Communicating Beyond Ego: Yes, it really happened!

"What do you hope to get from this day?" I started by asking everyone who came to the seminar on the art and science of Enlightened Communication.

The response was staggeringly uniform though many of the participants had never been before and had never met each other.

"I want to learn how to communicate beyond ego and/or create the future," was the sincere and passionate reply - of course, not always in those words, but said in all different ways. As the person presenting the seminar and facilitating, I knew it was going to be successful. And it certainly was.

By the time we reached the end of the day and the group of almost 50 people met in a single circle, stretched around the top floor of the London EnlightenNext centre, there was an instantaneous shared awakened consciousness pervading the proceedings. It always amazes me how so many human beings can be utterly focused and present, so that instead of all those people talking making you feel frazzled, it's entirely the opposite - more like the combined feeling of the relaxation of a sauna and facial with an exhilarating awakeness. And there's the mindblowingly fascinating paradox of how it really feels like there is only one person in the room, while simultaneously each person feels more authentically and deeply, a freed up individual.

            We spent the day moving between small groups of five or six people and then back into the one larger group, which was very effective in getting everyone to be full participants in creating a deeper collective consciousness together.

getting-started

Groups-from-above2

I tried a novel way of introducing ego (the one and only obstacle to Enlightened Communication). In discussions like this, the way ego manifests is as the sense that one "already knows" - which makes one unavailable for anything new and shrinks one's context like nothing else.

So my colleague Arjan Kindermans and I recorded several comedy skits on ego, each one bringing out a different aspect of ego, in the particular form of already knowing that I have encountered thousands of times in similar discussions. Each little vignette is a distillation of countless dialogues over the years, and it is these that I played to the participants.

I joked beforehand to everyone that I feared I might get lynched by the group but actually they appreciated the funny side of the skits, even though they are close to the bone. In fact various people found them one of the best parts of the day.

Everyone contributed to prove that communication beyond ego is really possible and in my book, that's definitely part of creating the future.

And what could be better than that?!