The truth is that everything is a communication—what we say, what we do not say, where we pause, where we look away. Everything we do has an overt message, a stroke, a meta message, and an energy it is delivered with. We all always know. The question is how deeply are we willing to tune in to what we know.
There are many purposes for communication, and as a result, many methods of communication, just as there are many ways to use the power of Eros. Some aim to misappropriate the power of Eros in order to have influence in the world. Others use it in service of the rational mind or transmute it toward "spiritual ends" wanting to decrease sensation so that there is only the "good." The same is true with communication. Communication is sometimes used to influence people; sometimes to control the rational mind with the idea of using its tricks on itself; sometimes to avoid triggering reactivity in another in order to have safe interactions. None of these purposes are hidden. However, to the extent that we have an agenda other than intimacy and connection, we will not be able to see another person's agenda.
The purpose of Erotic communication is to bring about an unfiltered, all-gradient communication lacking an agenda, so two limbic systems can be connected. How good the communication is depends on the extent to which the parties involved feel steeped in truth—the equivalent of the Erotic mind experience where communication is happening through us as a result of the connection between us.
It is important to reiterate that this communication is without agenda; although when done effectively, it creates such a powerful flow that desires are carried out. The desire is not to influence reality, rather, it is to use language to radically co-operate. The word is a powerful tool. In Eros, words are used to describe reality, not to create and not to move but to connect with and foster so that creation and movement happen without the additional layer of personal agenda where we aim to prescribe reality.
This sounds simple but it can be incredibly challenging as we must relinquish a very real magical power we all have with words. Words most often are used as strokes to sway people in a certain direction. Through meta messages and how we put words together, we instruct people on how they should feel or what they should do. Our literature and film industry are built on this model, where words are devices to tap into an emotionality that moves people beyond their rational stopgaps until they are taken into an experience. There is a predictable formula that follows the climax model of sexuality. We yearn to be stroked with a beginning, middle, and end according to a linear model with the emotions built into the words, just as we yearn to ride romance.
At the same time, because most people live in such a hypersensitive state of tumescence, we legislate communication so that it does not "activate us." We believe ourselves to be at the mercy of words, that "words hurt," or that we must necessarily respond to the instruction within a word. Due to our lack of ability to play and have levity, we aim to limit the range of strokes.
In OM, the strokee has the ability to get off on any stroke. The same is true in communication—we have the ability to meet and play with any word. In fact, at advanced levels of communication, the more charged the words are, the better—more charge means more available power to absorb and play with.
In Eros, communication is not for the purpose of going on a hypnotic ride or to be protected from various challenging feeling states. Just as there is no limitation on the types of strokes used in OM, Eros has no injunction against pitch, the charge of a word, or the use of heavy pressure in communication.
The instruction around communication is to be connected, elegant, and spontaneous for the purpose of two people meeting at the level of essence where a profound Erotic state is created for both, even if they are radically different individuals. In order for this true connection to exist, there must be a fundamental agreement between participants that we are Erotic adults; otherwise, we should stay in the realm of consent-based communication. We are not playing to win, convince, prove, or sway. We are playing to reveal ourselves and our partner so we may hit a high enough level of sensation that the spontaneous or involuntary is activated.
There are always two conversations happening—the rational mind conversation where there is propriety and positioning, and the underlying, charged, vulnerable first-generation conversation with feelings and truths as they arise in response to this present moment. Unfiltered and raw.
Communication in Eros is stripped down rather than built up. It does not try to figure anything out; it has no devices, even the best devices. It goes by its wits. It is used to cut away rather than construct, to describe our experience with such accuracy that the other is immersed in it.
It can be very uncomfortable because it is so now-based and unrestrained yet without any goal. Trust is required to know that communication will self-organize if we do not corral communication or put rails up around it. A more powerful creation will develop than the "written music" form most of us use.
The aim is that communication is at once so stripped down and conveys such a simple and accurate description of what is, that Eros flows between the participants and a sentience takes over. This type of communication transports. It showcases the beauty that is always there, on every spot—in the rage, the sorrow, the openness, and the silence we try so desperately to simulate or protect ourselves from. For this reason, in Eros, communication is elegant; we use the fewest words possible to convey an entire idea.
Often, people will not do the internal work to draw themselves together to deliver a clear, clean, succinct stroke when communicating. There is a lack of economy with words or an inability to find the "spot," resulting in circular communication with abstraction chasing abstraction, never landing on the heart of the matter. When words are used in an economical and on-the-spot way, tremendous sensation is released.
Communication has been built to limit and manage sensation, with misused words to escape, embellish, or control reality rather than reveal and be with it in its entire range of sensations. A tremendous amount of determination is needed to strip our communication down to the level of reality. We are accustomed to pumping it up, by adding in head nods and smiles to tell people how to feel about what we are saying. Or, we may avoid certain tones or words to disguise our power and intensity, or resentment that may be lurking.
We have built a communication aimed at best to conceal and at worst to control, but rarely is it used to foster the experience of coming into and being naked together in the present moment. Of going deep into the belly of Eros, touching a sensation and then determining how—with as much economy as possible—we can describe it, devoid of interpretation. A verbal snapshot.
Note where the verb "to be" is employed because it tends to make static what is dynamic. If we notice that what follows "is" is always a noun and is an assertion, that sets in place the notion that things are permanent and unchanging.
Once we assert that something "is" a certain way, it can be locked in our mind. A different perspective is challenging, and contrary evidence gets backed up behind it. He or she is X as opposed to He or she does X is a radically different proposition. Life is X as opposed to Life has X quality offers a different potential for dynamic relating. If life or a person is this way, there is no reason to see otherwise, but if a quality is being exhibited, there is room to explore the constant process-like nature of phenomena. When our experience is not locked down in this way, one stroke can be entirely different from the next and still be true.
The aim is to communicate vertical experience in as close to vertical language as possible. Some think these experiences are, and must remain, ineffable. Eros disagrees; our inability and unwillingness to become fluent in the extraordinary and the sensory has our ability to experience these atrophy. It is through communication that we transmit—sharing this interior world and our most profound experience with another.
OM exists to connect our most profound interior states—what we would most likely only experience alone on a mountaintop or in our room in the throes of emotion—in order that our nervous system become a tool for relation rather than isolation. There is no nervous system experience that cannot be shared, which can be a great relief to our sense of loneliness, isolation, and the false belief that to achieve certain states, we must be alone.
Communication in Eros makes the exact same, and radical, assertion— communication can be used to link systems in such a way that the interior world is shared, but only when the communication has been purified of agenda. This is not to say that within the interior world there may not arise a directive. It is to say that this directive must be a natural arising from within the connection and be communicated exactly as it arose, without filter, without hesitation or sugarcoating, without superiority or inflation. The words will arise, as will the tone, and to the extent it is communicated with precision of all elements, the reception and response will be resonant.
The distance between what we hear internally and how it comes out into the world is the distance between ourselves and our essence. We can see where we are a slave to public opinion, where we perceive (likely because we sell incapability) that people are not capable of withstanding the truth. We can see the extent to which we trust or do not trust that the truth is more powerful than the embellishments; where we do not value what lies inside of us or the other person; where we doubt the authority or that Eros lies within and so we feel that we have to bolster our communications with additional sternness or judgment.
We see where we still believe there is power in withholding and agree to be a servant to the rational mind, where we are unwilling to feel and sit with uncomfortable sensations to get on the spot, and so circumambulate instead. In the moment we communicate something in the world, we know everything we need to know about ourselves and what we would need to do to return to essence.
When others communicate, we can also see the distance between what they are saying and what they are actually feeling. In one communication, we can get an entire printout of the programs that are running in them if we listen closely with our sensory body. We note the disparity between what we feel and what we hear and see, just as we can in OM where, for example, a strokee may embellish her response.
She may think she does not deserve so much attention and must "pay in praise." She may fear she is too difficult, or she may have never known real sensation and believes it is increased through performance. In communication, there are also a variety of reasons why there may be a disparity. Our work as a listener is to trust always what we feel over what appears, noting the disparity without interpreting why.
Intimacy comes from the curiosity about the disparity and the discovery of the wealth of information—replete with how to stroke for greater intimacy—that arises when we put genuine attention there. We may put our attention on a person and feel anger and yet they have a smile and are communicating positive words. Or they may be silent. This whole experience, not just the words or facial expression, is the communication. We place our attention on the process, not the outcome. Arguing words is useless. We end up with disconnected words chasing disconnected words. At its best, this is tumescence.
In Eros, we do the work to make our message congruent. Being congruent in our communication is profound because it allows us to come together as unique individuals contributing radically different viewpoints. The only way to do this is to go into the body and discover what is true; what, at the level of the body, is naturally attracted and what is repelled.
We have gravitas when our message is in alignment with our unique soul. Once in the body, it is a simple process of sensing ideas. What lights up and what doesn't. This is us, this is not us—based not on our programming but on the felt sense of truth. The beauty is that this is different for each of us, and there is an underlying foundation of perfection that connects.
We magnetize what is true to us and release what is not. The work of this life—our purpose—is to be us. When we do and are this, we, and everyone around us, feels good even when they radically disagree with our opinion. And, because we know to the bone who we are, we have the space to—precisely because we are not proving—have it feel good for them, to show them how who we are adds beneath the ideas.
Then we tune our instrument. We listen to the sensation of what we hear. It may have a passionate tone or a quiet tone. It may have a beautiful, somber richness or a ring of clarity. It may be angry and firm. And just as with OM, where we train our voice to resonate with the sensation, here we train our expression to match the sensation of the truth we sense inside exactly as we sense it. The key is that it match with great precision.
Notice if we tend toward hesitance or stridence, toward a slight panic or a quivering, and where these are different from the sensation of what is coming up from below and adjust accordingly. We notice where it gets stuck in our throat and why. Is there an idea that we should sound more sensitive and mindful? Or that no one ever listens to us so we need to add flair? We cut away anything that is not the sensation.
We ensure that our facial expressions and hand gestures match, as well. Do we tend to under-respond in our expression so as to maintain control or appear aloof or safe? Or, are we all over the place to distract from what we are feeling, concealing ourselves in the motion of our communication to ensure we are never actually heard?
Finally we add words. If we have done steps one and two well, then three should be very economical. There will be a potency to our words where fewer are needed with greater impact because what we are saying is imbued with the sensation that we would be trying otherwise to create.
