Be desperate to listen!
This text was machine-transcribed from the printed book and may contain errors. Select the words and choose “Report a mistake”.
Why are you always desperate to speak?
Be desperate to listen!
Listening - what a powerful tool for transformation!
Listening is the only way to receive life. Listening is the only way you can truly relate to you and to others.
Please understand: the hidden, unresolved, incomplete parts of you are crying for your listening. Just listen. When you listen to yourself, your awareness reaches such a peak that there is no space for conflic; there is no space for non-integrity and inauthenticity to live in you. When you listen to yourself, all the unconsciousness in you drops away.
When you listen to others, you will transform them just by your listening. Remember, when people come to you, they almost always don't want solutions. They just want your listening. In the space of your deep listening, they will find the answers they need. And out of that deep listening, even if you speak, it will be always what the other person needs to hear. I always say what you need to hear, because I listen when you speak! I know what you need, and I speak exactly that. When I listen, I listen to everything - what you speak and what you don't speak and what you want to speak! I can transform you because I listen to you.
••● Practice ●••
At the end of the day, just sit down to spend some time with yourself. Listen to yourself.
Listen to whatever your body and mind are telling you. REALLY listen. Don't imagine that you should not have thoughts, or you should not have physical discomforts. Just listen to everything.
As you practice this, you will find your body and mind finally fall into peaceful silence.
Understand from where the problem is coming
Please understand, people don't always mean what they say or say what they mean. If you are expecting that, you have not learnt the art of listening.
Usually when two minds talk, neither listens and neither understands. The ordinary meeting of two minds is just double confusion! So at least from your side, let the confusion disappear. Then you will see, from your side there will be only solution.
Understand, communication can happen only if at least one side is ready to listen. If both sides are just preparing arguments and answers, how will each one understand where the other is coming from?
If your wife is talking to you about some problem, don't jump to the conclusion that she needs an intellectual solution! If you listen, you may discover that she just wants a little attention from you. She is coming from the heart center (anahata chakra). If you start giving a logical solution, she will make the problem much bigger. Just give her some attention and support; the problem will disappear on its own.
Listening and practicing
Usually many teachers say again and again - however much you listen, only if you practice you will achieve it. I want to reverse it. However much you try to practice, you can achieve only if you listen!
I am not saying – ‘however much you practice’. I am saying – ‘however much you TRY TO practice’!
Because, without listening, however much you practice, it will only be TRYING TO practice! Only when you start listening, the possibility for practicing happens.
••● Click ●••
Listening gives life and authenticity to your practice.