Years ago, at a Self-Improvement workshop by Jerry Stocking, participants were asked to listen to a children's rhyme and repeat it. It was a rather long rhyme and everybody lost track of the sequence of events and stopped in embarrassment.
A tense and nervous atmosphere built up in the room as one person after another failed to recite the entire rhyme. People began to feel that they just had insufficient short term memory to recall and repeat the whole thing.
Then a NASA Aeronautical Engineer, with numerous pauses, got it!
His secret was that he paused. During those pauses, in the space between words, his subconscious mind prompted him with the next line of the verse.
"This," said Jerry Stocking, "was the secret--because the space between things allowed intelligence and creativity to emerge."
Both Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer are equally enthusiastic about this space between thoughts. They call it "the gap."
Deepak Chopra says it is a contact point between our mind and the quantum field of all possibilities.
Wayne Dyer believes that for a moment, one actually touches the divine before springing back into our consensus reality, which is kept alive by a constant stream of limiting thoughts.
Echart Tolle has earned fame and fortune teaching others about this space. He is famous for his long silences, during which he is merely being aware, and devoid of thought. When he, by example, induces this state in his audience, they feel a sense of deep peace and "a fullness of being."
Similarly, when I was studying art, learning how to draw people, horses, dogs, still life objects, barns, and open spaces, the space between my sketches were the most meaningful. With those spaces, my images came to life.
I love classical music, and it is for the same reason. The space between the notes is where the magic lies.
I have noticed a new surge of creativity in my online endeavors as well, when I respect these spaces.
When I am writing a sales letter, my thoughts become very intense, and after a while I suffer from information overload. When I take a break and come back, all the sentences flow perfectly, and I convey my message the way that I had hoped.
The same amazing thing happens after studying. If I spend a lot of time researching something, then give it a break, which may last for as long as a day, all the elements of the project become very clear to me.
The other day, I was listening to a David Valleries interview and I had to smile when he said that his most creative ideas came after he had quit pursuing them and did something utterly mundane instead.
There is a magic to the space between images, notes, streams of thought, and information gathering. Respect those spaces and confusion dissipates. Then the mind becomes very clear and action becomes efficient and precise.
