Q : Gurumaa, what is the right way of listening? Which method of meditation will be more beneficial to improve this?
Rohit Gupta
Answer Rohit, the right way of listening requires a great hunger in your heart, if you have that then you won't and you can't miss even a single pause which is taken by the Master when he/she is speaking. The Master’s words are just priceless. The eagerness, the thirst has to be very strong. It should be like a wish of a dying person which expects the breath of life.
When the listener has similar eagerness he can really listen. Before that if you are listening through your head, you would be analyzing what I am saying. If you are listening through your heart then you would be too much consumed in love for me or getting overwhelmed by seeing me or getting overwhelmed by your emotions.
When you listen from heart, brain doesn't know what it is receiving. If you are listening from head then you become too analytical and you begin to create a parallel commentary about what is being spoken which is again muddles up with your listening.
Listening should neither be through heart nor through head. The listening should be with total alertness and total attentiveness. Rohit, have you ever tried doing rock climbing? If you have ever done that or if you simulate a person who is climbing a cliff, you know that it is dangerous to hold a rock at one place and thus you are holding the rocks and lifting your whole body to move to the next point, then to the next & then to the next, right till the top. You know that one loose grip will take you in the deep valley.
What would be the state of the climber at that particular point of time? How much attentive that person would be? He can listen even to his heart beats; he would even listen to the blood rushing in his veins. Similar attentiveness and sharp edge attentiveness is required to listen properly. If you have that, wondrous things can happen. What ever you would listen; you will right away absorb it. You don't have to contemplate on it later. You don't need to think or rethink again as it gets deep within you and becomes part of you.
So this listening quality needs to be enhanced and it all comes to the point how much thirsty, how much eager you are for the knowledge? If you have this hunger, this thirst; your listening will be complete.
Gurumaa
