People have Ears But Do Not Listen
I have been speaking for almost three decades. I had started with a great hope for the whole humanity. Slowly, slowly humanity itself has
destroyed it. Now, I only hope for a small fraction of humanity: I call them "my people."
Talking to millions of people has been such a painful experience, so unexpected and so shocking, because people have ears but they do not listen. At the most, they hear. They
have to hear because they have ears. But for listening, something more is needed - a silent mind behind the ears, a receptive mind, non-interfering, non-judging.
Then hearing becomes listening. It does not mean that you have to agree with what you listen to, nor does it mean that you have to disagree. When the wind blows through the pine
trees, do you agree or disagree? - you simply listen. When the water comes down from the mountains, dancing and singing, the sound of water is heard by you - but do you agree
with it or disagree with it?
The same is true about the inner experience: you are not expected to agree or disagree. If you simply listen with a silent mind, that which is true will be immediately
recognized; that which is untrue, will also be immediately recognized. And this recognition has nothing to do with the mind; this recognition comes from your very being.
You know the truth; you have forgotten it. When you listen, suddenly the memory arises; that which was asleep becomes awake.
Suddenly, there is a rapport. It is not a question of agreeing, it is a question of discovering within yourself the same truth that you have heard. And if nothing stirs in you,
nothing awakes in you, that means whatever you have heard has no content in it, has no life in it, it is untrue.
This will give you an idea that there are two kinds of experiencing truth: one is only logical, when the mind agrees with the argument. It is bound to be very superficial -
because another argument, finer and sharper, may destroy the first argument and the agreement disappears; that which you had thought to be true, is no more true.
The second is totally different. It is not a logical, intellectual, rational agreement. It is a rapport between two beings. Suddenly, a recognition arises in you: "this is
my truth, too. I have not been awake about it - that′s another matter - but now I have been provoked, challenged." Then it is not an agreement with me, it is your own
truth. No argument can destroy it, because no argument has proved it. No logic can make even a dent in it, because logic has not been the cause of its finding.
Speaking to millions of people, it was becoming more and more clear that I am talking to the walls: there is nobody who is listening. At the most, few people are hearing, but
most of them are so full of their own prejudices, so full of unproven thoughts - they have so many beliefs without any basis in existence - that whatever you say to them is lost
in the crowd of beliefs, ideas, religions, philosophies.
And when they report about you, they say something absolutely different. Whatever you had said, has gone through such a distortion - so much has been left out, so much has been
added to it; it has taken a totally new color, a new meaning which was not intended. So either they don′t listen at all, or even if they manage to hear, it creates only
misunderstanding, not understanding.
For listening, one needs a discipline of being silent, of being in the moment, of putting aside one′s mind with all its garbage - making a way for whatever you are
listening to. If it is true, bells will start ringing in your heart; if it is not true, nothing will happen within you. This is a different kind of knowing: through the heart,
not through the mind. This is the only true way that one can understand.