New Gaze - New World

Tool N°2 - Presence.

Day 2

Tool 2

The group was back together under the white sail. 

Liam spoke up. "Thank you all for coming. Before the teaching of the day takes place, I would like to take some time to clarify your questions about yesterday's teaching about synchronicities. You all worked well on the walk this morning and I was listening with great interest to your exchange on this subject during the break.Most of the sub-groups realised that following a synchronicity can change your life, but you were still struggling to identify whether an event that is happening now is a synchronicity or not. 

Remember Saida's parable which compared our teaching to the work of the painter and the mixing of colours. It was said that the artist never uses one colour in its pure state, but always a subtle and delicate mixture of several colours to create the exact shade of his inspiration. 

Synchronicities are the first of the tools we will teach you. And like the painter, you will never use this tool alone. It will complement other tools and add nuance to your understanding. To be more precise, I have heard you rightly conclude that it is easier to identify a synchronicity after the events have occurred. You will agree that if you knew the future, then it would be much easier to recognise a synchronicity. In the example of the book I mentioned yesterday, if I had known about the future event of the book falling into the library, I would have immediately realised that I had to read that book and I would not have taken it off my first shopping list. Well, among the tools we have left to pass on to you, some are meant to open your eyes to the future. Not that we're going to turn you into soothsayers, we're not at Hogwarts wizard school. No, we are going to sharpen your eyes, we are going to polish your vision so that what you do not see today, will reveal itself to you tomorrow. 

Then the synchronicities will become clear to you. They will become signposts for you that you will decode as surely as those at the roadside." 

Liam turned to Karim. "Karim, has the desert brought any answers to your question about the relationship between Synchronicity and fate?" 

Karim was smiling, he appreciated that his teacher remembered his request. 

"It seems to me," said Karim, "that I am the master of my destiny through my choices which may or may not follow the indications of a synchronicity. I like the image of the signpost you just took. This signpost shows us a road that we are free to follow or not. Nevertheless, an intuition tells me that it is good to follow these indications. 

Liam smiled, "That answer seems to me to be full of wisdom." 

I'll leave it to Sophie to teach a new tool. 

Sophie was sitting next to Liam. She spoke. "Have you seen every day of your life how ego and mind are rarely good advisors? 

Remember that in every moment Ego and Mind interfere with the clarity of your vision. 

Can we free ourselves from or at least reduce the influence of the ego and mind? 

Can we intervene in the mind's incessant habit of interrupting and giving its opinion? 

Some of you may say "easier said than done". 

But let's try to observe some of the mechanisms. Have you ever had the experience of several people recounting the same event with such differences that you came to doubt that they had really witnessed the same event? 

I remember for example that during the Gulf War, I used to listen to the BBC on my way to work every morning, and France Info on my way home every evening. You may remember that England sided with the US in favour of the war and France sided against it. 

On both sides of the Channel, I heard very competent journalists commenting on the same facts with very convincing arguments to arrive at radically opposite conclusions. I honestly did not know who to believe. In truth, aren't there as many truths as there are witnesses? 

 A left-wing journalist will tell how the strongest exploit the weakest, while the right-wing journalist will tell how capitalism and free trade could solve the problems. 

The military man will explain how a little rigour would solve the same problems. 

The 'leading' manager will decide that his version is the right one and impose it on everyone, another manager will listen to everyone's story, make a consensus and decide on a common story. 

 Don't we agree that in truth only one event happened and that none of the versions reported are really capable of describing it in its reality? 

 Do you notice how each account is coloured by the experience and certainties of the one telling it?

So why all these realities? 

We can easily deduce that the most reliable story is the one that does not pass through the filter of the reporter. However, we cannot change the reporter. 

Changing the listener, i.e. ourselves, is within our power. 

From a scientific point of view, in 1967, Professor Albert Mehrabian demonstrated that only 7% of communication is verbal, i.e. the meaning of words. 38% of this communication is vocal, through the intonation and sound of the voice. Finally 55% of communication is visual through facial expression and body language. 

So let's consider a different kind of listening, one that gives the speaker our full attention, one that takes in the speaker in his or her entirety: let's observe that even before he or she utters the first word, he or she is already transmitting a lot of feelings, his or her appearance, his or her walk, his or her clothes, his or her bearing, his or her facial expressions... 

Let's observe that even before he or she begins his or her story, our attention has already been focused on a lot of information. If we have known this person for a long time, we may even feel that we are meeting him or her for the first time. When the speaker starts to tell the story, the choice of words, the tone, the intonations, the look, the judgements... will tell us infinitely more than the story itself, and it may even be that the body and the words tell different stories. 

By listening in this way, intuitively, we have understood who the person in front of us is, we know what filters they have put on their story. If practised correctly, this attentive listening requires our total presence, mechanically preventing the mind and the ego from manifesting. This attitude is called "presence", and it allows us to acquire the essence of things without interpretation or judgment. 

Do we need special skills to implement it? 

Practice it in your daily professional and personal relationships and see for yourself how little the content of words means compared to the extent of the perception received. 

Notice how much your interlocutor feels listened to and trusted and how much the quality of the relationship is improved. 

Be surprised by the amount of information you receive, both formal and informal. 

The most curious among you can even practice listening to yourself. 

If, however, during the presence or attentive listening, you find yourself reacting, arguing or expressing an opinion, it is certainly because your listening was not yet sufficiently present and still left space for the ego and mind to manifest themselves. 

If this was the case, persevere, it is not so difficult. If your effort is real, you cannot fail, presence is natural, it is already in each of us. 

The Man and Woman of the New Earth know that Ego and Mind are not good advisors, they reduce their influence by practicing "Presence" which allows them the direct perception of the essence of events beyond filters and judgments. "

I sense that you are very keen to try out your second tool," Sophie said teasingly. 

"I'll see you in the talking circle later.