“The first duty of love is to listen.” Paul Tillich
“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.”
If only someone would understand me!!! What a significantly large number of people in this world yearn for understanding. The need to be understood is one of the most basic needs that we have, and yet, how few of us have the good fortune to have this need fulfilled completely. And why is this? To understand we have to listen, and to listen we have to use far more than our ears.
What most of us tend to do is to hear, rather than listen. When you ‘hear’, your conditioning, your belief system, and your opinions, colour this process and you hear what you wish to hear. It might surprise you to learn that another’s words pass through many layers of your filters before they reach your mind where they can be processed. Each layer of the filter removes more and more of the truth that the other wishes to convey. The result? Misunderstanding, conflict, disharmony.
What follows in the wake of this awareness are three very significant questions:
What is listening?
Why do we not listen?
How can we access the magnetic force that is Listening?
Listening is an inner process that moves beyond the illusion of the physical to the vitality of Spirit. It knows no distance, heeds no time, needs no words, and wants no validation. You hear an external universe; you listen to the one within. Listening is a soundless force that carries the loudest clarion call of the soul.Listening is the truest form of meditation.
We do not listen to others because we do not know how to listen to ourselves. The life force within us is constantly communicating with us through our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts. Some have called this communicationintuition without truly knowing what that is. The English dictionary defines tuitionas ‘instruction’ and ‘tutelage’…and so in-tuition is the instruction that comes to you from within, the teaching that is self-motivated.
Every child is well-conditioned to pay attention to external sounds, but not one is encouraged to listen to the vital force that flows within. My dearest friend, it is your life force that defines you, that motivates you, that urges you on to change and growth. It carries within its strength the consciousness of your inner compulsions, your deep-rooted fears, your catalysts of joy, your soul desires, your physical needs.
When this strength is tapped into consciously and in full awareness, you respond to internal and external stimuli because you are listening to the inner awareness. But when you are deaf to its insistent call, you react in degrees that are so out of proportion to the initial stimulus that it must necessarily be short-lived, not having the power to sustain itself.
How emotionally and spiritually challenged we are that we cannot listen to our own soul!! Is that not why we play petty games with each other? Is that not why we long for the sound of another’s voice? Is that not why we yearn to hear the sweet sound of applause and praise? Is that not why we harbour within us envy and malice? Oh, dearly beloved friend, the lips of another can whisper only sweet nothings to you, while all the while your soul rings out ‘Hallelujah’.
You can be the victim of another’s lies, but listening will bring only truth to you….truth of self, truth of SELF, and truth that ALL is SELF. Do not be fearful of what listening reveals, for even bitter truths bring a gentle inner calm.
To access this ‘magnetic and strange thing’, we have to be prepared not to hear. We have to train ourselves not to hear only the words spoken. That which the ears cannot hear, the heart can listen to…. the loud, wordless plea for love in the harsh sound of ‘I hate you’…. the scream of inner pain even as the lips form the words ‘I am fine’…. the hardness of callous indifference well-disguised in soft tones.
Our deepest truths cannot be voiced, but when we can listen to our own, we can listen to those of others. For this we need to discipline ourselves not to fall prey to haste and reaction. Listening helps us to discover who we are……and in this the secrets of the Universe are unfolded.
Listening begins with contemplation, strengthens with awareness, matures with acceptance, and empowers with unconditional love. In order to listen you must be willing to experience the strength of personal vulnerability, to stop the use of masks and disguises, to break free of self- imposed inhibitions and embargos, and be joyous about who you are. The more you listen to your inner instruction, the clearer will its tutelage be. Intuition is a universal fact of humanity, not the privilege of the chosen few.
Wake up, beloved friend, wake up and listen…. there is someone who understands you, there is someone who loves you, there is someone guiding you, looking after you, showing you the way….JUST LISTEN.
© Ellaeenah
