Communication Power to Create

of no/bad communication. Sounds really touchy-feely, I know, and... it can be really useful, especially when you find yourself in a tight spot in relating to anyone effectively.

One event, an exercise, at the course I will remember all my life. There was a person on the course who had made some comments the first day that weren't my style, and I promptly judged him (semi-unconsciously) as a bit of a jerk, a snob, a bit uncaring.

I came back from a break on Day 2 and the only available chair was right next to this guy, so he became my partner for the next exercise. The best-done exercise I have ever done, kudos to Landmark. An interchange of words whilst looking at each other very intensely that ended up in something I can only describe as like a "Vulcan mind-meld" for you StarTrek fans. There was a point where the feeling of separation between us, the feeling of me being one human being and him another, suddenly disappeared, and all of a sudden I was him. Without stopping being me. Sounds weird but I will never, ever forget the sensation. I felt like a door had opened and I was sitting inside him, we were one. All my judgements about him and his character disappeared instantly, and I understood on a really deep level (should I say "grokked"?) his thoughts and feelings that had motivated the comments he had made the day before that I didn't like. I felt like I was seeing the world from his point of view. I got a feel for his being and what made him tick. We stayed in this space for about a couple of minutes? Perhaps. But two really unforgettable minutes of total freedom, like getting out of prison.

And I want to point out I didn't feel like my own identity, or thoughts, or point of view or whatever, were lost in the process. I and my intellect or whatever didn't disappear, just the idea that I and this person were separate and different, and actually, the thought that I was better than him, which is in essence what a judgment is. For instance, I felt/grokked what made him say what he did. ,And, I still would not have said what he said, I may have had things also to offer him about looking at the world differently. But from a point of view of, em, this sounds spacey, but here goes -- "sharing being" or "sharing experience" rather than one person being separate from another and telling them what to do. An experience no one enjoys and no one really listens to.

What it left me with was a real permanent feeling, when someone says something I don't like, that they are a whole human being, and I may not know what motivated what they said, but something did. A curiosity to know what it is, what makes them tick, and share in their being or their experience in a bit of an enlightened way, rather than judging them hastily.

And to be honest, a bit of a weird, lovely spiritual experience that we are all one, and the separation between us is an illusion.

You will not read about this in the course description and other people may not have had anything like this experience, but it really impacted me very deeply. Like a number of Landmark courses, I walked away with experiences that are a bit indescribable and nothing I was expecting or looking for, but which were really works of genius.