Chapter Two: Magical Empathy

Week Two: Magical Empathy

Objectives for Week Two:

Review: Pursue some of the optional listening skills listed in Chapter One. For example, deepen active listening by observing the inner and outer flow of life, stage of life, ten steppingstones

Imagine you are other people. Explore this act of imagination in various ways.

Read One Minute Seminar and compare your experience.

Video: The Goddess.

Consider some of the spiritual resources outlined that you can bring to listening according to the four elements. For example, note the empty mind method of contemplation in which the only thing in your awareness is what you are focusing on.

Try blessing someone. Note two blessing poems.

Try forming a spiritual connection of love with another person.

For those who project, project into heart chakra of Dalai lama

Send in any comments or questions you may have.

Magical Empathy

In the first chapter, I describe good listening skills. Active listening is a courtesy we may extend to someone we care about. Your task in the first chapter was to use active listening on other people so that it becomes familiar. At this point, we are ready to proceed to magical empathy.

A basic technique sometimes used in psychology is to imagine you are the other person. You imagine you are inside of the other’s body sitting in the same position. You imagine that you are speaking with the other’s voice and using the other’s body language. Going further, you imagine thinking the other’s thoughts, possessing the other’s memories, seeing through the other’s eyes, and feeling the other’s feelings.

You explore another’s self-image until you notice a specific, concrete, and physical sensation in your body that arises in response to imagining you are the other person. When you get this sensation of being the other person, focus on it. Allow it to tell you something new about this person.

Ask yourself, What is this sensation like? Is there an image or symbol that you could use to express it? What does it tell you about what the other person is like or about the inner flow of the other’s life?

For example, with a young woman whom I consider to be amazingly complex, I get a sensation in my belly as if I have just eaten a piece of Godiva chocolate. It is sweet, warm, and satisfying. The sensation tells me that in spite of my ideas about her, she actually is what she appears to be—a sweet, young, and a loving woman.

With a stock broker whom I just met, I get a sensation of being very relaxed, laid back, and easy going. This sensation is in complete contrast to his physical appearance which is tense and in control. I ask him about this. He says he is looking forward to retiring and that I seem to know more about him than any of his friends. (See One Minute Seminar)

Getting physical sensations in this manner gives a direct body-to-body and heart-to-heart connection to another person. For a brief period or longer, you are now connected to this person in a way that no one else in the world is. Consequently, you may notice an instant change in your body language and that of the other person.

Among other things, there is greater rapport. You and the other may feel more relaxed and comfortable so that words are no longer needed to confirm or validate the relationship. The level of connection is more fundamental than that produced by conversation or social interactions. Larry King has never attained this level of connection with any guest appearing on his show.

I taught a woman this form of magical empathy. Just after imagining that she was one with me, she paraphrased my conversation with her. As she did so, I felt that her words were like my own voice speaking to me from depths inside myself. I do not recall ever having had this experience before.

Almost everyone has had a life-long friend. In talking to such a person there is a feeling of trust, relaxation, an effortless ease and satisfaction that accompanies the conversation. Yet no friend I have ever known speaks to me with a voice from the depths of my heart. But for an undine, it is perfectly natural to sense what is hidden in another’s heart and then to say, “By the way, I feel something very wonderful inside of you. Why are you not expressing this in your life?”

Undines automatically produce physical sensations that indicate an inner connection. In this exercise, we are exploring verbal and nonverbal aspects of rapport. But undines go much further. They add bliss and ecstasy to a conversation in a way that we rarely experience in life.

A One Minute Seminar—an Example of Magical Empathy

Introduction. The following brief, humorous scene summarizes a real life interaction in which I used magical empathy. I employed active listening, projecting into another person, getting a body sensation, and then discussing the feeling.

In this case, I was giving a demonstration of how magical empathy might be a useful skill for an alpha male who is usually too busy to take the time to bond with women.

Here we are folks at a world famous Yacht Club. I have standing next me on my right the most eligible bachelor in the state. Let’s call him Brad. Next to him is his current stock broker (James—all these names are fictitious). And to my left is an actual group of self-proclaimed cheerleaders both supportive of Brad and carrying on a discussion of Brad’s current girlfriend.

Me: “Excuse me ladies. Can you tell me why you consider yourselves a group of cheerleaders for Brad?”

Susan: “I think we feel we are out of the running or never qualified for the running. But we still feel we have a vested interest in the outcome.”

Me: “Ah yes. I think I kind of understand. But why this bachelor? What makes him so special?”

Linda: “He’s handsome, successful, wealthy, a great sailor, has a beautiful sailboat, great to crew for, and has hundreds of friends. It makes a woman feel good just to be around him.”

Me: “Really? So what’s the cheerleader squad discussing tonight?”

Jennifer: “We’re questioning Brad’s attitude toward women. He says he is not really serious when he dates but come on. I think he is naïve about women if he thinks the women he is dating aren’t really serious about him.”

Susan: “Look. I run my own bar and I have seen a lot of dating going on. And unless a guy is intimate with a woman he owes her exactly nothing.”

Me: “So you are saying on the one hand that Brad is misleading women and yet technically it’s the women who are misleading themselves. Is that a fair summary?”

Jennifer: “Yah. Judging from his track record, he usually takes about seven years to decide to marry a woman ….because he doesn’t want to go through the trauma of breaking up. Not being serious is his way of being cautious. I mean, look at the way he hangs out with a woman--his arm around the girl he is dating and how he kisses her. When I see that there is no way the woman isn’t going to get involved.”

Me: “So has this been a problem with his latest date?”

Susan: “He’s a man. He thinks of a woman in terms of whether 1. She has ‘excess baggage,’ 2. She is ‘damaged goods,’ and 3. Whether or not she is ‘high maintenance.’”

Me: “So he is kind of picky.”

Linda: “His real problem is not the women he will finally marry. The problem is that after two years the woman will finally catch on to what Brad is really about.”

Me: “And what is that?”

Linda: “For Brad, the first thing in his life is business. The second is his social life. The third thing is his sailing and hanging out down here at the Yacht Club. At best, his wife will only be fourth on his list of priorities.”

Me: “That could be a problem, huh? But why should we speculate? Let’s ask Brad for an opinion.”

Me: “Say Brad. I have been talking to your cheerleaders here and they are questioning your interpersonal skills. They suspect they may not be sufficient to keep a woman happy once you marry here.”

Brad: “It is true. In my past marriages, my wives left me. Got any ideas?”

Me: “Ladies? No thoughts? We’ll, have you heard about the three day seminar on relationships taught in one minute?”

Brad: “Well, I have a minute. Let’s do it.”

Me: “There are three components. First, once a week sit down and listen to a woman for fifteen minutes. During this time, utilize only active listening. That is, on occasion paraphrase what she is saying and also suggest what you sense she is feeling as she talks. For example, Susan here says flat out that a woman has no claim on you unless you are intimate with her. And I suspect she feels that the only important thing you should be concerned about in dating is finding the right woman. Susan is concerned about what is best for you. This is active listening: capture both thoughts and feelings.”

Susan: “You got that right.”

Me: “The second component is that after fifteen minutes you place your mind inside of the other person. Just to make it challenging, I will pick James here since I know nothing about him and have never heard him say anything. To do this, just image you are the other person—you have the other person’s body, feelings, mind, gestures, body posture, vocal intonations, word choices, etc. Get right inside the other so you are one.

“Ok, here I am imagining I am inside of James. And this brings us to the third component—wait inside the other until you get a distinct body sensation. This sensation is a gut level connection to the other person.

“With James the sensation I now have is that he is a very relaxed person, ready to let go and let his life completely unfold in any way it wants. But if you look at James sitting here on that bar stool, his posture and facial expression suggest he is tense, uptight, and worrying about something. How am I doing, James?”

James: “You are absolutely right. People keep thinking I am an uptight kind of guy. But I have all the clients I need and I am actually cutting back in my business. I am looking forward to retiring and I completely happy with my life.”

Me: “Do you feel we know each James?”

James: “You seem to know me better than my best friends.”

Linda: “What if Brad doesn’t do this once a week once he marries a woman?”

Me: “Then his wife can actually do it on Brad. Intimacy that is magical like this can be established unilaterally. And as a matter of fact lovers in this life rarely worry about how their inner connection came to be. They just know when it is there and when it is not. If they have it, all the other difficulties and worries that accompany the relationship remain secondary.”

In summary, magical empathy allows you freedom of movement so your consciousness can move back and forth between yourself and another. In so doing, you discover an energy and connection that underlies and joins both of you.

Warning. Some warning is appropriate. Empathy seems like it is responding rather than acting. If you feel what another feels, then this implies you are passively sensing the other person. If we consider empathy as being closely aligned with the feminine in its nurturing capacity, then some might regard this supportive aspect of empathy as being weak. It would seem that masculinity, by contrast, takes charge and changes things. This point of view is a great mistake.

Empathy can control just as easily as it can receive. It can recreate in itself what another feels, and it can just as easily create new feelings in another person. This is perfectly clear in my dialogues with undines. Simply communicating with them is to experience wonder and profound states of love. It is not for nothing that even traditional literature ascribes to undines the ability to enchant and cast spells.

Our own psychologists notice something similar. If you establish a subliminal bond with another person and change your feelings, then the other person tends to change also without being conscious that this is happening. In doing active listening, then, you do not want to be overly sympathetic or signal to the other that you have a strong reaction to what the other person has experienced. You do not want to define others’ feelings for them by indicating your feelings are already perfectly clear about the experiences they are sharing.

Salesmen are constantly employing various forms of empathy. They act like your best friend to establish trust so they can sell you something. They employ all sorts of nonverbal cues to accomplish this.

I met a powerful empath not long ago. She turned her immense powers of psychic sensitivity on me. A third party might have observed her empathy being expressed through her tone of voice, her eyes, and her facial expressions. But I simply noticed her extending her aura around me. In an instant, she conveyed that she understood who I was and what I was seeking to accomplish.

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Experience told me that, although she sensed what was in me, she did not really care. She was running on autopilot--using her empathic skills to manipulate another in order to sell her products. Beneath the warmth was a cold heart. And the man she was with was drained and depressed, perhaps as a result of her influence. You have to actually care about others if you want to bring to life what is within them.

The Opposite of Empathy. It might also be helpful at this point to note the opposite of empathy. Empathy is to feel what another feels. It overcomes separation and personal boundaries. It works directly with feeling.

If you are intuitive you can say to someone with accuracy, “You are pregnant.” “Something terrible happened to you during your vacation.” “You are violating another person’s trust.”

If you know the other person well, then your comments may fall within the trust you share with that person. Just as easily these words could be invasive, presuming an intimacy or familiarity with the other person that does not exist. In that case, the comments can be offensive and obnoxious. The advice or insight you are offering is unsolicited

The opposite of empathy is being assertive. You state clearly and concisely your own interests and let others do the same for themselves. You do not try to rescue others nor do you allow them to intrude on your personal space uninvited.

Being assertive requires a sense of maintaining and defending your personal boundaries. Sure, another person may know what you are feeling but you are perfectly within your rights to say, “I am not interested in discussing that.” “That is none of your business.”

Saying, “I am not interested in discussing that” is the bottom line. There is nothing further to discuss. Any further attempt to talk about your feelings is disrespectful and invasive. It is okay to look at someone, slowly shake your head, and say quietly but firmly (and repeat as needed), “I am not interested.” Or, “I am not going to go there.”

Enforcing boundaries means also escalating consequences. On the one hand, if you can just ignore someone and act like there is no problem, then there is no problem.

At other times, you have to gradually increase consequences to defend your personal space. In this case, you know your own limitations no matter how loving you are. You gradually limit your contact with someone or else limit the interaction. You formalize the contact so that it only moves within acceptable boundaries.

These are methods that belong to conflict resolution. The greater the degree of conflict, the stronger the control must be over the kind and extent of the interaction.

Another mode of being assertive is called “giving feedback.” You say for example, when you do such and such, I feel so and so. I am asking you therefore not to do that anymore.

For example, “When you raise your voice and glare at me as we talk about this, I get the feeling that I am being controlled. But I have my own choice to make. I want you to respect that.”

Video: The Goddess

http://williammistele.com/movie5.wmv

Introduction: This is a two minute video that is part of a story board for a screenplay. It borrows a scene from Peter Weir’s movie, The Last Wave.

In that movie, an aboriginal shaman in Australia hypnotizes a white man and discovers the man is a former shaman himself from another aboriginal clan.

The scene relies on hypnotism as a dramatic device. All the same, there are certain questions we can ask about active listening.

Note: The nude shots of the model were taken when she was a model for a photography seminar. There were about fourteen photographers shooting and the seminar was lead by one of the foremost photographers in the U.S.

Exercises

As we listen, can we discover spiritual aspects or “identities” hidden in another person?

I consider the model in the movie clip to be the incarnation of the Buddhist deity, Prajnaparamita, the mother of all enlightened beings. That is, in her akashic body she is pure awareness without form identification exactly identical with that of the goddess, Prajnaparamita. But this in no way implies that her mental, astral, or physical bodies reflect those divine qualities. She struggles like anyone else to get through the day.

All the same, as an intuitive psychic, it is sometimes my job to “see” how the divine and the human are striving to unite within any human being. To listen in this way requires that you the listener be able to enter some form of transcendent state of awareness.

These can be such things as

1. A mind that is temporarily enlightened, that is, free of all attachment and perfectly clear—an embodiment of perfect freedom. This is the air element used as a resource to help clarify another’s experiences.

A simple way to approximate an enlightened state of mind is to employ contemplation. As you gaze upon something or hold an image of a person in your mind, focus without thoughts occurring. Do not refer back to your self. Imagine that the only thing that exists in your awareness is the other person.

Instead of projecting into another person, if you hold the other person in your mind without distraction and without referring back to your self, then the vibration of the other person is the only thing in your consciousness. This too is a way of uniting or of becoming one with another person.

The advantage of contemplation in this way is that you are simply turning your mind into a mirror that reflects one thing—the other person—within it. You can get insights and impressions in this way. The disadvantage of contemplation is that it does not engage the astral body level of feeling.

To unite with another requires also the ability to feel all that the other feels. Contemplation will give you insight but it will not take you into those depths of love and inner connection. That is a limitation of the air element.

2. You can embody the fire element by seeking to illuminate for another person that individual’s divine purpose in life. This is tricky, because even archangels can not tell you what your purpose is in life. They can only seek to fulfill the vision hidden within your heart. It falls to you to discover and to reveal what that vision is.

People sometimes write me and ask me to tell them what their purpose is in life. This is like asking, What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything else? In both cases, I can probably tell you exactly what that purpose is.

The problem is that the idea or words have no meaning. The answer is something you have to experience for yourself. The universe exists as a divine celebration. But saying that says exactly nothing.

How can words express what it is to feel one with everything that exists? How can words express that there is an ecstasy so great that its mere touch annihilates all pain and suffering that has gone before? To taste these things is to no longer be a human being but something else. Divine fire represented by the sun knows of these things and on very rare occasions we are able to share that illumination with another.

However, a simple way of entering into such a frame of mind is to visualize a being of light and imagine that this being is the other person’s guardian angel. Then you and the guardian angel you imagine listen together as the other person speaks. If you like, you can imagine you are the other person’s guardian angel, that is, that you are the being of light you visualize.

The problem with this approach is that guardian angels themselves are often in a very difficult situation. They can speak to another person through that individual’s conscience, dreams, omens, special events, strong feelings, etc. But very often no one is listening. Consequently, you as a listener have a great advantage over a guardian angel. The feedback you give to the other person often holds the other’s attention so that new and personal insight can be generated.

Another way of working with the fire element is simply to visualize a person as having resolved whatever conflicts he or she has right now. If she is depressed, visualize her as invigorated, energized, and inspired. If he is tense and frustrated, imagine him as completely relaxed and satisfied. If she is having relationship problems, visualize her as completely fulfilled with deep love relationships in her life.

There is a body to body effect, a non verbal communication that occurs. If more therapists did this their clients would be cured much faster. But psychology is renowned for lacking a power of will. All the same, our world has immense fire and will power built into the culture. It is often not will that people lack but the inspiration and limitless possibilities offered by love.

3. The earth element also offers a kind of transcendence. The earth element embodies among other things the mystery of silence. For example, a person who knows how to be silent as he listens communicates to the other person a sense of safety: it is okay to talk about contradictions and impossible dreams and all manner of idiotic desires. That is because silence allows the seed of desire, dream, and vision to be protected and sheltered until it is ready to be reborn or assume a different form.

Without such silence, any ideal you seek is shot down right away most likely because an individual is not ready or pure enough to pursue it. But if you maintain inner silence, you can take whatever time you need and gain whatever experience is required in order to embody that ideal or vision.

The world knows nothings about such inner, transforming power. You, however, can offer this to another person in the way you listen, in particular, by not judging or striving for quick closure to any difficulties that arise.

Silent listening in this way may seem like the opposite of fire that visualizes a person as being stronger and more successful now rather than in some far future. But the two support each other. Some visions like that of the prophet Isaiah’s take thousands of years until someone else picks them up and actually has the means for fulfilling them.

At other times, you visualize what you want as being real right now in this moment and it comes to you effortlessly. It depends on the obstacles to overcome and how well you can communicate your vision to others.

4. You can offer the water element such as the undine capacity for love: a receptivity so giving that it holds the other within its heart, nurturing, sheltering, inspiring, and fulfilling. This entire course pursues this ability. Consider the following:

Undine Empathy—A First Step

An undine’s magnetic aura passes through anyone near to her or through anyone she focuses on. The magnetic fields of force in her aura automatically sense the other’s deepest desires and dreams. They also sense the ways in which the other person might be fulfilled.

In this sense, an undine’s empathy goes beyond feeling another person’s feelings or even feeling compassion. It is a way of foreseeing the future. Or, more accurately, undines see the way an individual might become whole and complete. To feel what is at the core of another person’s being is also to have a vision of what this individual can become.

You could say that the desire or dream in another’s heart is like fire and light. The undine’s magnetic love amplifies that fire or desire so that it becomes concrete and feels real. In this sense, the undine is not using will power. There is no effort exerted. The undine’s magnetic aura automatically amplifies the way a magnetic field makes an electric current stronger.

This is not a prophetic function. The future depends on the individual’s and others’ choices. The undine may not see when something will happen as much as what will inevitably happen.

At the same time, empathy for an undine does not stop with insight or knowledge. It takes the individual into that vision and grants a taste—a powerful emotional affirmation that one’s deepest dreams can be fulfilled. The undine takes you directly into the dream as if the dream is real right now.

We do not often experience this in our daily lives so it might be a little hard to imagine. However, we sometimes notice something similar occurring in the moment of falling in love. A lover may say, “I never felt fully alive until I met you. I can’t imagine living my life without you. You are the reason I exist.” Or, “Until I met you my life was confused but now everything is in clear.”

In other words, love enhances feeling. It makes people alive. Individuals in love have more energy. Lovers, however, usually relate one to one. In romantic love, you bond with one person.

For an undine, love is not possessive in this way. Love is a property of water. The ecstasy and bliss that water contain is not derived from a connection to one person. Love is in the rivers, the lakes, and the seas. This love encompasses the planet. Undines are not constricted by the limitations and needs of an ego.

Though we might find it difficult to sense another person’s deepest desires and dreams, we are already familiar with the idea of blessing another person. In some churches, the service ends with a blessing as in, “May the blessings of God be upon you; may his peace abide with you; may his presence illuminate your lives now and forever more.”

In this case, the blessing is an act of love. It is not possessive. It does not serve the purpose of bonding or forming a romantic attachment. But it does express a solidarity and in a sense an inner union with the other person. It is a celebration of the love that unites us all as one.

Bless another person and you have stepped outside of your ego. You are in a sacred space, on the astral plane of the planet, where love and peace flow like a stream from the dawn of time to the ends of eternity.

Exercise

Now then, take the idea of a blessing and customize it for a specific individual. Try this: Visualize someone right now so you see the other in front of you. Now imagine this individual feeling whole and complete. Whatever is missing is now present. Desires are satisfied, purposes accomplished, and dreams fulfilled.

Put together a feeling, a thought, and a picture of what this might be like for the individual. Now, imagine blessing the other person in this way--see and feel it as if it is real right now. In the section in which I describe the undine queen Isaphil, I mention a blessing she offered to a friend of mine. (see poem below)

The idea of blessing involves an act of daring—you accept the person as he or she is right now and you also dream what the person can be. For undines, the oceans brought life into being, sustain life, and offer dreams of what can be. To dare is the very nature of water.

You could say that the queens of the undines, as masters of water, automatically bless anyone they meet. It is a function of the magnetism in their auras. They empower others to feel alive and to fulfill their dreams.

A friend asked for a blessing. I asked the undine queen Isaphil for her thoughts. Isaphil chants to the woman,

May the touch of moonlight on your skin

Bring you the best of friends.

When you see the moonrise

May there always be love by your side.

When you place your hands in water

May you be free of anxiety and sorrow.

When you look into a mirror,

May you see your deepest dreams drawing near.

When you sleep

May you move freely among dreams without fear.

During the day

May you awaken in others’ lives

Fountains of laughter and delight.

And each cycle

As the moon waxes and wanes

May you walk

With peace before you

Beauty beside you

Love to guide you

The work of your hands

Like a flower blossoming

Its scent a reminder

That the best in life is found

Here and now.

And another blessing for a woman I know.

For the video of below: http://williammistele.com/farewellb.wmv

Farewell

May the sun shine upon all your paths

May friends always walk beside you

May love always guide you

And reach the inner recesses of your heart

May every task you seek be made complete

May you be the sun and the moon to others’ lives

May you be as the light of dawn

To others in the darkest night

May you taste the happiness

That comes only to a few in every century

May you find another who brings you comfort

And is always there to share all your cares

Though we once talked, and walked, and joked

As we traveled the path of life

Seeking to fulfill a dream

The gift you gave of your self

Was all I could ever want or need

Peace to you

May the peace of the sun, the moon, the sky and seas

Always flow through your dreams.

And in the end may you look back and see

That your life is all it is meant to be.

The Great Feminine

In our world, the elements fire (will), air (intellect), and earth (commitment to work) are developed far beyond that of water (feeling).

In the I-Ching the great Yin is the most receptive of all things. The perfect expression of its nature is the simple that it might overcome what obstructs. The yin in this case is known for its devotion. It is the mother whose love is always there, whose support is always felt and present. There is no end to its nurturing capacity physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

The Great Yin conveys an inner feeling of affirmation, of support and love. This devotion or conveyance of love serves to unite the individual from within no matter how dissecting and dividing, conflicting and stressful the circumstances of the individual’s path in life. This is a feminine, a mother’s set of qualities and powers describe by King Wu in ancient times in China when he wrote the I-Ching.

We could say that peace, repose, calmness, happiness, contentment, serenity, tranquility, well-being, delight, kindness, gentleness, affection, empathy, tenderness, sensuality, pleasure, bliss, ecstasy, compassion, and love are qualities that are present when the feminine spirit is operating successfully.

Exercise

We have all met people who make us feel good simply by knowing them. It is as if the relationship is itself a blessing: they bring together, unite, and make whole the person we are inside. There is a renewing, purifying, and healing power that wells up inside of us from their presence in our lives.

On the other hand, there are those who have the opposite effect: they dissent, pull apart, weigh down, make ill, contaminate, and destroy others through their contact with them. If you have such a person active in your life, the other person acts from inside of you to tear you a part rather than to heal and unite.

In both cases, there is a power present. It sustains its connection to you from within.

Ask your self the following question. The answer indicates the quality and amount of the water element that is or is not present in your life: Do you know someone who senses what is going on in the depths of your soul and also who shelters, nurtures, inspires, and guides you to transform from the person you are into the person you are meant to be?

My point is that water, love, and feeling are very rare indeed. We can make an effort to right the imbalance by pursuing the notion of offering a blessing. Blessing is not a one time event or something a minister may do each Sunday. It is an inner connection one person can sustain with another. It is a flow of energy. It is love in action. It is a way of feeling and it is a way of seeing:

I love your eyes

So quiet and peaceful--

A place to let go and forget who I am

Until I awaken to the sound

Of waves breaking on the shore

And the scent of the sea

I see the man I was meant to be

Walking toward me

Your eyes dream him into being.

By virtue of being human beings, we are often caught up in getting through the day and doing what we must to survive. There is another dimension surrounding us. The mermaids remind us of this.

Love has no beginning or ending. It encompasses the universe. A first step in sensing this is to become part of it, like dipping one’s foot into the ocean.

Try blessing someone on a permanent basis, the way a mother holds a child in her heart, loving him or her forever. Hold another person in your heart. When you think of his person, automatically send good energy—a feeling of being love, at peace, and fulfilled.

It is not about gaining an advantage or producing a result. It is a way of being. It is doing what the spiritual power in water does naturally—flowing in and through others and understanding that we are all a part of each other.

Actual Projection Exercise

It is possible to extend the practice of imagining you are outside of you body and inside of various objects—a tree, a rock, a coffee bean, a grape, a mountain, a lake as well as all kinds of people. At this point, you may begin to get impressions that are not from your imagination. They are derived from the energy you sense of being in something else.

If you can get such impressions with people, you might consider projecting your mind inside the heart chakra of the Dalai Lama. As a spiritual anthropologist who considers our spiritual possibilities, the Dalai Lama is an excellent example of a master of compassion.

Imagine you are at the center of the Dalai Lama’s chest. Then focus on the astral body, the sense of feeling in that part of his body. He sometimes invites thousands of people at one time to pass through his chakras. He seems very open to this idea.

For me, his heart chakra is like a sea of love. It is boundless. He describes his motivation as “As long as suffering remains to sentient beings, I will remain to serve.” Such a statement belongs not to a human being but to someone who embodies a cosmic religion. In regard to compassion, he is united to the purposes underlying the universe.

Summary of Objectives for Weeks One and Two

Week One

Explore some of the inspirational quotes.

Practice active listening by paraphrasing back the thoughts and separately the feelings of the other person.

Ask questions that keep the focus of interest on the other person.

Do three to ten minute sessions of active listening with one or more people.

Observe body language, word choices, tone of voice, intonation patterns, incongruities, and in particular the way the other’s words and feelings are aligned or moving in separate directions.

Send in questions, comments, and observations.

Week Two