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Deep Listening

12/30/2015

2 Comments

 
Dear friends,
 
During my readings these holidays, I came across a beautiful and reflective passage in Herman Hess’s Siddhartha. In light of the upcoming new year, I wanted to share it with all of you along with some of my thoughts.
Our deep, real self is often buried under layers of opinions that become our new realities. Behind the weight of these pre-conceived notions, the God inside us appears broken and scattered in the labyrinth of lies which our mind tells us about us and others.
The act of deep listening cuts across the fog of illusion and myth created by our mind. It stops us from arguing with the present and past, the root cause of many sufferings. Deep listening allows us to look into the mystery we have been to ourselves, thus paving the way to find out true self. By deep listening, we could connect with the whole universe, reflecting all its glory in us and vice versa. The deep listener sees that the kingdom of heaven is here on earth and sees everyone in the same tranquil light of spirit.
After reading the passage below, I hope that we all make deep listening part of our 2016 resolutions.
 
Thank you for being a part of my Radiant Return journey this year; I’m looking forward to sharing and learning more with one another next year.
 
Best wishes for a happy and healthy new year,
Paul
 
***
 
Siddhartha listened. He was now listening intently, completely absorbed, quite empty, taking in everything. He felt that he had now completely learned the art of listening. He had often heard all this before, all these numerous voices in the river, but today they sounded different. He could no longer distinguish the different voices – the merry voice from the weeping voice, the childish voice from the manly voice. They all belonged to each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter of the wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of the dying. They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways. And all the voices, all the goals, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life. When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to the song of a thousand voices, when he did not listen to the sorrow or the laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but head them all, the whole, the unity, then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word.
 
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
2 Comments
Girish Sud
5/19/2016 11:28:09 am

Hi Paul,

About the time you had posted this blog, I too was in the midst of reading ( make that re-reading) Siddhartha after a gap of many years and was taken in by the passage leading to the one word - OM. This part of the book is very lyrical and one can almost hear the voices from the river - which are really voices within us.

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Mariam link
9/15/2021 11:43:13 pm

Nice post thanks for shharing

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    About Radiant Return

    I will be using this blog to share my thoughts on human nature, philosophy, and religion. 

    I hope you share your thoughts as well.

    Thanks,
    Paul
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