power that is within us, the love that is radiant at our core.
You did not have to go to university to do that. It is so unassuming. And yet, at the end of the day, isn’t that what is most necessary — for our own fulfillment and for the world in which we live? Wouldn’t it be better if all our talk about life and about the world were infused with that expression from deep within?
So how does that happen?
There is a process by which the life source within us flows through us to other people. It begins with tuning into the flow of life that originates from deep inside. When we tune into it, it is urging us to express the one thing that wants to be said now. There is a creative will that moves powerfully through us. And then we are equipped to bring two great powers to our interactions with other people.
We have to be quiet enough, and tune in deep enough, that we are able to express something from a deep place. If we do not tune in to it, we are simply ignoring it. It is there, but we are not with it — we are in with the noise, and there is plenty of noise to be in with. So there is this matter of tuning in.
And then there is the Spirit of the Single Eye. There are so many things we could say, so many things we could talk about, and the chatter goes on endlessly in the human world. But in any given moment there is one thing — the one thing you really want to say, the thing that should be said now, the right thing for this person to hear and for the circumstance to receive. How do I know what that one thing is if I do not tune in to it? If I am double-minded or triple-minded, looking all over, looking at this and thinking of that, I will not find it. I have to tune in. And when we tune in, we realize that there is one thing to be said. If we have the courage and the heart, we say it. It is unmistakable. When someone does that with us, something in us says, thank you. It is powerful.
And then there is something else — you could name it in many ways. The word we used last week was will. There is a creative intention, something that wants to be created, and there is an impulse within us that lets it be created through us. We open to that creative impulse, and it creates something. There is a passion not merely to bob around in the world in which we live, but to create something beautiful wherever we are, whatever the circumstance.
That is what I find myself thinking: not to just say anything, not to have a nice chat, but to bring something. I have the feeling that there is something for me to bring, just as there is something for you to bring — an impulse that could take us to a good place, that could let us see something more, feel something deeper, and bring us together in a way we have not been together before. I believe it matters what I express. And so it matters that I tune in deeply, and that I then have the courage to express what I have tuned in to. That is true at a time like this, and it is true in every moment of our lives. There is always something to tune in to, something creative to express that can have an impact on our world and the people in it. When that is happening, we are experiencing it too.
Have you ever considered what it takes to tune in to the deepest part of yourself and find a way to communicate that to other people? It seems to me that is a lifelong project. Whether with your loved ones, your family, a partner, extended family, community, or the people you work with — how do you tune in deeply enough to reach that deepest place in yourself, and then (here is the tricky part) find a way to express from there that does not freak everybody out?
I can imbue an everyday conversation about practical things with something from deep inside me. Every word I speak can resonate with how I actually feel about people. Without saying so in so many words, it can tell them: I really care about you. I care about what we are doing together. I believe in you. I believe in us. I believe in what we are undertaking, and I believe it could go to great places. There is a tone to that — a feeling, an intention. We are probably not going to say it in words just like that very often. But we can bring the spirit of it — tune in to it, and let that enthusiasm, that deep love, resonate through our words and express itself on our face. They say that something like eighty-five percent of communication is nonverbal. So we free up our face, and how we are in our body, and the energy moving through us, until everything lines up — no longer the words saying one thing and the face and the body saying something else, but all of it saying the same thing.
We will get a little biblical here. In the Gospels, Jesus says this:
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
Luke 6:38
That is a story of reciprocity: as you give in that manner, it comes back to you. What goes around comes around. But I love the words chosen to describe how it goes — pressed down, shaken together, and running over. To me that evokes something from deep inside us, the power of who we are as a creator being, coming all the way down through us and then out through us with real power.
If we have a lot of negative talk going on — a lot of talking about other people, and critical talk about the world — we are probably not very eager to bring all that energy to someone. And if we do, we know we are in for a fight. But if what we are bringing is our pure energy — not things about life or about another person, but something purely of life — then perhaps we are not so afraid to let that energy move out from us to another person and to the circumstance. We are eager to let it move out, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.
It is a miraculous thing. Often, we do not trust ourselves and our own energy, and so we get sideways with people — not in a horrible way, but we are not facing them eye to eye. Energetically we are on an angle, vectors going here and there, not head-on. We are not facing them, because we know that our head-on energy will not go to a good place — we do not quite trust ourselves to give it to them, because what we would give might not be entirely creative. But if we are paying attention, letting it come down through us in a pure stream, then we have the daring to know that our energy is good for another person, and we are going to give it to them — without demand, without expectation. We are going to let the pure energy of who we are flow to another person.
It strikes me as a lifelong project to learn to do that. I know it is for me. I woke up one day and saw how unable I was to express who I was to other people. A person can wake up one morning with that realization, and with the desire to do it. But what I have found is that this is something that has to be cultivated. We cultivate the ability to bring the purest energy down into ourselves from the highest place. We cultivate the ability to call it in, and to express it in a way another person can receive.
What do we have if we do that together, each of us? If we form — whatever you want to call it — a community, an energy field, a culture — where that is happening? You could start it. You could let it begin with your family, with your friends. You could be the instigator, and it could catch on. People could get the big idea that there is another way to be with one another: not just talking about each other, not just talking at each other, but bringing the life that is within us and offering it as purely and clearly as we know how, without expectation or criticism.
Are you going to mess up sometimes? In my experience, yes, probably. Sometimes you will get it wrong. You will say the wrong thing, or it will be taken the wrong way, or some attitude you were holding will creep into what you say. And then you course-correct — maybe make an apology, maybe make up for it, put something else in the place of what went wrong. Or we could just shut down for the rest of our lives and never make a mistake. That does not seem like a good solution, does it? We have to dare to let it out, to express it, to share it.
Let me name, very simply, two great powers we have in this regard.
One is the power to enfold — to encircle, to encompass, to embrace another person with the energy we are sharing — to give them a vibrational hug. This is a no-touch technique, or at least it can be. Without touching, we can allow our energy to move out and surround another person, to embrace them, to let them feel loved on all sides. Did you know you had that power? We exercise it tangibly when we literally hug another person — and I am not against hugging; they say it is good for you. But even without touching, we can offer a vibrational hug. We can hold that person in our thoughts, right in the center of our thoughts. We can hold them in our heart. And even our physical energy can reach out and hold them. Have you ever seen someone and thought, they need a hug — when a physical hug may not be right for the relationship? But you can give them a vibrational one. You can hold them in your energy. When you do that for real, with the purity of love within you moving through you, that is a healing power. It is a healing power we all have, if we activate it.
And here is the other power. We have the power to express something pure, something that comes from the highest and deepest place in ourselves, that can reach another person and enter them — not just surround them, but enter them. And in entering them, it can activate them. It can stimulate their heart in a good way. It can bring happiness to their heart, and activate new, positive thinking in their mind.
That radiation of positive energy through us can be carried in our words, our actions, our expression, even our thoughts. We have the power to give it to them.
A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, poured into their lap.
So let’s do that. Let us exercise the powers that are within us. Let us tune in to the one thing that wants to come through us now and give it expression — letting our pure energy surround another person and letting it enter them. And as we give it away, we find that it is given back to us: a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.