2000-1-9 11:27:00
We left off on point ten as far as principles go in the discovery of truth.
It's actually quite timely because part of the problem we have had in communication is the misunderstanding of each other's words.
The Question:
"One of the key ingredients to effective person to person communication is that those attempting to so communicate use the same definition of words. This was the reason that I defined the word channel a while back so the group could use the word with unity of definition.
"Let us pick a popular word and demonstrate how even our fairly enlightened group will have different definitions of it. That word is LOVE."
I was expecting some interesting responses here, but I was surprised by the quantity and diversity of thought expressed by the group - all of it good and valuable for contemplation.
Now the interesting thing about love is this. When another person performs a true unselfish act of love in our direction, a feeling of love is registered in our breasts. This feeling is the same for all of us. Even though we all feel the same energy when love is registered, no two of us seem to be able to explain what we felt in the same way.
Some say it is a state of mind. Others say it is a verb. Still others say it is an emotional feeling, a creative force, the foundation of creation and even what God is.
So we have a feeling that we all register and sense in a similar way, yet we all define and express it differently. It is quite possible to take two people who have felt the same energy of love, yet argue about what it is, because the words they chose to communicate the word veil the actual truth of the experience that both have felt in the same way.
This is the problem of communicating from personality to personality. Two personalities can take exactly the same experience, yet present it in such different ways, that the two will soon be swearing that the other guy has no idea what love is.
Two personalities may have a similar view of God, yet because they call He/She/It by different names, they may see the other as an enemy of such God. The problem with the personality is that even if two people experience or believe in essentially the same thing our filters cause us to see the other as one who is much different from ourselves.
The solution is soul to soul communication rather than personality-to-personality. When there is soul-to-soul communication concerning love (or any other subject) why is there perfect communication even though the two may have different ways of explaining it?
How do we achieve this soul-to-soul communication? What are the obstacles in the path?
Copyright 2000 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved