“Listen!”
Living and working closely with my spiritual teacher, John-Roger (J-R), this exclamation was a common occurrence. Especially towards the group of sometimes rowdy guys that I was a part of. It was so common that it became a joke. We would impersonate J-R amongst ourselves, and say it in the same staccato manner that he would…and then chuckle, like school children making fun of their teacher. He had this certain quick rhythm of saying it that would emphasize the “s” sound. To this day, when those of us who are still alive talk to each other, every once in a while someone will say it like J-R and smile.
It’s not just a trite commandment to get the attention of those who are getting out of hand. It is a core focus of living a spiritual life: listening to yourself, others, and God.
I’m going to discuss a few aspects of listening, especially related to listening to others, and then more broadly to listening spiritually.
Reflective Light Listening
The first approach I call Reflective Light Listening. It is a technique of listening to others that is both simple and extremely powerful. It is more powerful to listen with caring than it is to give advice, yet we all want to be experts at giving advice and very few develop the skill of listening. It seems that most of the time, people are simply waiting for the person to stop talking so that they can tell them their advice.
It’s really hard for the ego to recognize that its advice really isn’t that important or helpful, and that the person can figure it out without your ego’s advice. If you could just truly listen to the heartfelt sharing of another, they will find their own way. Often, truly listening with honest caring is all that is necessary.
There are two parts to doing this type of listening. In the reflective part, you listen to what a person says and simply reflect back to them what you hear them saying. You can preface your response with “what I hear you saying is…” Though you can just repeat their words when you first try this, I have found it more helpful to reflect with caring the essential message that you hear them saying. Then you give them a chance to correct what they mean to say or to continue on with what they are saying. As they keep speaking, you keep listening and reflecting when appropriate. You don’t give advice. You don’t give your opinion. Compassionately reflecting someone’s own words alone gives them the space to unwind their consciousness and realize the truth of their heart.
It is amazing how profoundly just reflecting to someone what they are saying will help them. People rarely feel truly listened to. When someone feels heard, they feel loved.
The other part of Reflective Light Listening is the Light. As you listen to them, you ask for the Light for the highest good to be between you and the other person. All the energy on the words they are speaking goes into the Light before getting to you. As you hold in the consciousness of Light, it has a way of dissipating the energy that rides on their words, so that as you reflect to them what they are saying, they get their words played back to them with the loving frequency of the Light.
I experienced the power of this many times when I’d talk to J-R, but it took me a long time to register what was going on. I remember when it clicked. I was bothered by something and brought that disturbance to J-R.
I remember it very clearly. He was sitting on the edge of his bed in his room. I walked in and asked him if I could talk to him about something. I started talking to him about what someone was doing that I found really disturbing. As I spoke with the charge of upset on my words, I watched as the words literally were falling before even reaching him. The energy around him was so powerful that my upset wasn’t even reaching him. Not only that, but the disturbance within me was dissipating as I spoke.
There was a part of me that was watching this whole action taking place. As I released what was bothering me, and watched it fall to the ground before reaching J-R, I finally just said. “Never mind, J-R. Thanks!” And walked away. There was just no need to keep talking about it.
In this process, you aren’t the one transmuting the negativity, you are simply calling on the Light and allowing it to do whatever it does.
When you add these two techniques together, reflecting what is being said and holding the Light, you are practicing Reflective Light Listening.
Try it with your spouse, your coworkers, your boss, your family, strangers, basically anyone, and see the changes that take place for them and in your relationships.
Listening Beyond
The next level of listening is what I call Listening Beyond, which is simply listening beyond what is said, what is apparent. This is a deeper form of listening. You have to open to a different level of communication inside of you in order to do this. It is built on the foundation of Reflective Light Listening, so you aren’t doing this instead of doing that, but rather it is the next step on top of it. You open yourself to the them that is also in you, to the place where you are one with the person you are listening to.
People don’t always say the deeper truth of their heart, but if you listen just a little below their words, they are actually saying it. When you approach others with empathy and loving, where you are listening to what is beyond the words they are saying, you can then reflect that back to them, just like you do in the Reflective Light Listening.
If you are hearing it correctly, then there is usually a response of opening and sometimes it can even bring up emotion for them. People usually don’t feel listened to at that level.
If you are not accurate, then what you say won’t land and they will usually correct it. Even when reflecting the deeper communication, you can still preferace it with “What I hear you saying…” or “What it sounds like you’re saying…” because this give them the opportunity to clarify.
It’s important that you are doing this from the neutral place, and not putting your own words in their mouth and opinions of what you think they are saying. That’s what makes this kind of listening tricky. It requires coming from the authentic self where you are really listening to their heart. You will know you are listening from your ego if they correct what you are reflecting and you get defensive or pushy about what you think you are hearing, rather than just listening that you didn’t hear their true meaning.
If you practice Reflective Light Listening enough, it will naturally move into the deeper practice of listening beyond, so it is important to master that first. If you jump right into listening beyond, it is more likely you will get caught up in your ego.
Spiritual Listening
The last listening practice is Spiritual Listening. In this you are listening to the Spirit, the other person’s Soul, their basic self and high self, your Soul, basic and high self, your intuitive awareness, your dreams, and perhaps other metaphysical helpers of the Light (and et cetera). The level of someone’s ability to do this takes a great deal of discernment, and falls in the area of spiritual gifts. Some people are more natural in their awareness of these other psychic/spiritual levels of consciousness, and some people develop them with great discipline and consistency. It is also very easy to be misled in these areas. Eternally vigilance is necessary, and that looks like checking the information out rather than believing anything you may hear or see.
I recommend focusing on listening to the Light and Sound of God when developing spiritual listening (and sight). I do not recommend attempting to develop the psychic awareness and abilities. If you can listen to God and the Spirit as it pours forth from It’s higher Beingness, then you will be working in the highest good and what is important for you to see or hear in the other levels will be revealed. Your awareness will be opened according to the divine will in concordance with your Soul’s destiny on this planet.
The Bible says to seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you. That applies to Spiritual Listening: listen to God first.
J-R used to say, “there’s no secrets in Spirit.” There were so many times that he demonstrated this personally to me. One such time, I had been thinking deeply on a certain thing for days, but I hadn’t told anyone about it. There’s no way anyone could have known. I was in the living room with him and he asked me about it. I wanted to say “how did you know,” but by this point I knew the answer. There was nothing you could hide from someone with that level of spiritual vision.
At first it was disconcerting to live with someone where there was no privacy, no secrets that he couldn’t see. Eventually, it was awesome because there is a level of closeness and intimacy when someone sees you for who you are, all the goods and the bads you’ve judged, and loves you anyways. That didn’t mean he tolerated a lot of behaviors around him. For instance, even small lies and deception were sure to get you some serious “foot up ass” (or fired in certain cases), but it was for your and everyone’s best interests that he didn’t allow those things. A lot of people relate love to being soft, just like a lot of people think speaking in an airy voice is spiritual, and that isn’t always the case.
As I was developing my spiritual awareness in the early years with J-R’s guidance, dreams were a primary way that I was shown things I couldn’t have otherwise known, like the future, so I learned in many ways that there really are no secrets in Spirit.
As you do the Reflective Light Listening, and then you Listen Beyond what is apparent, you then naturally may move into Spiritual Listening. As you open your spiritual ears and eyes, you may begin to hear and see things. Learning the discernment of what you are hearing and seeing requires checking it out. You must become a spiritual scientist so as to not be deceived, or misinterpret your experience as something it is not. The ultimate admonition is to keep going. Don’t get stuck on one experience.
Spiritual Listening is much greater than simply listening to other people. It is a practice that you use in the fullness of your spiritual life: your spiritual exercises, meditations, dreams, intuition, your basic self, high self, and Soul, etc. To see and hear God is to know God. To ride on the Sound Current back into the heart of God, the Divine Ocean of Love and Mercy, is to come home and reunite with the ultimate of ultimates.
Spiritual Listening is a portal into your greater journey home, and it can also serve as a practical method to guide you in serving others. As you develop your inner listening, and through that move your awareness towards God, you may hear the Soul of others as they speak to you, and reflect other’s divinity back to them simply by listening.
This is a great sharing, thank you!
I am continually looking to improve my listening for greater understanding and connection. Listening as you shared is a pathway for deepening communion.