Listening in the world
"People are in the habit of not looking and not listening and not paying attention."[1]
"You listen to develop the ability to listen so that when you are out in life, Knowledge within you can speak to you, guide you and hold you back when that is necessary."[2]
Directives
"Listen more than you speak."[3]
"You look and you watch with Knowledge, which is looking without preference or judgment. It is just looking. You listen without preference or judgment. It is just listening. If you find a real sign, it will impress itself upon you particularly. It will not just be an emotional response of sadness or grief, remorse or anger. It will be something that will ring within you. That is important. Write it down—what you heard, where you heard it, how it impressed you. And stay with that, for a sign is more important than stimulation."[4]
"You must function on only partial awareness and partial certainty. You will not know everything that needs to be done. No one knows that. You will have to choose carefully who you listen to, for some people will give you very bad advice."[5]
Suspending judgment
"You should be looking more and thinking less, listening more and speaking less, observing others without condemnation or judgment, setting aside your habits of judgment and evaluation in order to listen. Remember, the birds in the air and the animals in the field are always listening and watching. They must pay attention.
Humanity, which for so long has been involved in its great indulgences, its great conflicts, its great obsessions and addictions must now listen and look and pay attention without trying to falsely fortify itself and without trying to cast gloom and fear over everything. Now it is time to listen, to pay attention. It is a strange thing that the creature who is the most intelligent in the world, the human being, is functioning and acting in the
least intelligent way."[1]
"if you listen carefully, you will see who amongst others is wise and who is unwise."[6]
People "are suffering because they are alone and are going unrecognized. All of their social behavior, their foolishness and their tragedy, is expressing this desire and need to be recognized. If you listen carefully, even beyond what they are telling you or demonstrating to you, you will hear the great need of their soul, and you will feel compassion for them. You will see that even in their anger or their frustration, in their judgment or condemnation of others, you will see this need for recognition. This will temper your judgment of them. This will enable compassion to arise, naturally—not as a kind of forced exercise, but naturally. As you feel your own need to be recognized and to recognize yourself, you will see this in people around you, and it will move you. You will feel compassion for them, and you will see their dilemma."[7]
"We are above the surface of your world, and yet your environment is as transparent to us as a shallow pond with fish. Even more so, since we have lived in that pond so many times ourselves. How much more we know. If the fish could but listen to the thoughts of its observers who stand over its domain, it could learn of everything else--of the trees and the sky, the flowers, the source of the water that feed its pond and the destiny of the water that is drained from its pond. It is the same for you. You could learn what lies beyond your domain, for like the fish, you live within a whole universe, not within a little pond."[8]
Listening with objectivity
"As you develop this ability to listen, you learn how to listen to others. You learn how to become neutral when others are speaking to you so that you can hear what they are really saying, what they are really needing from you and what they are really trying to communicate even though they themselves cannot really express this clearly."[7]
"It is unfortunate that young people tend to only listen to other young people and that older people only listen to older people."[9]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Great Waves of Change, Chapter 4: The Freedom to Move with Knowledge
- ↑ The Great Waves of Change, Chapter 12: Your Purpose and Destiny in a Changing World
- ↑ Relationships & Higher Purpose, Chapter 13: Maintaining Relationships
- ↑ The Great Waves of Change, Chapter 6: Relationships and the Great Waves
- ↑ The Great Waves of Change, Chapter 4: The Freedom to Move with Knowledge
- ↑ The Great Waves of Change, Chapter 8: The Danger of Isolation
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Deeper Recognition in Relationships (September 11, 2008)
- ↑ Secrets of Heaven, Secret 1
- ↑ Relationships & Higher Purpose, Chapter 12: Establishing Relationships
See also
Further study
- Deeper Recognition in Relationships (September 11, 2008)