Reflections #0010
Socialising through dialogues
I spend a lot of my time sitting in circles. It’s very interesting for me to observe the processes flow, the interactions which follow and the emerging results from there. In such spaces, nothing is predictable and nothing can be controlled. You can only surrender and accept. What you can be sure of is that something somewhere will surely shift. If you are sensitive enough you can feel this happen and rejoice in the beauty of creation.
My intention for all the circles I hold is to create a reflective, collaborative and transformative space for the participants.
I was in a day-long learning session with newly recruited administrators in the state of Punjab, India. Most of them were in their late twenties and had known each other for six-seven months. When I joined them, their training was already in the second week. We had a very engaging day. When it came to sharing insights from the day, some people admitted that they had not spoken to their colleagues even once before. They had been in the same room for at least seven days, yet they did not have a single opportunity for a simple human conversation. No one in that system including the participants themselves were seeing this as a problem until they experienced what was missing.
The paradox of our time is that we are highly interconnected yet isolated. Gone are the days when people would sit together in order to just connect with each other. With busier lives, everyone seems to be rushing from one task to another. No one is really pausing to reflect and observe one’s behaviour or the larger picture. The whole world seems to be trying to do more in less time and less effort. We want to hack nature and grow exponentially in everything.
It doesn’t stop there. While deep connections are missing, the few places where they remain are also within the bubbles of social networks. Isolation is not just at the level of individuals but also between groups. There are hardly any opportunities for people from different social, cultural, economic or political backgrounds to come together and listen to each other. In the day to day interactions also blaming, complaining and judgements seem to be more commonplace than connection, collaboration and celebration.
We began the third Sanjhi Sikhiya dialogue with the question — “Share a chance encounter which led to an unexpected outcome.” What followed was an hour of stories full of wisdom and insights which people hold more valuable than their treasures. Kuljinder shared how these chance counters are shaped by your intentions. You literally get what you look for. Tinu added that the consciousness you are carrying at the moment is the deciding factor in making the encounter into a meaningful interaction. Liakat spoke about his own fear conditioning coming in the way. Parabal mentioned about taking that collaboration further and integrating into his own life.
We have been meeting once every month to create a space for ourselves outside our daily routines. 16 of us had gathered that Saturday evening. Six of them had not been to that circle before. They found out about it on their own and came in without knowing what will happen there. In reality, no one knows who will show up and what will happen. It a completely agenda-less gathering where everyone comes in their own time without any expectations. It is like taking a dip in the wide ocean just after getting out from a swimming pool.
After the initial sharing, we wanted to turn around that space into abundant possibilities of chance encounters. We broke into small groups and individual conversations. We mostly ask each other about their interests with the single intention of serving each other. Collaboration abounds in that space. Exchanges happen in multiple forms of capital. Sunil and Balwinder discussed various initiatives being taken at her school. Tinu and Tarundeep were passionately figuring out ways to improve air quality in the city. Munish and I talked about bringing social-emotional learning to schools in Jalandhar. Parabal and Liakat wanted to support more and more young people to be social entrepreneurs in Punjab.
The challenge is not that we don’t know, it is that we have forgotten that knowledge multiplies when shared. We learn better by doing and many small actions are much better than a few big ones. When everyone gets a space to express and explore, lively conversations full of purpose and meaning take place and lead to unexpected outcomes. People are not focussed on differences but on similarities. This prepares the ground for collaboration and also creates energy to actually see it grow.
By the end, everyone felt a sense of community. Most of the conversations that had happened in the last ninety minutes would be enough for anyone to reaffirm their faith in humanity. But as I would learn during the final sharing, it was the personal shifts that make such spaces powerful. One member shared how he was feeling lonely before coming but how he is leaving with a sense of positivity. Another person added that when we are together we are not even afraid to fail. Amidst all this, we all mutually felt hope and home. We were all one at that moment.
For me, Sanjhi Sikhiya is an idea, a process and a community. We aim to create spaces for dialogues, agendaless gatherings, enabling collaboration and more. The purpose of doing this is to learn and grow in order to bring our best selves in work and relationships. It’s a process inspired by nature where we learn to look within, experience our common humanity and create something together. It’s a community where people who wish to look at their work as service can come and support each other toward’s their personal and collective growth.
Not all conversations are easy and not all people are easily able to let their guards down in order to see and be seen. In the last session with our young leaders at PYLP, we opened up a conversation on talking about difficult things. We discussed what usually doesn’t get talked about and often leads to conflicts. Is it really possible to hold spaces where we can take up tough conversations and convert them into learning opportunities? What would it take to engage in disagreement without attacking the other person or defending oneself? What would it take to slow down, listen and observe our afflictive emotions while they are simmering hot?
We all learnt that holding on to one’s positions in an argument is very limiting. Some amount of fluidity on one’s part adds dynamism to the whole discussion. Anger is fine, it’s human. It’s the space from where it comes is the problem. If there is even a trace of hatred others can sense it and get triggered. The practice is to identify the role one is playing and shift it consciously to a position which can take the discussion forward. The debrief that followed that experience allowed all of us to loosen our strongly held beliefs and see each other as fellow humans.
Dialogue is that process which can enable profound shifts in our individual and collective consciousness. It’s a simple structure which can re-enable the dysfunctional systems. It is also an approach to life which can allow us to live meaningfully and harmoniously.
Humans created tools and those tools in turn shaped humanity. Can we have card games which enable us to connect, collaborate and celebrate? Along with movie theatres and shopping malls can we also have dialogue cafes where anyone can go and invest with their time in order to gain new perspectives? Can we open up our homes once a month to allow ‘others’ to come in and see our lives differently? Can we create scenario-weekends where a small group of families come together to look at their shared future possibilities? The more we play the more we grow and it starts appearing easier. We can start small and slowly progress to tougher challenges and harder levels. The rewards are abundant by design — love and joy of connection and learning. It’s time to create meaningful ways to socialise offline.
