2004-08-27-A Lesson on Listening

Session 1

August 27, 2004

Lesson

Let us begin with the topic of listening. It is a most difficult skill to master, as most listening is done superficially. Most people listen but is seems to ‘go in one ear and out of the other’, because of un-focused listening. Listening is a skill which can and needs to be cultivated and refined over and over by the one who does the listening. It has everything to do with focusing and the level of intent. Outward listening is shallow, the reason for this is also a sort of protection because of the cacophony of way too many words on this planet, which are carelessly and thoughtlessly spoken, so the hearer develops a ‘deaf ear.’ This can be a subconscious protection against too much noise.

Actually, the listening I would bring to your attention, is the inner listening, which is even more difficult and discerns the motive and truth content behind the spoken word, and learns to ‘read between the lines,’ so to speak, and ‘feels’ with the heart.’ The words which are not being spoken, and in this manner discerns what lives in the other person’s heart with whom one has the conversation, and I am not speaking about superficial chit chat here. All too often when someone speaks, the other is already busy formulating an answer in the mind because of wanting to respond before the speaker is finished, and often the speaker gets interrupted by the impatient one, who can’t wait to have a say. Sometimes this is a fine line as some speakers repeat themselves and don’t know how to end a conversation.

Listening is a skill that needs to be refined over and over again, as more wisdom and discernment is being gathered. And of course the ultimate listening skill you develop is by paying full attention to My words, while it is oh so easy to come in between with your own thoughts, pre-opinions and belief-systems, especially when you sincerely doubt, whether it is I, who speaks, or of they are ruminations from your own mind. In times to come you will doubt no longer as you will unmistakenly know, who it is, that speaks from within you.

You can ask yourself these questions: “Have I been uplifted while being in the presence of my Beloved? Am I feeling loved and is my own love towards others increasing? Am I feeling more secure within myself and have a calmer demeanor?”

If you can answer in the affirmative, then you know that you are on the ‘right track’, and if others chide you and say that it is not possible to hear the Small Voice within, that is because they have not recognized Me within them yet, or they have not yet developed the required listening skills, so My words do not resonate within them, and they presume to pass judgment because of this lack of recognition in their own hearts.

Continue to learn and listen to My voice, stay focused and pay close attention as I Am leading you deeper into yourself.

Session 2

August 28, 2004

Lesson

This is another little treatise on listening. I will endeavor to lead you deeper into yourself, but in order to do so, you really need to sharpen your listening skills. Actually, listening involves both the head and the heart. The heart being the most important as feeling and discernment are lodged there. We have spoken before how the heart is the true mind in the body and the brain the material computer, where the necessary connections are being made and un-made. There is a great true-ism in the words: ‘What you don’t use, you lose’, and so connections in the thinking process will wither and die off due to lack of use. So if one has a potentially brilliant mind, this can increase the connections considerably through continued right thinking. It is also true that with laziness in thought these potential connections become weak, but this rolls ‘down the line’ so to speak, as the attention given to listening also lessens.

The fact is that the more you turn within, the more the quality of listening improves over time. It is the inner focus which matters, so the outward noises become less intruding, and even when a sudden noise erupts on the ‘outside,’ you will no longer be startled by this, because your habit of concentration has become so established that it has become ‘second nature’ to you. This is being accomplished over time. As you well know, you have tended to be scattered in your thinking; your mercurial mind has a tendency to 'hop, skip and jump' from subject to subject.

Meditation is an excellent discipline to the still unruly and restless minds. God has bestowed many gifts unto mortals, which as yet lie dormant in the mind, and which can only be turned into perfect actuals in eternity if the mortal chooses immortality. The question arises: How does one go about that? Actually, it is very simple and yet at the same time the most complex. In a nutshell, one starts out with a belief in God, the Maker and Upholder of everything. The mortal rationalizes belief to make sense out of life.

Faith grows when belief is put into practice, and it comes alive in the activities of the believer through the exercise of trust and hope of a better future by putting into practice the love of the Giver of Love towards all others. Head and heart will have become involved together and start to move into a greater harmonizing balance, and in time all the ‘pieces fit together like a fine clockwork.’ There will be harmony in the physical body as the great central nervous system is under the calming influence of the heart/brain, which filter down to all the nerve endings, in the fluids, tissues, bones and all the organs of the physical system. The mental, emotional and physical are ruled by the spiritual. As a man or woman thinketh, that he or she becomes.

Therefore, sharpen your listening skills by taking time to turn within and learn to listen with focused attention. The benefits accrued over time are enormous.

Session 3

August 28, 2004

Lesson

Begin to write and the lesson will become clear to you. You see, it is all in the listening to the Inner Voice to receive the guidance you need which will help you carry on. Help is never far away and always available. It is in the cultivation of focused and concentrated listening that you open the door to a higher level of thinking. This is not always easy, especially when so much clutter occupies the mind of things needing to be done or taken care of -- a shopping-list, a phone-call, a visit, or outward noises which make it difficult to hear. And yet, there is this lovely pathway in the mind with a deep connection to the All That Is, which can provide you with the peace you desire, a flowing of a divine essence can surround you and you will know that all is well.

This, dear one, is the reward for coming faithfully to Me in the Silence of your heart. It is the persistent dedication of those who seek that allows them to surely find. Everything you need is already within you, all the answers to your prayers, and all the nurturing for your soul, which is the Peace beyond understanding, the balm for a grieving heart, which is healed because it realizes that it is understood, and peace for the mind. It is a meeting up with your Creator God, at that point of infinite stillness, where everything else recedes into the background. It is hard to define, but the beauty lies in the experience. This journey into the depths of being is open to everyone. Every hunger shall be stilled when one looks in the right direction.

Life itself becomes more fulfilling, because the reason and purpose become clearer, which is seeing yourself as a worthy child of God. There never was any separation, only the minds of mortals conceived this idea. Time has now come for humanity to wake up to the fact that they spring from the same Root, and that all belong to the same Creator God; that they are each other at soul-level and yet separate. Each has its own color and purpose of being part of everything, which is being part of creation. Some will say, ‘This is too simple’. Yes, it is, and at the same time it is the most magnificent journey anyone can wake up to; to consciously, in a greater awareness, start to work on their own inner self-development and self-correction to become perfect, even as the Creator is Perfect.

In becoming perfect, you may use the gift of free will to choose how fast or how slow you shall advance. A word of counsel here is that the more you are willing to share some time with Me, and learn to heed My Inner Voice, the more joyful your journey will become.