I heard somewhere that spiritual waking up is called the 3rd Listening. Could you elaborate on that?
The "3rd Listening" is the most sacred, highest and noblest 'practice' in clear seeing. In fact, it is the awakening itself. In order to understand what the 3rd listening is there has to be the clarification of what the first and second listening are.
There are two kinds of listening initially and they can't be helped. They are not wrong anymore than 'not understanding' is wrong! One is emotional-listening and the other is intellectual-listening. Most people stay in that groove for most of their life never knowing any better.
Emotional listening is listening in a personal way as if the world revolves around you. You hear only what is personal to you. To this listener everything pertains to emotional feeling. When you listen there is often this type of listening... "He/she knows how I feel." "He/she feels as if they are talking about me."
Emotional listeners are apt to nod their heads in agreement, which of course means they are NOT listening at all. An emotional listener often exclaims, "Yes, I know!" and they feel good temporarily believing they have learned something. However, soon find out the opposite and complain how they are 'caught' in their ego again.
Then we have the intellectual listening. Intellectual listening is listening to the words literally. They usually have an arsenal of words they use to make themselves believe that they know. And, they usually want you to know that they know. Intellectual listening is also a 'doing' type of listening so that initially they ask... "How do I do it?" "What am I supposed to do about that?" When these basic questions of 'doing' are satisfactorily answered then he/she feels that they 'know' until a crisis in their family life or relationship arises and find themselves dumbfounded.
Then we have the 3rd Listening which is awakening itself. Here one realizes that there is nothing to know or seek -- there is only 'Being.' All listening is 'being' listening. There is no agreeing nor disagreeing because in truth there is no person to do either. The 3rd Listener listens to the possibilities of what is implied. There is nothing to 'do' but understand it is all about BEING. For instance, listening is not a 'doing' but an openness of heart in the moment seeing the deeper possibilities beyond the personal and intellectual.
3rd Listening is a mixture of love and 'knowing' that there are no opposites but that which is all-encompassing as the moment of NOW itself. When the 'teacher' says, "accept" it is clearly seen as a non-doing whereas to the emotional and intellectual is something one does. BEING, which is the 3rd listening, is non-doing. BEING is known as allowing, accepting, loving, surrendering, forgiving and seeing clearly. Here's an example of non-doing as Being...
When you were a child brought up playing in the street with all kids from different races, the question of acceptance never did arise simply because you were not prejudiced. This 'no need to accept' is real acceptance. This is important to understand. Similarly with forgiveness -- when you recalled a bully who abused you and saw clearly how he was abused by his own father, you suddenly see that there was nothing to forgive -- that's true forgiveness.
Again, the word 'allowing' is a non-doing but a 'being.' You realized that 'letting-go' was not something to do but an allowing of the moment to be itself just like the child allowing itself to sleep effortlessly. Therefore, in the 3rd Listening you see clearly that there is no 'doing' in awakening but allowing, surrendering, forgiving, loving and Being here-now. There is no past to forgive because it's gone (it's history). There is no ego to surrender simply because ego is resistance (ignorance of Being).
NOW is not a present-happening but the content of the present. Therefore, while the present is based on the present time, NOW is timeless. This timeless NOW is known as LOVE. Did you ever forget yourself in the moment of loving your dance or singing or being in love? In that BEING-moment there was no time but pure joy.
In brief, the 3rd listening is seeing no opposite. It is all there is -- just presence of awareness experienced as oneness (pure love).
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