Hare Krsna
The art of listening:
It is our experience that no matter how much we hear, we remain the same.
Actually, we have many tricks and devices not to listen. Let us understand them first.
The first trick is: we hear only that which we want to and not what is being said. With great cleverness we hear what lets us remain as we are; nothing goes in which may cause a change in us. This is not only the observation of the sages; scientists have also carried on research on the human mind say that ninety-eight percent of what we hear we do not take in.
Anything that synchronizes with your understanding cannot change you. It can only reinforce that understanding. Rather than transform you, it gives yet more stones and cement to strengthen your foundations.
The Hindu hears only what strengthens his Hindu mind; the Muslim hears only what strengthens the Muslim mind; so also the Sikh, the Christian, the Buddhist. If you listen only to strengthen your own preconceptions, to strengthen your own house, then you will miss hearing completely, for truth has no connection with Hindu or Muslim or Sikh. It has nothing to do with the conditioning of your mind.
Hearing a speaker, you tell yourself that he is correct when what he says is consistent with your thoughts. To other things, you say that it is not so because it disagrees with your thoughts. So you are not truly listening but only lend your ear to what agrees with you and strengthens your opinion. The rest, you don't care about, you ignore and forget. Even if you happen to hear something that is contrary to your understanding, you tear it to bits with your reasoning, because one thing you are sure of: whatever matches your thoughts is correct, what doesn't is incorrect, false.
While talking you are awake; while listening you are not. As soon as another person talks to you, you are no longer alert, but lost in an internal dialogue of your own. Then whom do you prefer to listen? Definitely to your own self, because the voice of the other person doesn't even reach you; your own voice is enough to drown out all the other voices.
He alone is capable of listening who has broken this conversation within. And that is the art of listening.
Hari Bol
Replies
Giving up our biases and assumptions allows us to hear other people's points of view. Most of us would rather not be that vulnerable and humble, which is what is required. But this tremendous act of candor is the only way we can start to comprehend the universe and our role in it.
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