Dennis Lewis

The human voice is composed of a fundamental tone and various harmonics, depending on who is speaking and the various existing physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual conditions. The voice rides on the waves of the breath, which is also conditioned by many factors. When I truly listen to myself as I speak, a miracle occurs: I experience how my voice manifests “who I am” at that moment.

It is important, however, to listen not just to the words themselves, but also to their source and how they vibrate in the body/mind. For instance, do the words arise from a silent, unknown place in myself or from other words (like the billiard balls of Newtonian physics)? It makes all the difference.

When words proceed from other words, they proceed associatively, with no time or space encompassing and penetrating them. The entire process becomes mechanical. This word by you evokes that word by another which then evokes another word by you and so on.

When you listen to an argument between people you will notice this principle in action–sometimes people are even saying the same thing but don’t realize it because the words are just bouncing horizontally off of one another with no vertical sense of real meaning. Or, on the contrary, people can think they are agreeing when they actually disagree quite radically. No one is really listening. Buttons are simply being pushed and words move back and forth interactively by momentum. But when we pause and listen, when we stop inwardly, we have an opportunity to sense and feel the silence again and understand better what it is we wish to say, and what the other is actually saying.

In his book The World of Silence (published in 1948), Max Picard writes: “Words that merely come from other words are hard and aggressive. Such words are also lonely, and a great part of the melancholy in the world today is due to the fact that man has made words lonely by separating them from silence.”

As I mentioned, words have horizontal and vertical aspects. The “horizontal” represents the associative action of the words, the way in which they touch and stimulate one another, much the same way that a billiard ball hits another, which hits another, and so on, on the flat surface of a billiard table. The “vertical” represents the depths from which words arise, and the meaning they carry as a result of that depth.

When words arise from that deeper, more spacious place, we may use the words incorrectly (as far as the dictionary is concerned) but what is being said is understood in and through the silence, however confused the mind might be.   The fundamental tone and the harmonics are not just heard but also felt and sensed. Resistance to listening dissolves into silence and an embodied sense of life and meaning.

Copyright 2019 by Dennis Lewis

The words we use–and how we use them–have consequences, whether for better or for worse. I see and hear people (we’ve all done it, haven’t we?) begin a conversation about a particular issue with bitter or provocative words (in the name of ‘truth’) that create the turmoil and negativity that follow.

This generally happens when the speaker or writer loses sight of the larger context of the complexities and interrelationships involved in the issue, or doesn’t know how to express or evoke it, and others react to this from only a small emotional part of themselves. It is the larger context of wholeness, remembering that almost all of us wish for the manifestation of the good, of love and beauty, of fairness and justice, of intelligence, of consciousness and conscience in ourselves and others, that is most needed to carry on a creative exchange.

The study of the words we use, both spoken and written, and how we use them is a fascinating one! We can learn much about ourselves through simply listening. And the listening itself helps us awaken.

Copyright 2016 by Dennis Lewis

I wish you a wonderful, gratitude-filled Thanksgiving. Whether or not you celebrate this popular American holiday, you have much to be thankful for, beginning with your very existence. However difficult your life, I suggest you take a few minutes today, and every day, to actually ponder all the blessings you have been given. Put your hands on your heart, smile in thankfulness and appreciation for these blessings, and inhale through your smile into your heart. During the out-breath, radiate your thankfulness not just to the whole of yourself and to your nearest and dearest, but also to all those people worldwide known and unknown to you. Realize that it wasn’t long ago that none of us existed in our present form on this earth, and it won’t be long before all of us will be gone. In the meantime, right now, we can appreciate and give thanks for this miraculous gift of life we have been given.

Copyright 2013-2016 by Dennis Lewis

People frequently speak of passion, sometimes in a very dispassionate way. But I tell you now that, whatever your age, it is time to go after what you really want. Your time is not limitless, and our planet and its inhabitants are in dire straits. Don’t just believe those New Age guru marketeers who tell you that everything will be fine because people are becoming more conscious. Are they? Look around in places you don’t normally look. Find out for yourself. When you really look and listen and sense, you will see that there is much to be done–and it begins with each of us.

When I went on a Freedom Ride in my early 20’s, had a shotgun pointed at my head, and wound up in jail for three weeks it was something in which I passionately believed, and the many thousands of us who did so eventually made an enormous social and political difference in the United States. You can make a difference, too. Perhaps you already have, but now is no time to stop. The politicians and others will eventually follow your lead–but YOU must lead before it is too late. Which means NOW! And in order to lead, in order to make a difference, you need to know what you really wish for and what practical steps must be taken for your wishes to come to fruition. Great ideas and ideals are plentiful in today’s world, but the ability to put them into action is rare. A good diagnosis is important but it’s just as important to work with others, sometimes the very people with whom you don’t want to work, and actually “do” something, in whatever ways you can, to help.

When I started the Dennis Lewis fan page on Facebook, an action which indeed arose from my passion, there were some old friends (and still are) who didn’t and don’t understand. They thought/think it had only to do with ego. You know why? Probably because if they were to do what I am doing it might well have been. The judgments they made were likely based on their own unseen process of ‘projection,’ a process with which I have had my own very personal, even dark, experiences over the years. Each of us needs to see this process in ourselves if we are to become free from its powerful grip.

Friends, if anything is to truly change, we need to begin to live in dynamic balance and do what our minds and hearts and bodies–motivated by passion, real intention, consciousness, and conscience–guide us to do. We need to be practical, with thought, feeling, and sensation working together in concert. That’s how inner transformation takes place! That’s how the world changes! It’s a risky business, of course. And it takes time and effort. Things never happen exactly the way we imagine–fortunately! There are so many often contradictory forces at work, many of them unseen. But as we become more conscious, and more open to our deepest passion, we begin to discover who we really are and what we can and must do.

I wish you many great discoveries, as well as inner and outer actions that matter, beginning right now.