There are many benefits from talking to someone: friendship, support, encouragement to mention only three, and they and all the others are extremely important. But one benefit seems to me especially important, and that is the benefit of insight. When we talk to someone else do we get insight? Insight into what? Many things, but essentially into the nature of reality – that is the most exciting prospect of all.
And there are two ways we get insight. The first, quite simply, is that we get it directly. The person speaking to us has insight into some aspect of reality and consciously or not (usually the former) they communicate this to us. It’s what they believe, what they think, and what they hold dear. Sometimes it is almost said with the exasperation of someone who’s thinking, And did you not realise this?
Meeting people who can provide such insight is wonderful. Often these people are gurus or experts in their field; and sometimes not. Sometimes they are just ‘ordinary’ and wise people who have lived a lot and reflected on their living and this has given them a percipience they share with you.
The second way of getting the insight in a conversation is indirectly. This time the person isn’t necessarily being insightful, wise or learned, but they say something which resonates particularly with you. This resonance can come about for a number of reasons. It can be because of something else you know and suddenly you make the connection, you join the dots, and the a-ha moment emerges; they may be particularly unaware of this, although if relevant we may share what suddenly occurs to us. Alternatively, they say or even do something and in that saying or doing more is apparent than they are aware of. For example, they have said something to you before and now they repeat it. Before it was a harmless remark; now its significance becomes obvious. Or their words start revealing, unbeknown to them, their personality and character, perhaps in a way that they would never intend. As Ben Jonson observed long ago: ‘Words most show a man: speak, that I may see thee’.
And insight, we must remember, is like its cousin, sight. To have sight we need illumination, and to have illumination we need light. So it is with insight: it depends on the light. This is why all the great religions of the world emphasise the importance of light. The book of Genesis, for example, starts with God creating light: ‘Let there be light’; and there was light … the light was good’ (Genesis 1 v. 3-4) and without it no good thing can exist or, it would seem, be perceived to exist.
Thus meditation is a form of waiting in silence, in stillness, and in that stillness, what? The turbulence of our lives is quieted, the storms are hushed, and the light of insight begins to shine its order. How much healthier and happier we feel.
So as we go into 2013 let’s look for more insight in our conversations with others as well in the deep meditations that restore us; for both can be a source of light and order in our busy lives.
The Mapping Motivation Series 