~~ Ram Dass and Paul Gorman,edited by Mark Brady
Most of us are not really ready to become renunciates in order to develop the concentration and quality of awareness to help others at such an extraordinary level. But if we are prepared to investigate our minds even a little bit, we start a process that can improve our effectiveness, in life, and therefore in helping as well. If we are willing to examine the agitation of our own minds and look just beyond it, we quite readily find entry into rooms that hold surprising possibilities: a greater inner calm, sharper concentration, deeper intuitive understanding, and an enhanced ability to hear one another’s hearts. Such an inquiry turns out to be critical in the work of helping others.
The phone rings. We turn from the checkbook we were balancing to answer. It’s someone seeking counsel. Even as the person begins to speak our minds are conflicted. We don’t quite want to leave that column of figures unadded, and yet we know that we have to let go of our bookkeeping to listen carefully to the problem.
The voice on the other end tries to find words to describe suffering: “I’m feeling so…It’s like I… really don’t know, but….” Painstaking work. But sometimes, even as it starts, our mind may begin to wander. “This is going to be a tough one… am I up to this?… What about dinner? I’d better circle that place where I think the bank screwed up.” At a certain stage, personal judgments may start competing for attention. “He’s really romanticizing it a lot…. He ought to be done with this one by now. He’s not hearing what I mean.” We may get a little lost in evaluating—“Is it working?” Am I helping?” Or we could as easily turn or evaluation on ourselves—“I don’t care that much, I really don’t like him.”
Sometimes we catch ourselves in distraction and rejoin the person on other end of the phone. Now it’s better. Something is beginning to happen. Then we take an intentionally—audible breath—we’ve got something helpful to day—but the signal goes by; he keeps right on talking. Off goes the mind to unrelated topics: “Call Dad…. That picture on the wall is crooked…. I’m tired…. I have to feed the cat.’
The mental chatter goes on and off. Sometimes we really get lost, and by the time we get back we realize we’ve missed a key point, and it’s too late to ask for it to be repeated. At other times we can take quick note of our reactions and still stay with it. Perhaps we just let it all run off; it’s not something even notice—it fades into the background like film score music we’re hardly aware is there.
Then the call is over. The voice on the other end says, “Thank you.” You reply, “You’re Welcome.” But how welcome was he? How much room did the mind give him? How much did he really hear? How much did he really feel heard? Maybe we sit back in the chair and reflect on that for a moment. Or perhaps we get up, walk to the kitchen, and savor the ‘thank you” along with a sandwich. Perhaps we simply turn back to the checkbook.
Reckoning, judging, evaluating, leaping in, taking it personally, being bored—the helping act has any number of invitations to reactiveness and distraction. Partly we are agitated because we so intensely what to help. After all, someone’s in pain. We care. So part of the time we are listening, but we may also be using our minds to try to solve the problem. There’s a pull to be efficient, to look for some kind of resolution. We reach for certain familiar models or approaches. In order to be helpful, our analytic mind must stay on top of it all.
So we jump between listening and judging. But in our zeal to help, we may increase the distance between the person and our own consciousness. We find ourselves primarily in our own thoughts, not with another person. Not only are we listening less, but the concepts that our mind is coming up with start to act as a screen that preselects information. One thought rules out another. .
One of the results of all this mental activity is that there’s less room to meet, less room to let things simply be revealed in “their own good time.” The mind tries to do many things at once. It’s difficult to know which mental vectors are useful and which are distractions, static on the lines, bad connections.
The agitation and reactiveness should be no surprise to most of us. We have come to expect accept this state except in rare situations. Yet it need not be that way.
~~ Ram Dass and Paul Gorman, edited by Mark Brady, Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm Street, Somerville MA 02144 USA . . . wisdompubs, org p.114-116 © by Mark Brady 2003 (continued)
