Listening Within

Listening Within

Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening

Rumi, Mathnawi I:1627

It is possible to restructure the brain so that there is more conscious awareness. This has been called polishing the mirror, awakening from sleep, cultivating the witness, and developing the real “I.” Through changing the energy level of the brain, we can activate a different kind of brain function – a finer attention that stands above routine, habitual thought, feeling, and behaviour.  

This presence – this conscious, listening mind – not only opens a window on our experience, it also connects us to the source of will. Attention can be called the first act of the will. It establishes the relationship between observer and experience, raising the level of experience and transforming a biological automaton into a sensitive being. It is this sensitivity that makes the difference between being nominally awake and experiencing life as the gift it is…

A change in vibration occurs when we move from passive attention to active attention. When our attention is passive, we are merely reacting to random stimuli in the environment and within our own psychology. We are weakened and fragmented by the various demands that occupy our attention.

An active attention, on the other hand, allows us to be receptive and whole by connecting us to the source of will, a willing, conscious I-ness, a more unified and harmonized presence. A change in energy level has taken place. This active attention creates more and more energy of its own kind and brings increasing freedom from the processes within the mind. It allows us to listen in on our thoughts more clearly and feel our feelings. It is the beginning of knowing ourselves.

Through this process we are freed from the servitude to habitual thoughts and feelings. Many unconscious motivators – such as envy, resentment, and fear – lose some of their power over us. We are taken out of the darkness and brought into the light of awareness, where emotional contradictions can be seen and resolved, where self-defeating thought patterns can be understood and worked with.

Living Presence

Kabir Helminski