Listening is a great art.
It could be said that listening is the foundation of everything.
For instance, it's the difference between prayer and meditation. In prayer, we're still talking to God. In meditation, we're listening. We're trying to be receptive enough to hear the infinite.
Listening is how we hear the infinite.
The infinite works through our internal system, and will tell us everything if we listen. It'll tell us when to go to sleep and when to continue past our limits. It'll tell us what to eat. It'll tell us if we listen.
It doesn't involve thinking. Thinking is where we react and try to figure things out and "decide." Because of our conditioning, action based on that process is often neurotic.
Listening is where we listen for the unconditioned, listen for that inner system that knows, and then act spontaneously from that place. Or more accurately, action happens by itself, spontaneously. It just happens; you see it happen.
There are preferences, but no demands. We're willing to let life go where it wants to go. We'd better be, since it's going to go that way anyway.
Then grace happens. More or less, life becomes a series of graces as surrender deepens. Then we just want to listen for the ungraspable and let it move through us—which it's already doing anyway. The paradoxes become overwhelming, and yet comfortable. The pretense that we actually knew something is given up.
All from listening. It'll tell us when to go and when to stay. When to flow with the invitation, and when to let go. When the new business is exciting to us, and when it's become an obstacle. It'll tell us, if we listen.
Listen to the rain drops coming down from sky. Listen to the sounds of life. We listen better when we slow down, when we s-l-o-w down. Listening. From there, action just begins to arise; it moves by itself.
—jim sloman, 7/7/01
|
