In the psyche the force of willingness to surrender into the other is built on the ability to trust that the other person will not attack me if I make myself vulnerable.

To trust or mistrust another person is a deep seated feeling that comes from the integration of sensory experiences with cognitive behaviors. If you correct some belief or opinion that I have, I trust that you will leave my being intact while you are correcting an error. This need goes back into early childhood memories. If I experience you correcting one of my erroneous opinions or beliefs without acknowledging that it is my belief I normally tend to discount the information you are giving even when it is correct or in my best interest. I tend to discount your correction because I can’t trust you as a person. I can’t fall asleep to your meaning because you have not shown yourself to be in contact with what we could call the free space between people. The free space is an agreement between two people in communication that is a tacit agreement to seek for the highest level of interaction that is available to us in the moment. This tacit agreement is mostly carried through the tone of the exchanges. The tone is the gesture or mood of the interaction independent of the content.

The idea here is to ponder the difference tonally between submission and surrender. Surrender can only take place in a free space, submission requires one will to bend to another.

Even when the content of your information is correct it will not become part of my inner world unless I feel that your tone is not discounting my person for having had “incorrect” content or information. When I sense that your tone is addressing my being even when I am in error, it becomes easy for me to truly hear your correction. This is because I can experience your being as more true to its higher level of existence when you are taking steps to honor my higher being by being sensitive to the tone of your correction. This hidden level is what is behind the gesture of owning the misunderstanding. It allows a free space between people to be fashioned mutually out of trust in the process. In the free space, deeds of surrender do not require that I completely give over myself to you. The free space allows the deeds of surrender to be creative and mutually inspired. That way neither partner in the exchange needs to feel that they will later on seek payback for some tonal manipulation to which they had to submit. This is the mood of the reversal. The idea here is to ponder the difference tonally between submission and surrender. Surrender can only take place in a free space, submission requires one will to bend to another. There are always implications and the creation of new karma in the deed of submission. Surrender, on the other hand, tends to dissolve karma in mutual forgiveness and creative interaction.

Informational communication and process or procedural interactions have little meaning for the higher self. The higher self is continually looking for evidence of the capacity of all higher selves to surrender without having to submit. This mood of the threshold or free space is the Christ force that flows between the two persons when they have succeeded in establishing the mood of trust. The heart is continually and discursively monitoring the free space looking for the mood or gesture of the higher self. However, this monitoring mostly happens unconsciously. Through inner exercises and the practice of dialogue we are trying to bring this discursive activity of the heart organ closer to the awake consciousness. Lower “meanings” at the level of information and process do not really satisfy the need for the heart organ to perceive the activity of the True Self. The heart organ is satisfied when another heart inspires it to a perception of caring and mutual recognition of and identification with the True Self. This is the mood of surrender. It is very different from the mood of submission.

When I own my misunderstanding as a part of the practice of active dialogue, I am showing your heart that I am not in agreement with something that you said but that I am willing to explore the palette of moods that are flowing between us to find a mutual mood that will allow both of us to come closer to surrender to the other ‘s meaning. When this happens between us it is a sign to both of us that the Christ is there in between linking us through the mutually experienced mood of the True Self. This mood is the seed force in the heart. It is the root of biography.

We all incarnate to become more like the Christ who stands behind each and every experience of the True Self in human beings. Every time we tell a story to another person there is a strong tendency to tell the story from our own point of view. This point of view has been fashioned by the heart organ in response to the elements of our biography. All art, storytelling and image projection is inherently autobiographical. The potential for this perception of the heart is present in each person. It can only be developed, however, through conscious interaction with others for the purpose of learning how to become a bodhisattva. This is the purpose of dialogue exercises that include the forming of stories. When I become courageous enough to wish to help you refine your question or your story even when I think I have a better image or perspective, I can sometimes come upon a dimension where the most correct answer is the one that leaves the other person in freedom trusting that some time down the road we will meet in a mutuality of mood and respect and that at that time all will be revealed. This can only happen when both persons are working out of the mood of the True Self or the aura of the Christ.

Dennis