Attentive listening: healing helpline
BY SURYAKANTHI Tripathi
WHEN there is no one to talk to, rather, when there is no one who
will listen to what you want to say, and you are troubled, desperation
sets in. You lose hope and the will to live.
Recently, a group of young people in Japan died in a suicide pact.
They had taken the extreme step as no one was willing to listen to what
they had to say; to lend a ear to their anguish. An empathetic listener
is hard to come by.
In despair, the dejected seek solace from someone, anyone on the
Worldwide Web, on the street, just about anywhere and end up pouring
their heart out to total strangers. All the while, family, friends and
colleagues remain oblivious to the person's agony.
Many people reach a State of fragmentation, where each one is encased
in a virtual cage. Isolated, with no one willing to listen to him, a
desperate person develops low self-esteem.
Thich Nhat Hanh in Call Me By My True Names says: "I need you to
listen to me; no one has listened to me, no one understands my
suffering, including the ones who say they love me. The pain inside me
is suffocating me. It is the TNT that makes up the bomb".
Today's ideology holds self-sufficiency and success in high esteem
and ruthlessly trashes failure. It is important, therefore, to listen to
others, particulary those in despair. Listening will help restore to
them their sense of personal worth, and make them realise the intrinsic
right to being.
When a person is talking, we tend to either pay no attention, or
continually react internally to what is being said. Or else we insert
our own views into the conversation. So even when listening to another,
the listener tries to remain the centre of attention.
Instead, if one listened without worrying about what to say, one will
hear what the other person wants you to know. And strangely, you will
find that because you are listening differently and actively, you grow
more effective as a communicator yourself. Silence becomes more potent
than speech.
The stress of interaction vanishes, and it becomes evident that the
person who will listen best will influence most. Effective listening can
provide the much needed healing touch. Listening silently and fully,
without judging, interpreting or interrupting means you are being
hospitable and respectful to the one who is talking.
J. Krishnamurti said that when you are listening to somebody,
completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words,
but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it,
not part of it. For this, we should value the other more than we value
ourselves.
It filters out both inner and outer distractions, so that we get the
whole message. Empathetic listening is mindfulness, a genuine interest
in the other's well-being.
Listening then becomes genuine spirituality, what the Bible refers to
as one-anothering. Beginning with the simple advice of Jesus to "love
one another" one-anothering includes serving one another, admonishing
one another, accepting each other, bearing one another's burdens, and
regarding each other as more important than oneself.
Attentive listening becomes the gateway to devotion, to a deeper
spiritual life. Krishnamurti says: "Listen as if you were listening for
the first time - like seeing the sunset, or the fact of your friend for
the first time. Then you would learn, and thus learning, you would
discover freedom for yourself". This kind of listening requires
patience.
It needs a certain tenderness and simplicity of approach, a constant
searching into oneself without condemnation or acceptance. To listen
spiritually, we must slow down our minds and allow a divine curiosity to
permeate us. It is true mediation. -
(Courtesy: The Times of India) |