Three merging tributaries of awareness
The course meaningseekers integrates three rich sources of meaning to learn from: texts, life experience and other group members.
Awareness is a deep inner knowing. When we are fully present, we are fully aware. We can access our feelings, thoughts, and sensations, while remaining attuned to what is going on around us. We are aware of the other’s need and of our responsibility towards it. We are engaged.
You will listen to hear:
1) What was said
2) The true meaning, or message implied by what was said.
3) The aspect in which you are personally addressed/questioned/challenged/summoned/invited by this message and the opportunity it is offering you.
4) Your response in the form of attitudes or actions, i.e. a task that fulfills values that you care about.
Therefore meaning is discovered:
1) In textual passages
a) By clarifying what is being said
b) By revealing its messages and values
c) By hearing how you are personally addressed.questioned/challenged/summoned/invited by this message
d) By contemplating which values the text is calling you to fulfill and what kind of response, in the form of a specific task or attitude this awareness brings in answer to the call
2) In group members own life experience
a) By listening to each member in turn, relate an experience that directly relates to the topic
b) By listening for the messages/potential values there
c) By listening to how each group member is cognizant of being addressed/questioned/challenged/summoned/invited by this message
d) By listening to each person relate their aware response, in the form of specific tasks or attitudes in answer to the call
3) In the interactions between group members
a) By listening to and affirming others in their experience
b) By checking for accurate understanding of the speaker’s intention and by sharing insights into meanings and values
c) By hearing yourself personally addressed/questioned/challenged/summoned/invited by each of the other group members
d) By sharing your aware response, in the form of specific tasks or attitudes in answer to the call
These three sources of meaning should not be seen as distinct and separate but rather as three tributaries funneling into the same great sea of meaning.
Any one of these sources on its own is incomplete without the other. Experiential understanding only comes with real-life application of the theory. Textual messages, addressing us personally and calling upon us to respond, carry only a partial meaning if life experience has not yet had its say.
Similarly, the personal call of life experience is more fully understood when it is reflected on in the context of theoretical concepts that formalize the meaning of that experience.
By being present in the moment and listening to all three sources of meaning, we can fine tune the message that comes through their symphony and sharpen our awareness of the meaning of the message as well as awareness of how we need to respond to it.