In the ancient Vedic tradition of India, they described 4 levels of speech:
Vaikhari: Spoken or voiced
Madhyama: “middle one”, mental speech, the monkey mind
Pashyanti: the first impulse, fine feelings, intuition, flow
Para: being, unmanifest, seed form, pure potential.
Recently, I was considering this and realized there was another way of looking at this, by where we have our attention when we speak.
Our energy centers power the various levels of our experience (koshas/ sheathes). If these are conscious, we can put our attention on them when speaking to activate those qualities. Some do this unconsciously.
– root: somatic, groundedness, pure physical being
– emotional body: charge your speaking with passion and emotion
– mind: where most of us speak, and listen from. Personal power, control, leadership.
– heart: higher emotions like love & compassion, intuition, relationship
– throat: deeper power, charisma
– forehead: insight, inspiration
– crown: presence, pure being
We can give our conversation different flavours as we shift that inner attention while speaking. This is much easier if we’re witnessing and are allowing speech to flow. We can speak from being while also adding flavours.
Davidya
I gave a short talk on this model. I tried to embody each as I spoke it. Being nervous didn’t help. 🙂
Do you think this is what Lorne Hoff does when he speaks on various topics.
Hi Scott
Not exactly. Lorne amps up silent presence (para), then moderates it with flow (pashyanti). Or inversely, amps up flow, then moderates it with silence.
The moderation is to keep it smooth for people. He learned early on that more people shifted with greater intensity, but only those ready could sustain it. By moderating the intensity, only those ready shift.
Did you try picturing your audience naked? ;D I’ve heard that helps with nerves.
That’s just distracting. 🙂
Who was nervous?
(laughs) Yep, what is there to be nervous?
It’s very curious as there is calm and the mind knows there is no hazard. It would just be amusing if I fumbled badly. And yet…
It’s very common to have that reaction, even for those with a lot of experience.
Hi David
How do you distinguish between a true intuition/insight and the rational/monkey mind that fantasizes?
Because I think by meditating a lot people develop a bias toward thinking.
Thank you!
Hi Giovanni
That takes clarity and experience. The feel of the different values is quite distinct. Yet when we get clear insights, if we’ve not learned to trust them yet, they’re often dismissed. As we get clearer and learn what we can trust, then those insights are more obvious.
Certainly, we can still get caught by our desires and expectations, but those fade as life gets fuller.
There’s a few things there:
Meditating regularly is a good thing, as long as its balanced by sufficient activity to integrate. Meditating too much is not as useful as it’s not grounded and integrated.
That’s distinct from concepts that are common in meditation circles. People can pick up ideas that are self-rejecting, especially from too much of an emphasis on renunciate teachings.
For example, thinking of the mind as a problem and rejecting it as the “monkey mind”. But the mind isn’t a monkey. It just behaves that way when there’s a lot of unresolved experiences. Those can be resolved, leading to a settled mind that’s more useful.
Mind makes a poor master but is a good tool. A spiritualized ego rejecting the mind just creates a conflict with itself. Ego doesn’t mind that as it’s able to maintain control when we’re distracted. So we can see this subtle bias is not helpful to spiritual development. Variations on this are very common on the path though.
Happily, that breaks when the Self sees itself. Then things can take their proper places and self-rejection can end.
Hi David!
Learning what i have learned and being taught what i have been taught in several somatic pratices….nervousness in a speaking event is called a clear sign of unresolved childhood wounding (the nervous system perceiving threat where there is none). It is in the body which “keeps the score”.
But not that complex to work with it (remember it is not about getting rid but about discovery):
– imagine the situation and invite the nervousness in
– where do you feel it in the body?
– how does it look like if you would draw it? If it could speak, what would it say?
– once you know its shape gently breath into it … that will activate more emotions and sometimes more thought forms coming out of it. Allow all, go from breathing into it to digesting what gets activated.
If there is resistance to working with it then protection patterns are active.
Hope that helps
(if you need more detail we change to email) 🙂
With much love
Michael
Hi Michael
Yes, I’m aware thanks. Here, I’ve found childhood triggers as mentioned. Also, the desire to be publicly invisible as a poor childhood adaptation to empath gifts. And a somatic fear of exposure.
Agree on protective patterns. Also habit patterns (samskaras). Breathing into it is a good reminder. I sometimes forget to mention that step but it’s really helpful for the big stuff.
This doesn’t disturb the being but did mess up the energy embodying a bit. Sending a mixed message we could say. 🙂
This was a big chunk of my Ishaya education 🙂 I could use some more refinement here.
Ah, interesting, Ishtar.
This is one of those things that’s obvious once it’s recognized but not so much if it’s not.