LISTEN
Virtue is Listen
Saboteur is Ignore
Listening is a choice we make everyday.
To listen is a skill that can be cultivated and improved upon and it is so much more than a skill. To listen to one’s soul is to listen for the truth. This is not easy and it requires a profound desire to live in the truth. This type of listening requires deep concentration, courage and the determination to evolve.
Deep listening happens when we feel lost or broken. It is during these times that a silent voice awakens inside of us. It isn’t a spoken voice, yet it has words. It doesn’t make a sound, yet we feel the message. We know what to do. We may not even like it but we know we will act. This listening is intuition and it doesn’t require ears. It perceives movement in the force in which we think, feel, move and have our being. Our thoughts and emotions create sounds and our intuition perceives these unspoken sounds. This type of listening is experienced quite often through love. Someone’s loved one is hurt a hundred miles away and that sound is perceived by their family. Intuition guards and protects when we listen to it. It guides us to our inner voice.
It isn’t always easy to listen to the inner voice because sometimes there’s as much noise inside of our heads as there is on a busy freeway. We have to learn to quiet the mind so we may listen to our inner voice. What is the inner voice anyway? It’s that knowing that happens to everyone. It doesn’t require belief. We all know it’s there. Our inner voice tells us right from wrong but sometimes we just aren’t ready to grow beyond what we know. It always knows what to do but sometimes we prefer to listen to our body rather than our soul.
We are very busy listening for the sounds that we want to hear rather than listening to what was really said. Listening requires hearing the emotions that are behind the words. We must be willing to hear what’s being experienced by the other person rather than projecting ourself into their story if we really want to walk in the truth. When we are children and we listen to stories that are being read to us we visualize in our minds what the story looks like. When we’re adults we listen to what people are telling us and we visualize what the story looks like also. We don’t all visualize the same thing, even though we hear the same words. Our experiences color how we listen and how we listen colors our experiences. Deep listening requires us to empty ourself of assuming, criticizing and judgements. Our intuitive sense listens without having to rush to a conclusion. This opens the door for truth to be revealed.
Listening at this level is love. Pure love is great intelligence, it is wisdom. Love always knows the truth. Listening with love instead of cynicism keeps us curious to find ways to problem solve. When we listen with a heart filled with cynical notions we no longer are interested in the truth, we become self involved or self righteous. When we listen to our inner voice with love we find our way to truth and we experience freedom from lying and betraying ourself and others. When we ignore our inner voice our hearts remain entangled in the branches of arrogance and hate.
Listening is a choice. We hear sounds and they are interpreted through listening. The quality of our listening is equated with our ability to live in love. We can hear and ignore or we can hear and listen. Our intuition is always there guiding us and letting us know that we’re ignoring the truth. Love, listen and be free.