Can We Transmit Stillness Through Technology?

Hello. Hi. Yesterday you talked about listening from presence and from stillness, and when you're speaking to people directly and looking into their eyes, I can feel that presence. I'm wondering if it's possible, if you have suggestions for manifesting that in communications technologies, like email and conference calls. In my work, I talk to people and work with people who I never see. I've never met them. I don't know what they look like. And yet, you know, I'm often on calls with four or five people. And I'm wondering if you think it's possible to, I mean, I can be from a place of stillness and they might just think that I've gone for coffee. Yes. So, do you have any ideas? Yes. So, if you don't see them, you're just on the phone. And although with the technology these days, very soon it will be much more common probably to have these visual conference calls where you actually see people on the screen and it almost looks as if they're sitting around the table. I imagine you could even put, I don't know if they're doing that, probably not. You could have a conference table and put little screens where the chairs are. And then you switch on and then you have six people sitting around the conference table to see the screens. But for the time being, let's just talk for a moment about the telephone. Now, on the telephone, a long silence could easily be misinterpreted as an absence, that you're no longer there or the line has been disconnected. Or it could be interpreted as complete lack of interest on your part. Therefore, I would not recommend any kind of long silence. But I find in my personal experience, although I don't use the telephone very much, when I do use it, and even if it's only for like booking a ticket for a ferry or something like that, when I do use it and there's a human being at the other end, most of the time I do detect something deeper in our interaction than just the words that need to be spoken in order to conduct whatever business it is that you need to conduct. And I find that even through the telephone, being still does not necessarily mean that you're not speaking. So you can be connected with presence and speak at the same time. I'd like to book a ferry for such and such a time. I find very often I get a response from the other person. The other person likes to talk to me. They have no idea, they don't have my name, don't know who they're talking to. They just, they like, I can sense that they like to talk. And sometimes I say a few words that have nothing to do with the business at hand. Just a comment on the weather or how are you, a true question, not just a superficial. How are you? To connect on a human level, not just use the human being as a means to an end, but realize there is a being, there is a human being. You remember there is a human which is form and there is a being which is formless. You are a human being. Don't just operate on the human level, which is whatever you need to do on the level of form. Bring in the being and then you have the two. So developing the ability to speak and to listen in stillness. So when you are listening to them, you are still. And the words come out of stillness, not out of nervousness or out of a sense of impatience, because you have been waiting on this line for ten minutes. And when finally somebody picks up the phone, you can feel that there is a tension in your voice and you don't like that person anymore, because you have been waiting for ten or fifteen minutes on this call which says, your call will be answered very soon. Your call is important to us, so please don't hang up. And in some people, they get more and more angry. And finally you talk to this human being and then the human being can feel your upset and anger, even if you don't say anything. Yeah, I want to book a ferry. So that doesn't work very well. So to communicate on the phone is a very subtle thing, a very subtle way to... There can be a sense of presence that is detected by the other person and that brings it to the being, the being level. It helps to initiate the call. Sometimes you can't always do that. Obviously when you are ringing your credit card company, you can't start off by talking about the weather or something like that. They want to know what the number is and why you are calling. But sometimes towards the end you could say something. Oh, I'm here. Or where are you? They might say, I'm in New York, I'm in India. Very often people are in India these days when you talk to them. So you practice and then you have visual calls. I don't know if you do that. And there you see the person on the screen. It's a little bit easier to connect. You have the visual dimension too. But in conferences and so on, it's always good to start in your company or to have an agreement that you start with a moment of stillness. So when you have a conference call and all those people are conscious enough, you have to judge for yourself to see whether they would think you are mad if you suggest a moment of stillness before you start. I know people like, it sounds true, I think Tammy told me in her company that very often before they have meetings they start with a moment of stillness. Other companies I interviewed or had a dialogue with, Eileen Fisher who has a clothing company, they always start with stillness. Oprah also does it with her people. Before they discuss anything they become still. So that's a wonderful thing to do. Yes, it's a very subtle thing on the telephone, but the few phone calls that I do have, usually somehow stillness manages to get in there. And you need to be aware of your inner state of course. If your inner state is agitated when you pick up the phone, there's not much you can do. So if you cannot be still at the beginning of the call, you can be still perhaps just before you make a call. Just before you make a call for half a minute or one minute, take a few breaths and then you make a call. That might help. Or if the phone rings, I've often recommended, if the phone rings, don't be the slave of the ringing telephone. Because many people, the moment the phone rings, they go... And they might even interrupt a pleasant gathering. You're just talking about something even important, and some people think whatever it is, the ringing phone is always more important. So they must answer it immediately. You don't have to answer it immediately. And I always recommend, if you do answer it, give it a few seconds. Every time the phone rings, it can be a signal for you to become present. Just give it five seconds. Three to five seconds. Five seconds is not long. It's one, two, three, four, five. Even three seconds will help. Every time the phone rings, before you answer it, never come into presence. So every time the phone rings, it's an alarm clock to bring you into presence. You can make that a habit. And if you get many phone calls every day, that will become a very powerful spiritual practice for you. So instead of rushing to the phone, you just become alert and still. And you wait. But it's not a waiting. This can be misunderstood as if you had to hold yourself back and exercise willpower so that you don't jump and pick up the phone. That's not how it is. So you don't go, I have to hold myself back before I answer it. No. It rings and you go, ah. You enjoy the space before you pick up the phone and let it ring two or three times without straining mentally to get there already. And then you pick up. That would be a great practice. And after a while it gets easy. And that means every time the phone rings, there's a space of presence. Isn't that wonderful? And you're hoping to get more calls. You could do the same with text messages. Whatever sound you have to announce that a text message has come in, all kinds of, from whistles blowing to beeping or glass, the sound of glass. And when that comes in, you could do the same. Why immediately rush to read the message, which probably isn't important at all, just pretends to be. Give it just the same space of a few seconds before you pick it up. And again, don't get impatient and hold yourself. It's not holding yourself back. It's just consciously giving yourself space. In that way you can use devices that otherwise would continuously take you out of presence and help you to be present. So you turn them around.