Inner listening

"It is this inner listening and this watching that enables you

to see things other people cannot see,

hear things that other people cannot hear and

know things that other people cannot know."

Practice Inner Listening

"When you are communicating with someone and you realize that you are not really communicating and it is uncomfortable for you, that is the time to start listening to the other person. It is the time to stop talking and start listening.When you are ill at ease in any situation, it is a time to stop talking and start listening. Here you must listen without judgment because you want to hear what is there. You want to be able to feel how you feel while you are hearing what is there. You want to listen inside and outside all at once.Then you will know if you should be in that situation or not."

"Here you step back from the mind. It is not who you are. You step back from your thoughts. They are not your deeper thoughts. You step back from the images, and the imaginings, the thoughts, the feelings, the fantasies, everything. Let them pass by you and you watch them objectively. If you are practicing stillness meditation, such as in Steps to Knowledge, and you cannot still your mind, it is destined to practice this observation. Watching your thoughts pass like a parade. Letting the mind do whatever it wants to do, and listening deeply within yourself. We're bringing the same practice here to your inner world, to the stream of consciousness. This is particularly important at times when you are aroused, either positively or negatively, to step back and watch this and practice inner listening.”

What to listen for

"I want to go back to God because, whether people believe in God, it is important that they know that there is a part of them that cannot be corrupted and has never been corrupted. And, that there is a way that that part of them can speak to them and advise them. And this is, you could call it your ground of being, your gut feeling, whatever you might call it within a religious or a general vernacular, there is a part of us that has to advise us."

"Because Knowledge is not chattering away all the time, like your personal mind, you will find that you will listen and there will be nothing. But that is what you want. You want to listen and experience stillness and experience openness and emptiness to open your mind. Knowledge is not some little answering machine that just gives you answers any time you want them. If that is your experience, then you are not yet engaged with Knowledge. You begin to value the stillness, the quiet, the peace, the reprieve that this experience will give to you."

The Unseen Ones

"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."

"Regarding the issue of listening: many of you prepare to listen but give up too soon. The Teachers do not need preparation, but you need to find a way to hear, and this receptivity must be developed. It is retraining the mind to be in relationship."

See Also

Stillness

Seeing

Practices--Navigate the page by clicking on terms in the Table of Contents or using "Find" function (ctrl + f; cmd +f)

Further Study

Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume One, Chapter 20: Inner Listening