Listening as a spiritual practice

After a long journey, exploring loads of esoteric subjects, I’ve come to realise that much of what is going on in our everyday lives can be spiritual practices if we approach it the right way. Our "ordinary" lives pass us by because they are always present. We don't see the magic that is right in front of us or the possibilities for transformation that it holds.

In Herman Hesse’s Siddharta, one of the final things that Siddharta has to learn is listening. Of course, Siddhardta didn’t just listen to other people. He just listened, without putting on the filter of thoughts that we normally do. And perhaps it’s easier to listen to the world than to other people. But that’s beside the point. 

The point is that to really listen, we have to open up. We have to go beyond ourselves and meet another person where he or she is. And we have to resist the impulses to interrupt to tell about our own experiences and/or give advice. And if we are going to give advice, we have to truly listen to the person, to know if it’s appropriate to give advice and, if so, how to give it so the the person will be able to take it to heart. 

And when listening to something that we don’t like to hear, whether it’s warranted or not, we have to learn not to react to our emotions. We have to be humble enough, to try and hear if the other person has a point to what he or she is saying. We have to watch ourselves and how we behave in the conversation.

The more objective our stance is, the better listeners we become.

Once we realise that listening is a skill that can be acquired many things change. Because it is a skill that most definitely can help us grow spiritually. We can become less arrogant and more humble by learning to listen. We can get out of our own self-centeredness and we can become more open and compassionate towards other people.

A thought struck me while writing this post as well. Perhaps the saying the “how we do one thing is how we do everything” is especially true when it comes to listening. I think that there are a few striking examples of this in my own life. I can be very thorough and engaged in the things that I do in general, just as I can be a good attentive listener. But more often than I would like, I lose focus on what I do and become sloppy. Just as I sometimes zone out and go into my own thoughts when I listen to someone. And I’m often (but not always) a good listener when someone comes to me with a problem. I don’t judge and I try to consider what the person needs. But the more the problem affects me, the less patient I become with the person. And the more prone I become to give unsolicited advice. It’s the same with events in life in general. I’m pretty good with fixing things that don’t affect me. But the closer to home that a problem or challenge hits, the harder it becomes for me to not get emotional, start resisting what is and mess it up because I’m not thinking clearly anymore. 

I didn’t expect that las section to come out. But now it did and I’m glad that I chose to listen to it… We of course need to become better at listening to ourselves as well. And I believe that we become better at listening to ourselves, by becoming better at listening to others.

On the art of listening

Do you listen more or talk more? When others talk, do you truly listen to them and try to understand what they are saying? Are you trying your best to understand them? Are you doing your best to make them feel understood. Are you attentive to the needs of the person that you are talking to?

If I’m being honest with myself, I would have to answer “talk more” to the first question and “no” to the others. It’s not a confession that I’m proud of. But admitting something is the first step to changing it.

And the thing is, that when we are “bad” listeners, we learn less from our conversations. And we annoy people. And we make ourselves less likable. And while saying more, we communicate less, since it’s difficult to get someone else to listen to us, when we don’t listen to them and try to understand their needs. When we’re just anxious to get our point across, with no regard for the other person.

And I believe that, as with so many things, a deficiency in our ability to listen, has to do with what we’ve trained ourselves to do. As I’m writing this post, I’m 38 years old. And I started to reflect on my ability to listen this year. It means that basically for 37 years, I’ve just let my listening happen the way it has happened. Since I’ve had a few interests that others have found interesting and strong opinions on a few subjects (which is something that I’ve let go of more and more, since I’ve realized how unimportant opinions often are), this has meant that I’ve talked a lot and listened little. And I’ve practiced doing this year after year.

It’s not something that I’m going to punch myself in the face because of. As with so many things that were right in front of me, it never crossed my mind that there was another way of doing it.

And as with so many other of these obvious things, the first step towards change is to, in my everyday life, remember that there is something that I wish to change. When I’m in conversations, I need to practice being aware of what is going on inside. Am I listening or just waiting for my turn to speak? Am I listening or planning what I’m going to say next? Am I trying to understand or just to make the other person change his or her mind? Am I asking questions? Are the questions sincere? Do I actually understand what the other person is saying? Am I asking questions to confirm this?

Now, as I said, it’s crucial to remember what we wish to change. I have noticed this in my own life. I know that being present in the moment is better than to be lost in thoughts while not really being there. I know that I have better conversations if to truly listen to what a person is saying, and yet, when the topic is emotional, I get swept up by those emotions and just think of what I want to say, while waiting to get my point across. And I know that other people have interesting things to tell me if I just listen and ask the right questions. And yet I find myself engaging in a monologue about my own knowledge, insights or plans. Have any of this happened to you?

To conclude, I would like to repeat that I don’t think that we should be too hard on ourselves. As I said, we often get so lost in the complexities of life, that we tend to ignore the simple things, such as in this case, how we listen to people. And so we learn to do these essential things in a significantly impaired way. There is no shame in this. It doesn’t make us bad people. Until we noticed, we didn’t know any better. And now that we know, we can change. We’re not perfect. There will be mistakes. I know that I’m stating the obvious here. But we so often forget to be kind to ourselves in the process of working on our serious commitments. We can’t always expect greatness of ourselves. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know when we’re doing our best and when we’re not. And sometimes it must be okay for us to say: “today I just don’t have the mental energy to struggle with the habits that I wish to change.”

All it takes on our part is a serious commitment to change, in areas of our lives where we believe that change is needed. The rest is up to God.