01/08/2024
Baba.
To rest in awareness also means to stand free of the prejudices of mind that come from identifying with cherished attitudes and opinions. We can listen without being busy planning, analyzing, theorizing… and especially judging. We can open into the moment fully in order to hear it all.
As we learn to listen with a quiet mind, there is so much we hear. Inside ourselves we can begin to hear that “still small voice within,” as the Quakers call it, the voice of our intuitive heart which has so long been drowned out by the noisy thinking mind. We hear our skills and needs, our subtle intentionalities, our limits, our innate generosity.
In other people we hear what help they really require, what license they are actually giving us to help, what potential there is for change. We can hear their strengths and their pain. We hear what support is available, what obstacles must be reckoned with.
– Excerpt from “How Can I Help? – Stories and Reflections on Service” by Ram Dass and Paul Gorman
