Listening - A sincere form of respect
"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply."
--Stephen R. Covey
We can at best respond and not react.
"The most sincere form of respect is actually listening to what another has to say" - Bryant McGill.
Respect means you listen to one another - without listening, there is no true respect. Respect only happens in most relationships.
We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less. This was our moto in giving counseling senior citizens in trouble.
If only we make listening and observation as a habit, we stand to gain much more than we can by talk. And most of the successful companinship volunteers with Dignity Foundation are the ones who do more listening than talking.
Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward with. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.
Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening. There is as much wisdom, if not more, in listening as there is in speaking--and that goes for all relationships, not just our elders in distress, but even romantic youth.
What is "Respect", after all. One of the most important words and meanings of life. Respect is of utter most importance if we want to have a good life. The big question is what respect is. I know a lot of people misplace respect with fear. In my own personal opinion fear and respect are two completely different things.
At the very outset of its teachings, the GItA illuminates to us the nature of life and challenges it throws before us:
● Life is a field of action, sometimes a battlefield, making us confront challenges and crises. It should be fought or resolved on the basis of the right values.
● In Sri Aurobindo's words, "the field of human action" is "the field of evolving Dharma". Evolving Dharma essentially implies emerging into a larger life-supporting, life-enhancing value-system.
● If one can ensure the right course of action, there is no need to remain caught in the weaknesses of mind and heart. Whatever the severity of the challenge or crisis, we must rise up to face and resolve it. As Krishna exhorts Arjuna: "Shake off the petty weakness of heart and arise (to meet the challenge)..."
● The challenge becomes more severe when we are not able to decide the right course of action. In the words of the Gita, when our "whole consciousness is bewildered in its view of right and wrong". In such a situation all our energies and strengths are confounded as they don't find a focused and well-directed outlet. Such a situation calls for not only a thoughtful analysis but also a meditative-intuitive exploration into the essential nature of the challenge as well as one's own fundamental nature and its essential equipment to face the challenge.
The inherent message of the GIta is to connect with higher dimensions of consciousness and, thus, to move on to a higher sphere of peace, harmony and resolution."
The nature of a major challenge
The Gita addresses a major challenge and sets out to resolve it in the course of its teachings. If we understood the nature of a major challenge and all its factors, it would help us figure out how to face them as we set out to resolve them.
A major challenge might usually involve a major value crisis with:
● No clear course of action available to focus all one's energies at and to act with a singular will.
● An experience of both success and failure. One may lose on certain counts, gain on others. A mindset caught in the desire for success and the fear of failure is not equipped to face a major challenge with potentially vast and varied consequences. What we need is to concentrate energies, integrated strengths of mind, heart and body and a clear sense of direction and a firm sense of determination to tread the path open ahead and to hew new ones.
Hence the GItA advises one to act with all strength invested into action with all sense of self rooted in one's true sense of being -- free of all desire for success and fear of failure.
Connecting with higher dimensions of consciousness
To resolve a major challenge or crisis, the inherent message of the GItA is to connect and associate with higher dimensions of consciousness and, thus, to move on to a higher sphere of peace, harmony and resolution.
Krishna-Arjuna relationship
This relationship essentially describes how to connect and associate with a high problem-solving, crisis-resolving, peace-harmony-resolution-
● The greatest advantage Arjuna has in his extreme crisis is his friend, philosopher and guide, Krishna, accompanying him and leading him through the turbulence that has weakened not only his mind and heart but also his body. But the Arjuna-Krishna relationship is far too deep to be treated as a merely external relationship.
● In its spiritual symbolism, Arjuna, who represents a human self, mind and consciousness, has to connect at a deeper plane with a higher self with its cosmic and transcendental dimensions of mind and consciousness, represented by Krishna.
The essential message of the Gita:
On how to face a major challenge (which might involve a major crisis as well as a major conflict) is very profound. To sum it up, all our efforts at crisis and conflict-resolution, whether inward or outward, should be guided with the following approach.
To see :
* life as the Field of Right.
* To see challenges and crises as means to evolve into a higher harmony.
* To learn to grow into pure and total observation of the outward crisis as well as the inward crisis-ridden sense of self.
* To set out to resolve all our differences and conflicts with deep faith that all life is one and connected...
* To enter into all effort at crisis- and conflict-resolution with deep love and compassion for all...
Finally, if one has a firm hold on these fundamental values it follows that one will have a deep aspiration to serve a larger good, have an integral faith in an all-loving, all-compassionate Grace, and will be sure to have an intuitive grasp of the situation and an inner sense of clarity to deal with it.
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. In fact, The most sincere form of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.
"The art of conversation lies in listening." --Malcom Forbes
Subrahmanian S.H.
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