The Mistake of Improving Communication Through a Formula
Satsang by Berdhanya October 28,2005
As I read books about suggestions on how to improve communication, I am more and more convinced that such suggestions paralyze your mind and prevent you from real contact.
In these books, a “master in communication” will tell you what you should say in certain situations with certain people, how to do this in a certain way with certain postures, a certain tone, and a certain intention. And between their “certains” and your “uncertains”, your whole system ends up distressed, cutting off any spontaneous happening of what you are able to express when the moment is offering you the opportunity to see yourself as a fresh expression of your being.
Even if you have not read any books about communication and expression, you have been influenced to behave in society according to certain standards. These social influences give your communication rigid goals and one-track development, which limit your capacity for expressive communication and for seeing your potential.
Any suggestions of how you should communicate can be observed but not adopted. Otherwise, you will become like a programmed computer that goes against the natural state of the present condition and challenges what your development is presenting to you. If you are the type that definitely needs a formula, I suggest that you start by not speaking too much and by being mindful of the intention in your extra mouthful of speech.
Check Your Formula
On the other hand, you need to realize that you always speak to yourself through a narrow and limited formula. This self-talk is usually used to maintain a certain mental or emotional pattern that is safe and nourishes your limitations. Speaking daringly or straight immediately puts many judgments in your mind.
The selection of your vocabulary, tone and general expression has the intention to convince you or others of an image you want to maintain. It is in this area that you need to be vigilant and alert. You need the courage to jump into a spontaneous way of communication that is innate and only needs a playground free of judgments to manifest your potential and your reality.
The No-Formula Formula
Through meditation, we slowly acquire more mental space — and it is in that void, where the divine has a chance to speak, dwell and act through us.
The absence of your own personal formula of what you should say and when you should say it brings that space and it is in that moment that you become a true communicator. Your speech becomes impersonal, neutral, sustained by a higher purpose and because of this, it also becomes truthful and irrefutable. You almost become a translator of the mind. The deep silence that you hold becomes sounds that are jewels which resonate, transform, and evaluate others.
The more you speak in an impersonal way, the more divine communication flows through you, the more energizing waves of communication you can transmit and the less you are interested in maintaining an image, gaining recognition, or protecting yourself from losing recognition.
This transmission is the essence of you, the seal of serving the divine, the modifier of others’ energies, the power of your pure words and of solidly incarnating the most precious attribute of human nature: your speech.