Listening Within, Two

Listening Within, Two

This listening to our inner talking should first be practiced within the context of meditation, where it can be experienced under relatively controlled conditions. Listening to our thoughts is different from commenting on them. Conscious listening is possible only in a heightened awareness. The inner commentaries with which we are filled are an example of thought judging thought, one part of the intellectual mind commenting on another. This occurs normally in our everyday experience and is simply the result of our mind being composed of many separate parts, each having its opinions and judgments of the others.

Conscious listening takes place on a different level, a viewpoint from which thinking, feeling, and behaving can be observed. If we practice this listening when we are quiet and still, focused only on the task of listening, we still see how we move from being identified with the process of thinking to being aware and relatively free of thought. Occasionally we have a moment of observing the process of thought itself.

Once we have practiced it enough to know it, we can attempt to introduce more of this listening into the midst of life. Occasionally we will catch ourselves at the end of a process of thinking and will awaken from it much the same way as we awaken from a dream. So much of our waking time is spent unconsciously identified with the process of thinking, out of touch with the present moment and situation, living in our heads.

Living Presence

Kabir Helminski