Spirit Hill Metaphysical Society
Life is about Allowing your own Metamorphosis.
On Listening by J. Krishnamurti
Shared with me by a Facebook friend.
"Listen with Ease
Have you ever sat very silently, not with your attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still? Then you hear everything, don't you? You hear the far off noises as well as those that are nearer, and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds - which means really that you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel. If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change that comes without your volition, without your asking, and in that change there is great beauty and depth of insight.
Putting Aside Screens
How well do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projection, desires, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what will be satisfactory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires. And is there any other form of listening? It is not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything - to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tram car, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby? Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one's own desires through which one listens. Can one put aside all these screens through which we listen, and really listen?
Beyond the Noise of Words
Listening is an art not easily come by, but in it there is beauty and great understanding. We listen with the various depths of our being, but our listening is always with a preconception or from a particular point of view. We do not listen simply; there is always the intervening screen of our own thoughts, conclusions, prejudices... To listen there must be an inward quietness, a freedom from the strain of acquiring, a relaxed attention. This alert yet passive state is able to hear what is beyond the verbal conclusion. Words confuse; they are only the outward means of communication; but to commune beyond the noise of words, there must be in listening an alert passivity. Those who love may listen; but it is extremely rare to find a listener. Most of us are after results, achieving goals; we are forever overcoming and conquering, and so there is no listening. It is only in listening that one hears the song of the words.
Listening Without Thought
I do not know whether you have listened to a bird. To listen to something demands that your mind be quiet - not a mystical quietness, but just quietness. I am telling you something, and to listen to me you have to be quiet, not have all kinds of ideas buzzing in your mind. When you look at a flower, you look at it, not naming it, not classifying it, not saying that it belongs to a certain species - when you do these, you cease to look at it. Therefore, I am saying that it is one of the most difficult things to listen - to listen to the communist, to the socialist, to the congressman, to the capitalist, to anybody, to your wife, your children, your neighbor, the bus conductor, to the bird - just to listen. It is only when you listen without the idea, without thought, that you are directly in contact, you will understand whether what he is saying is true or false; you do not have to discuss.
Listening Brings Freedom
When you make an effort to listen, are you listening? Is not that very effort a distraction that prevents listening? do you make an effort when you listen to something that gives you delight? . . . You are not aware of the truth, nor do you see the false as the false, as long as your mind is occupied in any way with effort, with comparison, with justification or condemnation. . .
Listening itself is a complete act; the very act of listening brings its own freedom. But are you really concerned with listening or altering the turmoil within? If you would listen...in the sense of being aware of your conflicts and contradictions without forcing them into any particular pattern of thought, perhaps they might altogether cease. You see, we are constantly trying to be this or that, to achieve a particular state, to capture one kind of experience and avoid another, so the mind is everlastingly occupied with something; it is never still to listen to the noise of its own struggles and pains. Be simple . . . and don't try to become something or to capture some experience.
Listening Without Effort
You are now listening to me; you are not making an effort to pay attention, you are just listening; and if there is truth in what you hear, you will find a remarkable change taking place in you - a change that is not premeditated or wished for, a transformation, a complete revolution in which the truth alone is master and not the creations of the mind. And if i may suggest it, you should listen in that way to everything - not only to what i am saying, to the birds, to the whistle, tot he locomotive, the noise of the bus going by. You will find that the more you listen to everything, the greater is the silence, and that silence is then not broken by noise. It is only when you are resisting something, when you are putting up a barrier between yourself and that to which you do not want to listen - it is only then that there is struggle.
Listening to Yourself
Questioner: While i am here listening to you, i seem to understand, but when i am away from here, i don't understand, even though i try to apply what you have been saying.
Krishnamurti: . . . You are listening to yourself, and not to the speaker. If you are listening to the speaker, he becomes your leader, your way to understanding - which is a horror, an abomination, because you have then established the hierarchy of authority. So what you are doing here is listening to yourself. You are looking at the picture the speaker is painting, which is your own picture, not the speaker's. If that much is clear, that you are looking at yourself, then you can say, " Well, I see myself as I am, and i don't want to do anything about it" - and that is the end of it. But if you say, " i see myself as i am and there must be a change, " then you begin to work out of your own understanding - which is entirely different from applying what the speaker is saying. . . But if, as the speaker is speaking, you are listening to yourself, then out of that listening there is clarity, there is sensitivity; out of that listening the mind becomes healthy, strong. Neither obeying nor resisting, it becomes alive, intense - and it is only such a human being who can create a new generation, a new world. "
From The Book of Life by J. Krishnamurti
"Listen with Ease
Have you ever sat very silently, not with your attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still? Then you hear everything, don't you? You hear the far off noises as well as those that are nearer, and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds - which means really that you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel. If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change that comes without your volition, without your asking, and in that change there is great beauty and depth of insight.
Putting Aside Screens
How well do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projection, desires, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what will be satisfactory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires. And is there any other form of listening? It is not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything - to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tram car, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby? Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one's own desires through which one listens. Can one put aside all these screens through which we listen, and really listen?
Beyond the Noise of Words
Listening is an art not easily come by, but in it there is beauty and great understanding. We listen with the various depths of our being, but our listening is always with a preconception or from a particular point of view. We do not listen simply; there is always the intervening screen of our own thoughts, conclusions, prejudices... To listen there must be an inward quietness, a freedom from the strain of acquiring, a relaxed attention. This alert yet passive state is able to hear what is beyond the verbal conclusion. Words confuse; they are only the outward means of communication; but to commune beyond the noise of words, there must be in listening an alert passivity. Those who love may listen; but it is extremely rare to find a listener. Most of us are after results, achieving goals; we are forever overcoming and conquering, and so there is no listening. It is only in listening that one hears the song of the words.
Listening Without Thought
I do not know whether you have listened to a bird. To listen to something demands that your mind be quiet - not a mystical quietness, but just quietness. I am telling you something, and to listen to me you have to be quiet, not have all kinds of ideas buzzing in your mind. When you look at a flower, you look at it, not naming it, not classifying it, not saying that it belongs to a certain species - when you do these, you cease to look at it. Therefore, I am saying that it is one of the most difficult things to listen - to listen to the communist, to the socialist, to the congressman, to the capitalist, to anybody, to your wife, your children, your neighbor, the bus conductor, to the bird - just to listen. It is only when you listen without the idea, without thought, that you are directly in contact, you will understand whether what he is saying is true or false; you do not have to discuss.
Listening Brings Freedom
When you make an effort to listen, are you listening? Is not that very effort a distraction that prevents listening? do you make an effort when you listen to something that gives you delight? . . . You are not aware of the truth, nor do you see the false as the false, as long as your mind is occupied in any way with effort, with comparison, with justification or condemnation. . .
Listening itself is a complete act; the very act of listening brings its own freedom. But are you really concerned with listening or altering the turmoil within? If you would listen...in the sense of being aware of your conflicts and contradictions without forcing them into any particular pattern of thought, perhaps they might altogether cease. You see, we are constantly trying to be this or that, to achieve a particular state, to capture one kind of experience and avoid another, so the mind is everlastingly occupied with something; it is never still to listen to the noise of its own struggles and pains. Be simple . . . and don't try to become something or to capture some experience.
Listening Without Effort
You are now listening to me; you are not making an effort to pay attention, you are just listening; and if there is truth in what you hear, you will find a remarkable change taking place in you - a change that is not premeditated or wished for, a transformation, a complete revolution in which the truth alone is master and not the creations of the mind. And if i may suggest it, you should listen in that way to everything - not only to what i am saying, to the birds, to the whistle, tot he locomotive, the noise of the bus going by. You will find that the more you listen to everything, the greater is the silence, and that silence is then not broken by noise. It is only when you are resisting something, when you are putting up a barrier between yourself and that to which you do not want to listen - it is only then that there is struggle.
Listening to Yourself
Questioner: While i am here listening to you, i seem to understand, but when i am away from here, i don't understand, even though i try to apply what you have been saying.
Krishnamurti: . . . You are listening to yourself, and not to the speaker. If you are listening to the speaker, he becomes your leader, your way to understanding - which is a horror, an abomination, because you have then established the hierarchy of authority. So what you are doing here is listening to yourself. You are looking at the picture the speaker is painting, which is your own picture, not the speaker's. If that much is clear, that you are looking at yourself, then you can say, " Well, I see myself as I am, and i don't want to do anything about it" - and that is the end of it. But if you say, " i see myself as i am and there must be a change, " then you begin to work out of your own understanding - which is entirely different from applying what the speaker is saying. . . But if, as the speaker is speaking, you are listening to yourself, then out of that listening there is clarity, there is sensitivity; out of that listening the mind becomes healthy, strong. Neither obeying nor resisting, it becomes alive, intense - and it is only such a human being who can create a new generation, a new world. "
From The Book of Life by J. Krishnamurti
Tags: krishnamurti, life, listening
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