Forget words, listen to feelings

Forget words, listen to feelings
Notes From Neale
My dear friends...

As we explore ever more deeply each week what I have described as The Holy Experience, we have said that the easiest way to engage the experience is to share it with others. Yet how to share this experience?

First, we must decide what The Holy Experience is. For me, it is the experience of Oneness. It is the experience of Oneness with God and Oneness with each other. And the easiest way I can think of to cause yourself to know that you are not separate from anyone else is to cause everyone else to know that they are not separate from you. That is why sharing the Holy Experience with others works.

And the easiest way to cause others to know that they are not separate from you is to act that way.I This means that you may have to change your whole ground of being. You may have to alter the entire way that you relate to other people. You can begin by working hard to understand, by earnestly seeking to know, how another person is feeling.

The next time you are with someone, try to gauge what they are feeling. Don't just listen to their words, look deep inside to see if you can get a handle on what they are feeling. Read between the lines. Look past the words. Practice Active Listening. It can work miracles.

This is a form of listening in which you tune into the communication of the Soul rather than of the Mind of the person before you. Feelings are the language of the soul. This is not a language that it is impossible for you to understand. In fact, just the opposite. You can often understand a person's feelings a lot faster than you can understand their words.

Think of how many times you have listened to a person who is distraught or frightened or very sad or deeply disappointed. Often, their words come out in jumbles, and make no sense at all. You may even have caught yourself saying, "You're not even making sense." You might even have used this as a defense during some verbal exchange.

A person who listens to words rather than feelings often will throw another's words back in their face, reciting perfectly what they've just said word-for-word in order to show them that they are making no sense at all. Right about then is when the other person will say, "Can you hear anything at all about how I am FEELING?" Right about then is when you know that you have been listening to that person's Mind, and have made a decision to have nothing at all to do with their Soul. If that other person thinks that he or she is your "soul partner," this can be a devastating experience. They will wonder why you cannot hear them at the level of Soul, but insist only on taking their words apart, one by one, and analyzing them to show them how silly they are being.

A few experiences such as this can change a relationship forever. Someone who was once very close to you can decide that it is not safe to remain that close--that perhaps they were never that close--because you have no idea at all of how they are feeling.

The fastest way to let someone know that you and they are One is to feed back to them exactly what they are feeling. This means giving up defense in all verbal exchanges--even arguments--and realizing that, if the two of you are One, there is no one to defend against. There is only to understand what the Totality called the Oneness of You is now experiencing.

This means honestly looking at your own feelings and opening to the feelings of others.

And we will continue this exploration right there next week!