Art of Listening
Jaydeep Parmar
Reach out for Startup Mentorship & Funding| Angel Investor| Linkedin Top Voice| Wrote 100+ articles| Chief Manager- Strategic Initiatives at MCPI| Train The Trainer certified| Ex-Exide,HPCL,IOCL| IIM Calcutta,ICT Mumbai
What is Listening?
Do you hear or listen? What do you listen to? Why is listening an important skill? What is the best way to listen? What is the best content to listen to? Let's dive deeper into the mystery of listening.
You must have heard two words: listen and hear. Though the basic mechanism is the same in both, there is a gulf of difference between the two. Hearing is a passive concept. You are not giving attention. You just hear from one ear and expel it through the other ear. The end result is almost null. It is futile and non-productive. But, on the other hand, we have the skill of listening, which is more active. You give attention and chew the words/statements for meaning churning. It is the desirable aspect of your thought process. Active listeners not only let sound enter but also do the active churning in their mind and process it. If you go one step further, you will see that thoughtful people understand, comprehend, and derive the best information from the raw data of words/statements. The data enters from one ear and goes to the heart of a person. Now, depending on the quality of the data and the perspective of a person, the effect comes. The impressions and learning get stored in your subconscious mind.
The Process of Listening
If you wonder how this process of listening starts, you need to observe a newborn child. They listen to different sound vibrations and start learning. You will be surprised to know that listening is a skill/sense that comes to the newborn first. Then gradually, other senses like tasting, touching, smelling, and seeing come. According to the timeless wisdom of life, Shrimad Bhagavad Gita (spoken by Supreme Lord Krishna), these 5 senses are called knowledge-acquiring senses. As the name suggests, it helps us acquire knowledge in life. Now, the moment a child is born (actually, listening starts when the soul enters the body in the womb itself) and ends when a person leaves the body. It is actually the last sense that goes off from a person when he/she dies. Hence, for all parts of life, listening remains the number one factor for knowledge and application. It is that important.
Extracting Value from Listening
The process of listening is like processing data to get meaningful information. The data can be useful or junk, but information has to be productive. Similarly, what you listen to may have some good content and some bad content. But it depends on how you process and extract the best out of it. We can observe the honeybee and learn the process. Honeybees go from one flower to another and just extract the best substance, then churn it inside their bodies and puke it to give the final elixir, honey. By the way, honey is the only puke that is considered the purest form, even if other living beings' pukes are considered dirty according to the Vedic Bharatiya scriptures. It is an exception that is to be understood and applied in life.
The Art of Attentive Listening
Now, in this world of chaos and greed, we see most of the time people do not listen. They just hear. Actually, they just hear what they want to hear. And this process, if not applied in good spirit, will definitely give bad results. Hence, listening attentively to the right content is really needed. It may come from the mouth of a degraded person. However, the words of wisdom have to be gathered and processed irrespective of the physical, mental, or psychological differences amongst people. There is a perfect example prevalent in Bharatiya culture in this regard, where it is said that we need to give importance to the lotus even if it grows in the heart of mud. Mud is generally not good-looking and often gives a negative feeling when we see it, but if we concentrate on the lotus, it gives a lot of positivity. Similarly, you may find virtuous people having the best qualities even amongst a group of criminals, forest dwellers, or ill-hearted people. But do listen to the best advice they give.
Listening to Connect with God
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Vedic scriptures from Sanatan Dharma explain various ways to connect with God. Ironically, the first and simplest way to connect is also listening (Shravanam). It is mentioned in Shrimad Bhagavatam. It is that simple that a person who is not so learned and cannot speak much can benefit from the eternal sound vibrations of the nectarian knowledge of Shrimad Bhagavatam. Through this, one thing we can learn is that we need to listen to content that is useful. We actually need to make it a habit. If we listen to good things daily, it gives us good results. You must have observed children; they generally behave culturally suitable and socially good when they listen to the right knowledge from the very early days of their life. Now, if you cannot avoid listening to wrong content, you can just avoid it or de-filter it while processing happens in your mind. It requires practice, and gradually a habit will take care of that. But our intention should always be to listen to useful content.
Applying the Principles of Listening
Do try to apply this in your life and see the miracle. If you ask me what to listen to for the greatest welfare for you and the whole of mankind, it is Shrimad Bhagavatam. It is an amazing book written by many saintly people in India. One such book is written by Shrila Prabhupada, founder acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. You can listen to the wonderful lectures given by various Vaishnavas from the ISKCON community on all major online platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Do listen to them and realize the nectarian feeling of life.
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