Listening is a life transforming experience. He who has learnt the art of right listening knows all that needs to be known. Guru Nanak sings in praise of listening. On the surface they might appear to be exaggerations because he says that you can attain everything if you listen properly. But, our truth is that we have been listening for ages but nothing has happened. We remain the same. It is so because we have never really listened. We have various techniques to avoid listening.

First is that we hear only that which we want to hear, which matches with our thoughts, our pre-conceived ideas. We hear only that which does not compel us to change. We become deaf towards anything that might force us to change. Even science has proved that we listen to just two percent of what we hear. We listen to only that which agrees with our notions. So, how can that transform you? On the contrary it strengthens your beliefs and you become complacent. You may have noticed that when you are sitting down to listen to something, your mind keeps analysing continuously. You take in what agrees with you and you discard all that which goes against your views. And, even if you take it in, you will use all your logic and reasoning to refute it.

The art of right listening is when you can remove all your thoughts and ideas and your deep-rooted conditioning and let the words go in directly without any obstruction. Then they will pierce like an arrow and destroy all the pre-conceived notions to prepare the ground for listening.

Another device that we use to avoid listening is that we just fall asleep, literally or figuratively. It is seen that most people enjoy sound sleep when they are listening to religious discourses. Even elsewhere, you are alert when you are talking but you become inattentive when you have to listen to the other.

When you are listening, you are not only listening to the sounds coming from outside. In fact, these sounds have to break many barriers to penetrate into your mind. There is a continuous chattering going on in your mind. There are so many voices chattering at the same time. It is like trying to listen to someone in a din. There is an internal dialogue going on and you are drowned in it. How can you listen in so much noise?

Only when you will break this internal dialogue that you will become capable of listening. You learn the art of listening only when this internal dialogue stops. When this chattering stops even for a second you will find that the sky is opening all its secrets to you. All that was unknown begins to appear familiar.

Guru Nanak says that there are no boundries of hell, heaven or earth for the person who can listen. There is no death, no sorrow, only eternal bliss for the one who knows how to listen. All this can happen because right listening will make you a witness. There will be a speaker and a listener, and another that will watch both activities – speaking and listening. A new process will begin inside you, a new crystallisation, a sakshi. And, there is no death for a witness.

This process is all about breaking the internal dialogue. The question is how to break it. First thing to remember is that this chattering is only a habit; it is not your nature. You did not come talking; speech was learnt afterwards. It is useful and necessary to live in society. We relate with others through speech. And we relate with ourselves through silence. Therefore, when you are alone and talking, it is nothing short of madness. We move our legs when we are walking, but to go on moving the legs when you are sitting idle is madness. Yet all of us, without exception, keep talking to ourselves all the time, even in sleep.

This internal dialogue has made us incapable of relating with ourselves. You need absoluute silence to relate with yourself because there is no other there. You are alone. Why does this internal dialogue go on? Habit. You have been taught to speak because speech is necessary to deal with the world, to live in the society. Therefore we keep talking; we keep rehearsing what to say to others. We prepare what to say and after saying it we keep repeating it inside. It has become habitual and you have forgotten that it can be stopped also. You feel helpless before it because you have allowed it for too long, and now when you try to stop it, it does not obey your command.

Old habits die hard. That is not to say that habits cannot be broken. They can be broken but it requires determined effort to do so. You have to practise the opposite to break the habit of talking. The opposite is silence. You have to practise silence. Silence does not mean just not talking to others. Silence means breaking the internal dialogue. How to break it? Whenever you remember to practise silence any time during the day, just sit down and watch the activity going on in the mind. Listen to it but do not participate in it. Neither try to shut it up nor go along with it. This is the secret. Just watch the activity in the mind dispassionately. Don’t judge it; don’t praise it or condemn it. Just go on listening to it as an outsider. Disengage yourself from what is going on. Don’t take sides with one voice or the other. Treat these voices as if they belong to two strangers. Listen to them but remain at a distance from them. Don’t jump into the fray. Just go on listening. Let whatever happens happen. You don’t try to suppress it, or curb it, or stop it, or remove it. You just listen and watch.

A whole lot of muck will come to the surface because you have suppressed so much. Don’t bother about it. Just look at it. You will get involved in it again and again. But don’t lose heart. Bring your attention back to it and start again. Hold on to the moments when you can listen and don’t be disheartened by the hours when you can’t. Gradually, the moments of silence will increase. Slowly, the rush of thoughts will decrease. But, you have to let the mind empty out all that it has collected and suppressed.

Patience and perseverance are the tools which will help you in this endeavour. Another secret is to dissociate yourself from your thoughts. Look at your thoughts as a stranger, the third person. One thought has appeared; its shadow has spread on your mind. You stand apart and watch it come and go as though you are watching clouds in the sky. The problem arises when you identify yourself with the thoughts. Once you are able to stand aside and let the thoughts come and go, they will stop coming. Then there is bliss and growth, evolution. Bliss is not something which comes and goes. It is and it goes on growing.

Guru Nanak has raised the level to another realm. Birth and death, joys and sorrows, good, bad, virtue vice etc are not relevant in this plane. By right listening you become the watcher and no longer remain the doer. For example, if you kill someone in your dream, you will not be sentenced to death. Because you were not the doer; you were simply the watcher. That is why you could remember the dream. Once you can separate the watcher from the doer, all vices and sorrows disappear. In the moments of listening you are not the doer. Listening is passive. Listening is not an activity. If you want to see you have to make an effort to open your eyes. But the ears are already open. In the moment of listening you are silent. And in that moment all secrets are revealed to you. For instance, when you sit silently, the rhythm of your breathing changes immedately, the thoughts stop coming. In these moments your own body will reveal many things to you. Listening is an art that can transform you. And, this art can be learnt and practised. Try it and see for yourself.