It’s a sad fact that while most of us spend a sizeable part of our lives communicating with others — in face-to-face conversations, over the phone, in committee meetings, via e-mail and social networks — we seem more separate and disconnected than ever.

Genuine understanding seems to be the exception rather than the norm in everyday communication. We speak at each other, or past each other. We speak different conceptual languages, hold different values, embody different ways of seeing the world.

Much of the time, we’re not even listening to each other at all. The dialogue is a monologue. We fire salvos of information across the Internet, or shoot each other text messages, or blog or Twitter or Plurk about ourselves. But is anyone paying attention? And if they are, do they catch our drift?

The trouble with much of what passes for communication today is that it’s all crosstalk. It’s a din, not a dialogue.

The noisy chatter reflects the fact that we don’t really know how to engage one another in authentic conversations. We simply haven’t learned the skills of listening closely to each other, of engaging in meaningful exchanges, and of finding shared sources of meaning. We lack the know-how and the tools.

As we move into times of accelerating change and deepening uncertainty, we need to get smart about how to talk to one another. We need to be able to overcome differences, find common ground, build meaning and purpose, and set directions together. We need to be able to think together as groups, as teams, as committees, as communities, and as citizens.

The way to do that is through dialogue. The word dialogue is often contrasted with monologue, as if it were a two-way, rather than than a one-way, process. But that’s misleading. Dialogue is a contraction from the Greek words for through and words. It suggests an activity aimed at eliciting meaning.

The Greeks may not have invented dialogue, but they introduced the idea that individuals are not intelligent on their own, that it’s only by reasoning together that they are able to uncover the truth for themselves. The Greeks understood that if two or more people are unsure about a question, they can accomplish something together they can’t do on their own. By questioning and probing each other, carefully dissecting and analyzing ideas, finding the inconsistencies, never attacking or insulting but always searching for what they can accept between them, they can gradually attain deeper understanding and insight.

That’s what dialogue is: a form of discussion aimed at fostering mutual insight and common purpose. The process involves listening with empathy, searching for common ground, exploring new ideas and perspectives, and bringing unexamined assumptions into the open.

When done well, the benefits can be extraordinary. Long-standing stereotypes can be dissolved, mistrust overcome, and visions shaped and grounded in a shared sense of purpose. People previously at odds with one another can come into alignment on objectives and strategies. New perspectives and insights can be gained, new levels of creativity stimulated, and bonds of community strengthened.

While dialogue is often confused with other forms of discourse, it belongs in a distinctive category of its own. Unlike debate, it doesn’t involve arguing for a point of view, defending a set of assumptions, or critiquing the positions of others. Unlike negotiation or consensus-building, it’s not a method of reaching agreement or arriving at decisions. And unlike discussion, it can only emerge when participants trust and respect each other, suspend their judgments, and listen deeply to all points of view.

The process is also distinct from deliberation which is not so much a mode of communication as a form of thought and reflection that can take place in any kind of conversation. Such dialogue is aimed at finding the best course of action. Deliberative questions take the form “What should we do?” The purpose is not so much to solve a problem or resolve an issue as to explore the most promising avenues for action.

The process of dialogue is more important than ever today for a number of reasons. For one thing, the confrontation between different cultural traditions and worldviews requires some process by which people can communicate across differences. For another, the fragmentation of society into a myriad of subcultures based on profession, status, race, ethnicity, political loyalty, etc., make it necessary that people find a pathway to common ground. A third reason is that traditional authority structures are falling away.

Dialogue is the most effective response to these developments because, on the one hand, it allows people to span their differences and forge shared frames of reference and, on the other, it gives those formerly excluded from decision-making an opportunity to participate in the process of finding common ground and establishing priorities for action.

But dialogue is not always easy or straightforward. It can run aground in a thousand subtle ways. Effective dialogue requires that all the participants have equal standing, that they listen with respect and empathy, and that ideas and assumptions explored openly and without judgment.

Effective dialogue typically follows some basic ground rules:

• The focus is on common interests, not divisive ones
• The dialogue and decision-making processes are separated
• Assumptions that can lead to distortions of certain points of view are clarified and brought into the open
• People are encouraged to reveal their own insights and assumptions before speculating on those of others
• Concrete examples are used to raise general issues
• The process focuses on conflicts between value systems, not people
• When appropriate, participants are encouraged to express emotions accompanying strongly held values
• Participants err on the side of including people who disagree
• They encourage relationships in order to humanize transactions
• They minimize the level of mistrust before pursuing practical objectives.

The late physicist David Bohm developed what is widely regarded as the most useful model of dialogue. He saw it as a method for developing what he called a “higher social intelligence.” Nothing is more important, in my view. In the past, it may have been enough to get by on personal intelligence alone. But it’s no longer enough to be brilliant on our own (if such a thing is even possible). Our pressing problems today require that we get smart together, that we harness our best collective thinking and put it to work in the world.

Read more:

• Thinking Together — In this essay, I discuss my experience using deliberation, a form of dialogue aimed at finding the best solution to an issue or set of problems.
• Collaboration and Community — In this paper, originally commissioned by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, I look at the theory and practice of civic collaboration (of which dialogue and deliberation is a crucial component).
• Bohm Dialogue — A collection of papers and articles about the dialogue process developed by physicist David Bohm.
• Wholeness Regained: Revisiting Bohm’s Dialogue — An excellent article by Lee Nichol that addresses the tension between the inner work of the individual and the collective process of the group.

I believe the single most important step we can take toward leading happier and more fulfilling lives is to develop a spiritual practice. By that I mean some regular activity or set of rituals that quiet the mind and bring us into harmony with ourselves.

Spiritual practices take many forms, from meditation and prayer to yoga and chanting. It doesn’t even have to be explicitly spiritual — it might simply be a quiet activity like knitting, gardening, or walking in the woods. Or perhaps immersing ourselves in poetry, music, or the beauty of nature.

It’s not the content of the practice that matters so much as what it evokes in us in the process. A strong and healthy practice is one that allows us to find our inner center and bring us into alignment with our highest truth and sense of purpose.

But there can be no doubt that serious and systematic practices — especially those that engage the body and mind, such as yoga, qigong, tai chi, and Unity in Motion, or those that involve regular meditation over a period of months or years, such as zazen or vipassana — can bring about dramatic changes in people’s lives. Among other things, they can lead to physical health and vitality, clarity of mind, and a profound inner peace.

Many people find their way into their practice through some personal crisis, such as an illness or the loss of a loved one. But the value of a serious and sustained practice is not therapeutic so much as developmental. In other words, it’s not about healing past traumas or alleviating personal suffering so much as actualizing our highest capacities as human beings.

But even that is misleading becase ultimately a spiritual practice is not about self-improvement at all. In the beginning, a serious spiritual practice can enrich and expand our lives in a progressive, step-by-step fashion, one stage of advancement following the other. But when we begin to close in on the higher reaches of our human potential — the cessation of suffering and the gaining of direct insight into who we are and the nature of ultimate reality — then we come up against the limits of self-improvement.

While we can certainly attain great heights following a step-by-step program of personal growth, it will only take us so far. But we can’t “work our way” through the final gate by the elimination of our own imperfections, no matter how “perfect” we may have become. Enlightenment, wisdom, salvation, spiritual liberation, self-realization — whatever we call it — can never be attained through a process of self-improvement since taking the final step means going beyond the self.

The pursuit of happiness, if it means anything at all, means finding that path toward inner freedom and self-transcendence.

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON ON SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Marianne Williamson is one of America’s most prominent spiritual teachers and the author of several bestselling books, including A Return to Love, A Woman’s Worth, Healing the Soul of America, and, most recently, The Age of Miracles. I asked her about the practical steps we can take toward awakening the spirit in everyday life.

Scott London: A point you make in your talks is that we need to move beyond spirituality as a set of ideas or beliefs and incorporate it into our daily lives. How do we do that?

Marianne Williamson: Through serious spiritual practice. In the Kabbala, it says that we receive the light in order to impart the light, and thus we repair the world. You receive the light through what you read, through what you hear in meditation, or through some spiritual practice. I believe we are shown the path that is right as soon as we ask for it. Then we must live in the world and in some way express what we have learned. We are likely to feel better when we go to bed tonight if we have an internal sense that we spent our lives meaningfully today.

London: Is that really the ultimate goal, feeling better?

Williamson: Yes, living meaningfully is what brings joy. Increasing meaning and joy on the planet is the ultimate goal because within that space all evil is cast out. People who are joyful from a center of meaning and righteousness do not molest, do not rape, do not violate, do not abuse, do not war, do not fear.

London: What do you have in mind when you say “serious spiritual practice”?

Williamson: Whatever comes into your life, whether it is A Course in Miracles, Transcendental Meditation, prayer, meditation, or service. I believe that ultimately it all comes down to whether we seek conscious contact with God on a daily basis through prayer and meditation. You can know everything that the books have to say, but ultimately it boils down to whether we do the inner work of devotion and surrender, whether we can put aside our own agendas and allow the spirit to move through us.