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Speaking Enlightenment
Robert Rabbin
“If you ask me why I came to this Earth, I will tell
you:
I came to live out loud.”
Emile Zola
For years, I’ve been in love with this poem by Kabir, the 15th century Indian
poet-saint, “We sense that there is some sort of spirit that loves birds and
animals and the ants — perhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you in your
mother's womb. Is it logical you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?
The truth is you turned away yourself, and decided to go into the dark alone.
Now you are tangled up in others and have forgotten what you once knew, and
that's why everything you do has some weird failure in it.”
Some weird failure. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, which I wore
for years. Not because I’d forgotten what I once knew, but because I stopped
saying what I knew, and know, and could never forget because it is who I am,
beneath the protective shields, down in the deep core, all molten and ready to
explode!
Although it took me longer than I care to admit, I finally figured out that my
life-long search for wholeness, for meaning and purpose — for self-realization —
was really an insistent need to live and to speak from the most authentic place
of creative and expressive power within me. It turns out that I was not after
understanding, or experience, or insight; I was not after dissolution of ego or
transcendence of self. I was after authentic self-expression! We do not
need to become enlightened, we have only to uncover the enlightenment we have —
and then speak from that place of our innate knowing. It’s the speaking that
makes it real. If we don’t speak it, we don’t get it, and we ain't got it! Just
exactly what does this mean?
Jimmy Cagney, the American actor famed for his tough guy roles, posted a sign
pointing towards practical enlightenment when he offered a novice actor his
essential teaching about the art of acting, “It's simple. You walk in the room,
plant your feet, look me in the eye, and tell the truth.” He was also showing us
the way to express the enlightenment we each have within us. I don’t mean your
ideas about enlightenment; I mean the thing itself.
It’s not as easy as you might think! I can’t tell you how many healers,
teachers, coaches, counselors and others — all of whom have gathered significant
understanding and insight — come to my courses still afraid to stand in public
and speak their truth. To speak one’s truth means to show oneself, not one’s
“knowing.” It means to be willing to be seen by people without fear of their
criticism and judgment, without hiding, without defense or pretence. In my
workshops, I tell people, “YOU are the message.”
One of the most challenging exercises for participants in my RealTime Speaking
workshops is when I ask them to stand before the group, without saying anything!
I ask them only to see, and be seen; to connect with each of the audience, in
turn, with their eyes, with their heart. I ask them to notice any tendency to
hide, to retreat, to cover themselves. I ask them to notice any contraction or
tension they feel. I ask them to breathe, to open. Say nothing. Just be present
with your self and others. Just see the audience, and let the audience see you;
let them in.
It is difficult. People want to laugh, to joke, to hold their hands tightly, to
look away, to clench their jaws. Their minds race; I can hear the gears grating.
Most want to run away. One teacher kept turning around, wanting to write
something on an imaginary blackboard. Another kept shifting from one foot to the
other. Some say they want to sit down. It’s difficult.
The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once remarked, “According to most studies, people’s
number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two.
Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral,
you’d rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
Take a poll of your friends, and you’ll see just how terrified people are of
public speaking, of showing themselves to others without masks and roles,
without prepared texts or PowerPoint presentations. Until we can do this, we
can’t really experience whatever understanding or insight we may have; we can’t
really live authentic lives; we can’t really be free. Our fear will rule us, and
run us from dawn to dusk and all night long.
I had lunch with a woman whose facade was so cleverly constructed and painted,
it was nearly invisible. She is a successful leadership consultant, an author, a
teacher of a spiritual philosophy she calls nondualism. Some people, herself
included, would say she is spiritually awake and astute. She is bright,
energetic, and articulate. She is convinced of her point of view, and convincing
in communicating it. She talked about her recent travels and love-life
escapades, and about her new book and the troubles she was having with a couple
of chapters. She asked about my life, and politely listened to my sketch of some
recent events. All in all, an unremarkable encounter, until … I began to feel a
discomfort growing within me. It was a quite subtle, intuitive instinct.
What? What is it? I didn’t know. Something was there to be noticed, I knew,
but I couldn’t bring it into focus.
Then it came to me! She was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t there; “she” was only
a facade with window coverings. You could enter the front door and exit the back
door at the same time. There was no “there” there! She kept pushing crap at me,
disconnected stories and anecdotes that jumped from here to there, in order to
hide behind it all. She was doing what so many people do: she was talking to
conceal, not reveal, her self. She was not making authentic connection, which I
defined as “intimacy with self and vulnerability with others.” Without authentic
connection, we can not show who we are, we can not speak our truth. We can only
broadcast crap.
Get real. Speak your truth, which means to show yourself without protection,
without explanation, without any hiding at all. YOU are the message.
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