Hello there, I want to extend myself in gratitude to each and everyone of you for reading my articles and taking this journey into life with me, following me and exploring this adventure together. Sharing of life and reaching into each others lives as we awakening to who and what we are, is such a fulfillment and brings me deep pleasure to connect in this way. As we reach out and touch love, a mirror of the love we are completes the circle and true sharing can take place from great compassion and deep caring. So, thank you for this opportunity.
The Listening
I touched a deeper phenomenal essence of what it means to be human recently, something I like to call "the listening" and it would bring me deep joy to share it with you.
I call it "the listening" because that's exactly what it does. There is a felt sense of what this moment is and what is happening in it. Much like if you just happened to drop into this body and knew nothing about it, then started describing what you feel, see, and experience without ideas of wrong or right or having any meanings attached. Just a listening to the feelings you are experiencing and describing it, out of great curiosity about what this life is and what this human being is in this experience. Like an adventure and wonder and excitement of just being. The listening is very interested in what is happening, no matter what it is because it's interesting to discover what this life is and who you are in it.
The listening has a very subtle but unmissable quality to it, you can hear and feel its essence. It's like it knows itself and feels at home remembering itself. In fact, it is you and all you're doing is listening. Like now, listen, do you hear that?
That's the focus that is needed. You know when one says "shhhhhhh, listen, do you hear that?" and you stop what you are doing and try to listen for this faint sound to see if you can hear it. Only this is not audible, it's a feeling sense. A feeling sense that hears into the moment and is honest about what is there, no matter what it looks like.
It is very interested in the human. It wants to know everything about the human so it listens to everything the human is experiencing and is fascinated by what it thinks, says, and does. It is very intimately curious of this human aspect of itself. The human being is the essence of its expression but it seems the human forgot how to be this, be what it is, just be.
I am reminded of this movie I watched not too long ago where I recognized this listening but didn't know how to put it into words. It's this movie called "My Dinner with Andre" and I would very much wish to share it with you.
My Dinner with Andre [1981] - Full movie:
The Listening
I touched a deeper phenomenal essence of what it means to be human recently, something I like to call "the listening" and it would bring me deep joy to share it with you.
I call it "the listening" because that's exactly what it does. There is a felt sense of what this moment is and what is happening in it. Much like if you just happened to drop into this body and knew nothing about it, then started describing what you feel, see, and experience without ideas of wrong or right or having any meanings attached. Just a listening to the feelings you are experiencing and describing it, out of great curiosity about what this life is and what this human being is in this experience. Like an adventure and wonder and excitement of just being. The listening is very interested in what is happening, no matter what it is because it's interesting to discover what this life is and who you are in it.
The listening has a very subtle but unmissable quality to it, you can hear and feel its essence. It's like it knows itself and feels at home remembering itself. In fact, it is you and all you're doing is listening. Like now, listen, do you hear that?
That's the focus that is needed. You know when one says "shhhhhhh, listen, do you hear that?" and you stop what you are doing and try to listen for this faint sound to see if you can hear it. Only this is not audible, it's a feeling sense. A feeling sense that hears into the moment and is honest about what is there, no matter what it looks like.
It is very interested in the human. It wants to know everything about the human so it listens to everything the human is experiencing and is fascinated by what it thinks, says, and does. It is very intimately curious of this human aspect of itself. The human being is the essence of its expression but it seems the human forgot how to be this, be what it is, just be.
I am reminded of this movie I watched not too long ago where I recognized this listening but didn't know how to put it into words. It's this movie called "My Dinner with Andre" and I would very much wish to share it with you.
My Dinner with Andre [1981] - Full movie:
In this movie, listen to Andre, he is doing what the listening does throughout the whole conversation in the movie. A bit further into the movie the main characters starts speaking from this listening too.
Perhaps you can notice it, remember it, and start speaking from the listening too. It's very easy, you just stop, listen, and describe what you are feeling, seeing, thinking, and experiencing without any filters of what it means, to listen and honestly describe what is there.
Listen in to the energy of Andre, it's open and not hiding anything. He doesn't mind expressing whatever is there to express. No matter how weird it may seem or how his friend might judge him, or if he will be understood. These ideas don't seem to penetrate his expression, he is only sharing for the joy to share, no matter what that looks like. There is a curiosity in his voice, a sense of wonder and you can feel him, his excitement, his interest in his experience, his words, his free-flow energy. He is not speaking with ideas and meaning that filter what he is saying.
Always interested, no matter what, even if the experience is sad, grief, angry, painful, frustration, etc... It's never bored because it's always listening into what is here. It sees exactly what boredom is, why it is experienced, and the meanings that cause the experience of boredom. So as long as you are listening and allowing yourself to listen into boredom (or whatever it may be) then there can't be boredom because the listening doesn't experience boredom, it describes what boredom is and therefore can't be the experience of boredom because it sees the boredom. Nothing can sustain itself in the listening for the very fact the listening hears it and in that hearing dissolves it. Then the only truth remains, which is it, the listening.
The listening is always here, but there can be an experience of seemingly forgetting how to listen, even though it's the most natural experience of what you are. It can seem to take an extreme effort to listen into the moment and be honest about what is happening. It can seem like we can forget how to be honest because of the ideas we have around what this human experience is.
Human Honesty
For example, at one point I was very curious about this thing we call "conscious lying" and I wanted to share this experience with another and explore it together and see if we experience the same thing. But my thoughts and ideas about how someone might respond stopped me from trying to explore it with them. Based on what I know about myself and what I have seen in others, I have this feeling that if I said: "Hey, I am very interested in exploring this thing call conscious lying with you, how often do you notice yourself consciously lying?" and tried to explain the listening, they would likely become very defensive: "What are you trying to get at? Are you calling me a lair?" Even though it's a common part of the human experience, we defend ourselves since it's not talked about then it becomes a threat.
All the ideas we have around lying and what it means to tell the truth of that experience, even though it's a very sacred experience to share such a beautiful open investigation with another and even to offer yourself to share with another in a such a vulnerable way is a profound gift.
We miss the gift because we think "I am bad if I am a lair", or "what if I am found out then nobody will believe me when I am being honest", or there is this other thing that happens where we defend the lying "but everyone does it and white lies are okay because you can't tell the truth all the time, it would hurt someones feelings." We have to defend lying to feel better about it because we take this human experience very seriously and personally. We all lie because we forgot to listen.
The listen doesn't need to lie, it listens within the experience of itself and knows exactly what to say to ease the discomfort around the ideas we carry because it hears these ideas in itself and responds to another knowing that the same ideas are in all others. It knows the feeling of hurt and it has seen what hurts is and why, so it knows how to ease the hurt in another and still tell the complete truth without filtering it. You see, because it tells the complete truth about the hurt too. It brings a humility to the situation by expressing its own hurt and the hurt you may feel even before saying what might hurt and expressing what that hurt is and why we all feel it.
You can't really experience hurt when you see the ideas that cause the feeling of hurt. So when you speak all the ideas around the hurt and you speak them completely then there is no room for the feeling of hurt since you see the ideas we hold behind the feeling and you expose the thoughts before the thoughts are believed, which always trigger the feelings.
Now that is something significant, it defuses everything that seems real and personal, it brings it to light where nothing is hidden. When two people can stand completely pure and naked without filtering these experience through ideas, the joy of being remains because the joy of being is exactly what we are. When everything else falls away this joy is the only experience and it's known to always be here behind the ideas we hold.
Most of the articles on this site that are focused on nonduality or enlightenment are based on something touched but mostly are just more ideas. It's so easy to speak truth related ideas and think we are experiencing something true, but the essence of the listening, what it does, the feeling sense and open energy in it's communication are unmistakeable to itself since it hears into what is here. Always deepening and picking up on more subtitles of what can be heard, yet it remains always listening and joyful unless or until another idea arises.
Any experience out of alinement with the joy of being is just a clue that listening is not being heard. Fortunately we can listen again at any moment since the listening is always there ready to hear more, fascinated with what is happening; if only we are willing and ready to face the ideas we carry.
The most scariest thing in life is to face the ideas we hold because it's all we know and we are so familiar with our ideas that just to admit the ideas we hold, even privately to ourselves, can seem an extreme challenge, to say the least (let alone sharing it with another), but I promise you behind every idea is a joyful being excited to explore life. It wants to jump right-in and tell the truth of every experience no matter what it looks like because it knows that it can only experience the joy of being by exposing what we hide from and what we deny the existence of in ourselves. It's ready to show us the truth of any experience no matter how true our ideas feel.
It wants us to face every idea we hold because it wants us to experience what we are as this joyful being. It's calling all of us home to it and that is the only thing ever happening.
Any painful experience is a plead for you to remember who you are, it's only asking that we listen. In listening we drop in and experience ourselves fresh and new, like for the first time. In the listening we get curious about our experience as a human and see with new eyes what is happening, we describe to ourselves what we are thinking and feeling. The listening asks us to listen to what we are saying and question why we say the things we do, feel into what we are feeling and expose it to ourselves, face every mistaken belief we hold about reality and who we think we are, be honest with ourselves and stop denying what we are experiencing, notice when and why we speak for approval, when and why we try to fit in... it's all revealed in the listening. It's asking us to just listen, to listen, it will do the rest. It will hear what is there and listen to it so we don't feel like we are it.
It wants us to listen for it, listen for the listening, be the listening, remember it, remember yourself as it. Hear the good news, it says: that none of our ideas are real and the joy of being, which the feeling of bliss, peace, love; is the only true reality that is always here waiting for your invitation so it can take you into itself, a infinite field of loving embrace beyond all ideas. Washing us clean of every false belief we ever had and delivering us into the joy of being alive. For we are life itself .... and the essence of what life is, is more beautiful than we ever dreamed of in our wildest ideas. No idea can touch this. To touch this, we must listen.
I will leave you with this final video. Notice the open energy, free flowing conversation. No filters. Do you feel into this sense of listening? Adya and Loch both speak from the listening with a very keen ear. I feel it is very apparent in this video. Much like Andre in the first video. Do you see and feel the similarities?
It's not about what they are communicating, it's a felt sense of the communication itself and the energy behind it. Anything can be spoken about in this (even what seems to be mundane experiences), not just "truth" or "awakening" experiences- those things only happen through the listening. Truth is only revealed through listening since the listening is what truth points to.
You can feel that they are listening as they speak. Not from memory or something learned or second-hand knowledge. A felt sense of listening in the moment. The conversation is full; they are listening to each other and feeling into what the other is saying. Feeling into themselves the same thing that the other is feeling and communicating as they speak from that feeling. Since everything is spoken from the spontaneousness of feeling within, the conversation is alive and takes on a fun dynamic to share in. There is a complete meeting in feeling and being. It's not this dead back and forth yacking at each other or waiting your turn to talk, or feeling that you have something more important to share... all these conversations habits we have through ideas are not there in the listening energy.
Enjoy (In joy)!
For more videos of this nature, please visit: http://www.satsangtube.blogspot.com/ and please submit videos of people you hear speaking from the listening. :)
Here is Adya's description speaking about the energy of what I call 'the listening': http://satsangtube.blogspot.com/2006/07/energy-of-free-being-adyashanti.html
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