1. The basic
rule for practicing this art is the complete concentration of the listener.
2. Nothing of
importance must be on his mind, he must be optimally free from anxiety as well
as from greed.
3. He must
possess a freely-working imagination which is sufficiently concrete to be
expressed in words.
4. He must be
endowed with a capacity for empathy with another person and strong enough to
feel the experience of the other as if it were his own.
5. The condition
for such empathy is a crucial facet of the capacity for love. To understand
another means to love him — not in the erotic sense but in the sense of
reaching out to him and of overcoming the fear of losing oneself.
6. Understanding
and loving are inseparable. If they are separate, it is a cerebral process and
the door to essential understanding remains closed.