Eco-system Leadership Principle 2: Sensing
This is the third article in the series on Eco-system Leadership principles. When I began to write this article three months ago, I realised it is difficult to put it down logically. I have been engaging with this principle since then, trying to understand it. Even today, my thoughts on sensing are fluid and amorphous. I decided to then put forward an arguable thesis so that I may understand views of others. This is a subjective article and presents my view and understanding. This article is framed as a series of questions and answers, following my own thinking.
Presencing Institute defines Sensing as an Ecosystem Leadership principle: “Always sense the emerging field of possibilities: around you, within you, through you. Take time to expand and deepen your sensing capacities. Develop a sensibility for coherence, health, rhythm and timing so that you can notice when something needs to shift.”
- What do I think is Sensing?
Let us start with looking at the dictionary meanings: The Oxford dictionary says: “To realise or become conscious of something; to get a feeling about something even though you cannot see it, hear it, etc.”. Merriam Webster dictionary states the meaning as “to have a vague awareness of”.
A statement from Carl G. Jung the famous psychologist adds another element — “I am now going to say something that may offend my Indian friends, but actually, no offence is intended. I have, so it seems to me, observed the peculiar fact that an Indian, in as much as he is really an Indian, does not think, at least not we call “think”. He rather perceives the thought.”
What next comes to mind is ESP — defined as an extra sensory perception, or second sight, beyond the five senses, which involves precognition, seeing things that happen remotely (without technology!).
I see there are two parts to sensing. The first is the capacity to see ‘What it is’ — What is existing in front of us: to see the current reality both visible and the invisible without colouring it with our beliefs. The second I think, is the capacity see or perceive what may come or what may happen. We call this ‘gut feel’ or ‘intuition’ or ‘premonition’.
I understand that Sensing is a capacity to perceive something. It appears to me that it is beyond logical thinking, beyond our five senses and beyond our direct view. It has nothing to do with logical thinking. The more logical I am, the less I sense or perceive, since I am already starting to judge or analyse. It feels like this can happen when one sees oneself as part of the whole and does not see oneself as separate from the whole.
I wonder I can sense better if I am a more primal being!
2. Why is it important to sense?
This capacity is very critical for living systemically in line with nature and also produce results that we deeply desire, as well as reduce the unforeseen negative impacts of our decisions. For this, we need to develop this capacity to sense because it connects us to the larger world so that we would perceive the whole better. We would develop a deep connectedness with not just people, also with every being, nature and the cosmos.
In her book Engaging Emergence, Peggy Holman talks about three forms of reality: Steady state, incremental shifts and Emergence. This is what she says about Emergence: “Occasional upheaval results when principles that keep a system orderly break down. Chaos sparks experiments. Current assumptions are clarified, and new possibilities surface. Ultimately, something dies and a new coherence arises that contains aspects of the old and the new but isn’t either.”
Let us take the example of ‘Covid-19’ as a disruption. Let us assume it is a situation of emergence. We are all talking about a ‘new normal’. I am unsure whether we as human race have collectively sensed the ‘new normal’ that is wanting to emerge. What comes to me in our current context are the stories of Noah’s Ark and of Matsya Avatar. In both stories, a ‘new normal’ emerges. All beings who could not sense and be part of the ‘new normal’ perished.
What is probably the message this small virus is giving us? It feels like most of our beliefs, and the structures that we have built (society, governance, economy, education etc.), are producing results that we really do not want. Probably we need a new world order. I have no clue what is wanting to emerge.
3. What blocks us from Sensing?
It seems that two things stop us from Sensing — a belief that faster is better, and the predominance of ego over eco.
Over the last few years, I have seen the ‘need for speed’: faster information, faster decisions, faster solutions; quicker to prove myself, quicker to achieve, quicker rise to the top. Faster seems to be accepted as better. I remember one of the eleven principles of the Fifth Discipline is ‘Faster is slower’, and this is well captured by one of the organisational learning disabilities. It goes like this.
“Maladaptation to gradually building threats to survival is so pervasive in systems studies of corporate failure that it has given rise to the parable of the “boiled frog.” If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately try to scramble out. But if you place the frog in room temperature water, and don’t scare him, he’ll stay put. Now, if the pot sits on a heat source, and if you gradually turn up the temperature, something very interesting happens. As the temperature rises from 70 to 80 degrees F., the frog will do nothing. In fact, he will show every sign of enjoying himself. As the temperature gradually increases, the frog will become groggier and groggier, until he is unable to climb out of the pot. Though there is nothing restraining him, the frog will sit there and boil. Why? Because the frog’s internal apparatus for sensing threats to survival is geared to sudden changes in his environment, not to slow, gradual changes.”
A simple example can be how much detail we see and notice when we are driving on a highway at 120 mph versus when we are walking on the same road. So when we are faster, we seem to miss the details. Hence, all of us who have adapted to high speed and faster pace have lost our internal apparatus for sensing slow, gradual changes.
As I wrote in my first article of this series, we cannot see the whole and interconnectedness with our ego-system awareness because it cuts us off from the whole. It leads us to see what we want to see, rather than what it is.
4. How do we sense?
A quote from the Gita comes to mind, a point where the text touches on ‘knowing the field’, which I believe points directly to our inherent capacity for sensing. It is Chapter 13, Verse 2.
श्रीभगवानुवाच |
इदं शरीरं कौन्तेय क्षेत्रमित्यभिधीयते |
एतद्यो वेत्ति तं प्राहु: क्षेत्रज्ञ इति तद्विद: || 2||
Verse 2:
The Blessed Lord then said:
This body, O son of Kunti, is called the field,
and one who knows this body is called the knower of the field.
Sensing is being open to receive messages from the field. Arawana Hayashi, of the Presencing Institute, (in the program Digital Leadership) says it is turning our consciousness outward, and seeing with soft eyes.
This requires a conscious effort to slow down, to assimilate different elements of what the universe is saying. If I am familiar with the field then I can sense a shift. If I am unconscious or numbed to the field, I have no way of looking at my field at any point of time and know there is a trigger. I have a snapshot and not a moving graph or picture.
I believe we have inherent potential to Sense and move in harmony with the present and emerging future. It comes to us in our genes and from the collective consciousness of generations of human life. I believe we can access and develop this capacity.
There are two references that strike me at this time — one, from Tholkappiam, from ancient Tamil literature that looks at evolution through the development of senses; two, from the work of Bhatrahari, who talks about knowledge that comes to us from our genes and collective history.
Here is the verse from Ancient Tamil Literature, Tholkappiyam.
“ஒன்று அறிவதுவே உற்று அறிவதுவே
இரண்டு அறிவதுவே அதனொடு நாவே
மூன்று அறிவதுவே அவற்றொடு மூக்கே
நான்கு அறிவதுவே அவற்றொடு கண்ணே
ஐந்து அறிவதுவே அவற்றொடு செவியே
ஆறு அறிவதுவே அவற்றொடு மனனே
நேரிதின் உணர்ந்தோர் நெறிப்படுத்தினரே”.
The translation of this would be:
“Beings with one sense are those that have the sense of TOUCH.
Beings with two senses are those that have the sense of TASTE along with the above.
Beings with three senses have sense of SMELL in addition.
Beings with four senses have sense of SIGHT, along with the above.
Beings with five senses have sense of HEARING, in addition.
The beings with six senses, have a MIND, along with the above.”
Bhatrahari, an ancient Indian philosopher talks about the Four Knowledge Domains. They are:
Archaic knowledge- Puratheena Gnanam
Archaic knowledge is the knowledge that beings have gained from the wisdom of the universe from the collective consciousness of those that go before us. Ants create incredibly complex and stable anthills — an example of archaic knowledge — which every living being has access to.
Magical knowledge- Manthrica Gnanam
Magical knowledge is therapeutic in nature — no animal in the wild ever visited a veterinarian. Bhatrahari postulated that by nature we all had this intuitive knowledge. The Vedas incorporate some of this knowledge — the chants / mantras generate vibrations that are healing to plants, animals and humans alike.
Mythical knowledge- Pauranica Gnanam
Myths help answer questions that cannot be answered through logic. Hence a story of a snake swallowing the moon to explain its waxing and waning helped fill knowledge vacuums. Every tradition has myths and stories that helps explain certain things that normal logic can not explain.
Scientific knowledge- Vignanam
Logical knowledge is the one we use daily for our daily problem solving, improving our scientific thinking and use this to analyse and solve daily problems.
It seems using the five senses and the first three levels of knowledge stated above and consciously switching off our logical mind seems to be the basic requirement for sensing.
5. So what do I perceive Sensing to be?
I now perceive Sensing as a capacity to feel, see, hear something that is not visible to the logical mind. When we sense, we use all our five senses (body) and probably very different frequency levels of our mind and heart along with them. We are totally transparent and open to allow those signals to enter us. This is not just a capability of just the body and mind; but seems to be a psycho-spiritual capacity to be porous to see what exists and what is wanting to emerge — the visible and the invisible. It seems to be a capacity to deal with energy fields in the universe.
This view is well-captured by the quote by Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past) “ The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes”.
Our inherent difficulty sense honestly in any given moment of our lives is well captured by the famous quote of Albert Einstein “ No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”.
6. What do I think are the ways to expand and deepen our sensing capacities?
The initial definition we started with states “Develop a sensibility for coherence, health, rhythm and timing so that you can notice when something needs to shift.” Peggy Holman says that embracing emergence starts with “embracing mystery, choosing possibility and following life-energy”.
Here, I will bring back two more verses from the Gita, from Chapter 13. These are verses 6 & 7.
महाभूतान्यङ्ककारो बुद्धिरव्यक्त मेव च |
इन्द्रियाणि दशैकं च पञ्च चेन्द्रियगोचरा: || 6||
इच्छा द्वेष: सुखं दु:खं सङ्घातश्चेतना धृति: |
एतत्क्षेत्रं समासेन सविकारमुदाहृतम् || 7||
Verse 6 & 7:
The five great elements, false ego, intelligence,
the unmanifested, the ten senses, the mind,
the five sense objects, (6)
desire, hatred, happiness, distress, the aggregate, the life symptoms, and convictions-
all these are considered, in summary,
to be the field of activities and its interactions. (7)
All these (mentioned in the translation) are indicators to the universe within and outside. We need to be familiar with ourselves — the balance in our body, our self, our various intelligences, our senses, our emotions. Vedic wisdom postulates that we are connected to the universe through the five great elements — Water, Fire, Air, Earth, and Space of which we are formed. Any change on the outside around us triggers a small but perceptible change within. The essential condition seems to be a deep level of connectedness to oneself and to the universe at the same time.
In my practice, I have seen that knowledge and acceptance of self is important. By acceptance, I mean no judgement — I am just what I am, with all my gifts, talents, shortcomings, and vulnerabilities. Being able to sit for even a few moments in such acceptance helps. This ability to pause is what is known as ‘slowing down’.
“In the language of Theory U, sensing is redirecting our attention from objects to source, where our perception widens and deepens. This shifts bends the beam of observation back onto the observer. The boundary between observer and observed opens up.”
Theory U talks about three inner voices. These are Voices of Judgement, Cynicism and Fear. I have heard that Patanjali (famous for Patanjali Yoga Sutra) has talked about two more voices: Voices of Suspicion and Doubt. These voices colour what we see and / or block us from sensing what it is. So sensing is about dropping or letting go of these voices. Once we drop all our voices our inherent psycho-spiritual capacity of sensing through mind, body and soul is activated.
7. How can one expand and sharpen the capacity to sense?
The following seem to be practices to develop one’s own capacity to sense. This is a summary of my experience as well as what I have read from Otto’s and Peggy Holman’s work.
- Develop a high level of self-awareness — mind body and soul — (Be self-aware).
- Surrender control or the desire to direct the flow of events towards a goal for a space — (Surrender).
- Notice your habits of thought and language and reframe — (Reframe habits of thought).
- Suspend your inner voices and be still — (Drop voices).
- Support flow — (Be in the here and now).
- Be generous and be patient — (Look with soft eyes).
- Sense with all the ten elements — (Be porous).
- Listen to inner guidance — (Listen to your body field).
- Perceive what is emerging — (Sense what is emerging).
- Keep a moving picture of the body field, not a snapshot — (Tune in to the signals).
- Allow them to come — (Do not block).
- Do not analyse. The picture will make sense when it needs to make sense. (Do not use logical mind).
- Make sense of the whole — (See the whole).
Finally, developing our capacity to sense seems to be reclaiming what we came with and unlearning many of our ways of understanding and knowledge creation.
With inputs from Deepa Ram Bhat
References
Ecosystem Leadership Program module 1, workbook, Presencing Institute.
Oxford English Dictionary
The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus
The Collected Works of C.G. Jung Volume 10: Civilisation in Transition (Including ‘Flying Saucers” and “The Undiscovered Self”), Second Edition.
Extrasensory Perception
Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity
The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization
Bhagvad Gita Chapter 13, Verse 2 reference
Reference to Tholkappiyam
Reference to the Four Domains of Knowledge (Bhatrahari) from Hala Associates
Bhagvad Gita Chapter 13, Verses 6–7 reference
Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust
Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies
The Essentials of Theory U
